Being a team of professional writers ENNclick was recently tasked with producing a series of case studies for Enterprise Ireland’s Internet Marketing Unit, looking at how SMEs are delivering results with social media and other web technologies.

Below we feature part four in the series, called “7 Ways To Improve Your Internet Marketing” in which ENNclick interviewed key team members of energy software management company Enerit on how it uses social media to reach out to customers.

This case study features an interview with Maricka Burke Keogh, Senior Online Marketing Executive, and Eimear O’Brien, Online Marketing Executive at Enerit, a client of Enterprise Ireland. Enerit received support from the Enterprise Ireland Internet Marketing Unit to assist with the development of its Internet marketing strategy.

Energetic social media strategy boosts Enerit’s profile

Using social media, energy management software company Enerit is building a name for itself as a thought leader in its sector, as well as boosting its sales prospects through effective lead generation.

Galway-based Enerit is using social media to great effect as it strives to grow its reputation in the energy sector. And with plans in the works to broaden its social media strategy even further, Enerit is well on its way to becoming a recognisable global brand.

LinkedIn a hit for generating leads

The star performer in Enerit’s social media strategy is LinkedIn. Maricka Burke Keogh, Senior Online Marketing Executive for Enerit, says the business networking tool has been instrumental in boosting traffic to the company’s website and helping to identify relevant sales leads.

As well as a company page on LinkedIn, Enerit’s employees, including top management, all have separate personal LinkedIn profiles. The company’s strategy is clear when it comes to LinkedIn: no “hard sell”, explains Maricka. “On LinkedIn, our aim us to showcase our technical expertise and thought leadership.”

Enerit does this through active participation in LinkedIn Group Discussions. “We’re lucky that our CEO, Paul Monaghan, and COO, Mike Brogan, are passionate about social media. They’ve joined a number of relevant groups, like the generic ISO 50001 Group, and regularly comment on topics or start discussions themselves. I continually monitor LinkedIn and these groups and if I see a relevant discussion I point them in that direction. It’s much more effective for our management and engineers to be commenting on topics rather than our marketing staff,” explains Maricka.

Paul and Mike have also built up good networks on LinkedIn and they regularly communicate with their contacts, sending them Inbox Messages about any relevant Enerit news or developments. In fact, one such message sent out by Paul, highlighting Enerit’s recent work with Pfizer, increased referral leads in December by 100 percent, according to Maricka.

“LinkedIn has become one of our top sources for referral leads, and because we can target such relevant contacts the leads are proving to be extremely high quality,” she says.

Though the majority of traffic to the Enerit website comes from organic search results for either “Enerit” or “ISO 50001? and direct traffic, LinkedIn is fast becoming a key factor. In December, 20 percent of traffic to the website came through referrals, with over a quarter of that traffic generated through LinkedIn. “And this is very high-quality traffic, with LinkedIn visitors spending on average 2.52 minutes on our site,” says Maricka.

Building credibility through social media

As it continues to build strong networks on social media platforms like LinkedIn, Enerit has plans to exploit its growing contacts. With any testimonials it has received from energy consultants Enerit adds a link to the consultants’ LinkedIn profile pages.

“We believe these testimonials with links to the consultants’ LinkedIn pages make for very credible recommendations of our software. We then feature these testimonials on our own company LinkedIn page, adding to our growing reputation,” explains Eimear O’Brien, Online Marketing Executive for Enerit.

Growing contacts list with Twitter

As well as LinkedIn, Twitter also plays a role in Enerit’s social media strategy. The company has been increasing its Twitter followers steadily and has started to attract increasingly relevant followers. “When we first started on Twitter it was mainly people looking for jobs that were following us, now it’s companies, energy managers and potential partners that we can target,” says Maricka.

All Enerit press releases are tweeted on Twitter and the marketing team also tweets any mentions of Enerit in media articles globally. The team also include links to its Twitter profile in all press releases to encourage relevant people to ‘follow’ Enerit on Twitter.

Maricka outlines how Twitter has become a key research tool for Enerit as it accumulates contacts and targets. “We regularly analyse our followers: we see who they follow and who’s following them and assess if these are relevant to us. That way we can compile a ‘who’s who’ for our sector, quite easily.”

“We’ve also found this a useful way to see which trade magazines would be worth getting in touch with. Once we identify the magazines and editors interested in our sector we get their contact details and send in our press releases, widening our global reach,” she explains.

Sharing knowledge to build the brand

For Enerit, its main aim with its social media presence is to raise brand awareness by demonstrating its expertise. As it plans a new website with increased social media functionality, Enerit is also planning on building on its current online strategy.

For example, Maricka says she aims to develop a separate technical Twitter profile for Enerit, where people can ask technical queries about the company’s software. “As we continue to grow the business, we think Twitter could become an ideal medium for answering customers’ queries,” she explains. Maricka takes her inspiration from PC manufacturer Dell, which she says has used this strategy to good effect.

Also on the cards is starting up a profile on Quora, a “questions and answers” network. “Quora is something we’re exploring. It allows you to answer questions and start conversations on very relevant topics – so you can help people by offering tips and advice, and also give our thoughts on new developments, implementations and standards. Our engineers would be actively involved in this – showcasing their expertise.”

Video is another area that Enerit is keen to explore. The company’s new website is likely to feature a series of videos explaining its flagship software, as well as some training videos. Maricka also plans on expanding on the company’s thought-leading strategy by offering research whitepapers for download from the Enerit blog as well as sharing presentations via Slideshare.

There’s little doubt that social media plays a prominent role in Enerit’s overall marketing strategy, and with active support from top management, who are keen to share their knowledge on the various social media platforms, Maricka says she has been able to make a great start since she came on board in August 2011.

Q. What internet marketing techniques would you recommend? Share your thoughts below.

[This case study originally appeared on Enterprise Ireland's Best Connected website.]

Written by Ralph Averbuch

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