How important is branding to a B2B company? A German radiologist, Dr. Christine Born, has presented research that shows that business brands can cause the same type of brain activity as consumer brands. Kevin Helliker’s article about the study, “This is Your Brain on a Strong Brand: MRIs Show Even Insurers Can Excite” ran in…Read More
In “The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding,” Al and Laura Ries tell us that to differentiate your business, you should create a new category and then own it in the mind of the customer. Don’t allow the market to clump your offering in with everyone else, they say. Instead, define a category that’s entirely new,…Read More
Yesterday I spent 75+ min. on the phone with a rep selling a very cool product for our business. And I absolutely bombarded him with questions about how his product could solve a challenge I face right now. There was a trainee on the call as well. “Shadowing,” I was told, and true enough, he…Read More
Forrester Research recently released their “Best And Worst Of Email Marketing In 2006” report and the results were surprising. “Marketers trip over the basics,” they proclaimed after looking at 63 email marketing programs for companies in a variety of industries, both B2B and B2C. Of those 63 programs, they gave only one a “passing grade,” explaining…Read More
Happy new year, friends! We’ve been away from our blog for a while — putting in overtime on our new marketing automation software coming this spring. We hope you’re as excited about the year ahead as we are, and we’re excited to share all of our latest “marketing tips from the trenches” with you in…Read More
A friend of mine introduced me to a great book recently — Covert Persuasion: Psychological Tactics and Tricks to Win the Game by Kevin Hogan and James Speakman. The book is about creating change in the mind of clients and customers without making them aware that the changes are occurring – “covert persuasion.” It offers great insights…Read More
Yesterday I was chatting with a young friend who was incredibly excited about a new marketing program she’d launched for her company. She’d spent about $65,000 and brought in almost $130,000 in new revenue. She proclaimed, “My campaign generated 100% ROI!” Whoops. I hated to rain on her parade, but she was making a major…Read More
I was just writing a post very similar to this one that just popped up in my email. It’s by C.J. Hayden, a contributing editor at RainToday.com, and it talks about four common marketing attitudes that can sabotage a small service company’s marketing efforts. 4 Common Marketing Attitudes Have you had any of these thoughts…Read More
The phrase “cold calling” sends chills down the spines of many business people. It’s often viewed as an intimidating, difficult, and boring process … and that means it doesn’t get done as often as it should. However, outbound telemarketing campaigns can be a great way to reach a group of targeted prospects or customers to…Read More
Today I’m continuing Thursday’s post about finding good marketing vendors. In that post I walked through the first few steps in the process: 1. Know what you need 2. Identify your prospects 3. Think carefully about your success criteria 4. Make your first cut At this point you should have a manageable list of companies…Read More
New website project on the horizon? Looking for a new printer or designer? A PR firm? Copywriter? CRM consultant? Whether you have a rolodex full of contacts or you’re beginning a totally new project in the dark, finding the right vendor for the job is a project in itself. You need to find the best…Read More
Let’s face it — for many companies, trade show marketing can be a nightmare. Here’s the scenario: You’re investing in an important industry trade show. Along with booth rental fees, you’re also investing in travel, food & lodging, insurance, event setup, sales materials, and booth production. Primed with freshly-printed marketing materials, your reps attend the…Read More
Yesterday, Jim wrote about how a documented sales process can help you grow your revenue. Today I’m going to help with the next step – 8 steps to document your sales process. 1. List your channels. For example, if you sell directly to end-users and through a group of resellers, you have two channels, each…Read More
How do your prospects buy your product or service? Does a single decision maker buy on the spot, or does s/he go through many steps and approvals first? Or perhaps there are multiple departments involved over a very long period of time? A sales process is a defined series of steps you follow as you…Read More
This little tool is a fun 60-second diversion. It’s also handy if you want to challenge your employees or colleagues to a friendly Friday contest. After all, if people are hunting-and-pecking, they’re not getting the most from their day. http://www.typingtest.com Funny how I broke 100 wpm on another online test and only eked out 52…Read More
If you’re looking for new ways to grow your revenue, think about finding a way to identify potential strategic partners. The Wall Street Journal’s Christina Cheddar-Berk wrote a great case study of Greg Butterfield, the CEO of Altiris, a software company in Lindon, Utah. Greg took Altiris from $1 million in revenue in 1999 to $187…Read More
I just launched two new paid search campaigns and decided to test a tool I’d recently learned about. It’s a bid and ad copy comparison tool available on the Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture) site. If you’re running paid search campaigns and haven’t used this tool, it’s incredibly useful. It helps you Easily pull up…Read More
How often do you refer back to your marketing plan? Every week? Once a month? Never? If you’ve invested the time and energy into your marketing plans … great! You’ve taken the first step. Now to make your plan successful, turn it into a living, breathing part of your revenue generation process. To bring your…Read More
What would you do if you received a phone bill for two hundred trillion dollars? (Yes, trillion!) As unbelievable as it sounds, it actually happened — Reuben Swartz tells the story in his Dollars and Sense blog. Yes, billing mistakes happen. But pricing reflects your brand and invoicing errors can erode it. Think about the…Read More