Archive for April, 2008
Clients and friends have been asking about the ROI from by blogging efforts. I hold them accountable, they hold me accountable… it’s a good thing.
This morning, I was prompted to write the following response to a LinkedIn question by Susan Solomon, VP Marketing at SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union.
My blog is only two months old, so results are very preliminary. It has generated a few leads, but it’s been more helpful as a credibility builder after the first contact. Back in the day, I used to hand out a brochure after a first meeting with a potential client. It was intended to build credibility, remind the prospect of our discussion if s/he was in shopping mode, and provide something tangible s/he could pass along to a colleague.
Today, the first meeting is likely to be via email. By including a blog address in my signature, and a link to a specific article in the message, I have effectively replaced the brochure of old.
How about you?
April 30, 2008
In my recent post on Tapping the wisdom of customers. I talked about Dell’s IdeaStorm as powered by SalesForce.com. It seemed like a valuable if pricey way to gather ideas and test them out before putting them in the development cue.
At $5/user, I thought the SalesForce solution might be too rich for most midsize companies. But if the idea farming process works, I expected to see competitive options in the near future. Here’s one, currently in beta…
Continue Reading April 25, 2008
Sales people have product to move, quotas to meet. They have less time and larger territories than ever before. And to make matters worse, selling cycles are getting longer as decision makers strain to balance the competing needs for value and quality.
Why then do so many sales reps ignore sales leads generated at great expense by advertising, websites, direct mail, email and other promotional efforts?
Simple. It is more productive, more cost-effective for them to work existing leads, recontact existing customers and develop referral business than it is to call on an unqualified lead.
What do sales reps want? [...]
Continue Reading April 24, 2008
When was the last time you had an impartial, dispassionate assessment of your marketing program? You get a dispassionate assessment every time a potential customer takes a look at one of your ads or visits one of your websites. Every time an editor scans a press release or one of your own sales reps decides to use (or toss) another piece of collateral.
Unfortunately, none of these people is likely to volunteer an honest appraisal of your work—yet their honest appraisal is (should be) monumentally important to you.
As a coach and consultant (ad agency creative director in a past life), I have used a four-step process for extracting useful opinions about marketing programs and materials. Try them, they work…
Continue Reading April 23, 2008
There are things I like about going to a trade show: Looking at one nondescript booth after another and wondering what the heck business these people are in. Being invited to enter yet another prize drawing so the marketing manager can show the boss how many “leads” were collected at the event. Asking a question and watching the exhausted booth person search for answers that weren’t on the well rehearsed script.
Things I don’t like: The travel. (Just shoot me.) Walking the endless rows of nondescript booths wondering what the heck business these people are in. (It’s a love/hate thing.) Paying $12 for a steamed hot dog and a 3/4 oz bag of chips.
But I digress…
Continue Reading April 21, 2008
When was the last time you Googled your company’s name, your product names, your own name? I’m not talking vanity here or paranoia. I’m talking competitive intelligence.
This question occurred to me this morning as I Googled myself. It was relatively painless. I do it every now and then, and I wondered about other folks like you.
My clients are CEOs and senior managers of midsize companies. They don’t have a lot of spare time for Googling themselves, but somebody should. I encourage them to look around for someone in their lives who could be their designated surfer. It could be their child, an employee, a friend or acquaintance. It could be several people with different points of view.
Continue Reading April 20, 2008
Can blogging take the place of a company website? My take is that blogging can be an incredible waste of time, it can also be a useful marketing tool. I use my blog the way marketers used to use printed brochures… to support my message. I also have a “proper” website. I use them both to support my networking efforts as a marketing/internet strategy coach.
Midsize businesses can use blogging if they are able to afford the time and effort to create meaningful content.
Continue Reading April 19, 2008
I spotted an interesting question on LinkedIN today, “For Small - Medium Size Business Owners, what is the #1 Marketing tool they should be using to build their brand.”
A lot of the responders talked about techniques… writing articles, blogging, networking, direct mail, “the internet.” It occurred to me that the #1 tool that every small to midsize business should use to build their brand is attitude. My suggestion…
Continue Reading April 17, 2008
The American Marketing Association announced its new, improved definition of marketing on January 14: “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”
The committee that crafted this gem, was chaired by Donald R. Lehmann, the George E. Warren Professor of Business at Columbia Business School in New York. In fact, most of the committee members were academics. No kidding…
Continue Reading April 17, 2008
All too often, sales and marketing people have different objectives. If they do, they can spend more time bickering than creating bottom line results. Or worse, they just go their separate ways.
If you want to find out if your sales and marketing people are working together, send them a simple questionnaire. Make sure a copy goes to every sales rep, manager and executive. Send it to every person in the marketing department and the people at your ad agency, design studio or public relations firm.
Ask them this…
Continue Reading April 17, 2008
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