There is a lot of confusion about what a marketing strategy really is. Business leaders hear the term used by so many professionals who have very different skill sets and offer very different products, so it is not surprising that this confusion exists. Hopefully this post will add some clarity for you. As the image at the top of this…
If during this quarantine period you didn’t gain a new skill, start a new project, or update your product line, you are not alone and you have not failed! Not every business leader moved in the same direction. More importantly, this pandemic has been disorienting and overwhelming to all of us, so give yourself a break. When you are ready…
I recently had a conversation with someone who needed a follow-up marketing piece. He’d had several meetings with prospects and was looking for something to send to remind them of his presentation. My first suggestion was to send the prospects to his website, but when I suggested this he said he had decided to take down his website several years…
Every business owner knows the marketing funnel. In theory, if you create a marketing program, it will lead people through the funnel, generate sales, and grow your business. In practice that’s not what always happens. You need a solid marketing strategy and have to be intentional with your activities to make that happen. Most business owners never planned to become…
Building or updating a website can be like buying a car: You do some research, pick out a couple of styles and models that interest you, and then go to a dealer to test drive them. Once you have chosen the model and options you want, you negotiate for the best deal you can get, and find (or order) the…
I get dozens of newsletter type emails every day. Some have great information and others…well, let’s just say I don’t contribute to their open rates any longer. Even among the ones that I do open, very few are actually doing all of the work they can do for the sender’s marketing program. The top three mistakes are common. Are you…
The Customer Relationship Management system (CRM) provides a critical link between sales, marketing, product development, and operations. When used properly, a CRM will help you understand your customers better, improve your offerings, close more sales and shorten the sales cycle. From a simple offline spreadsheet to a more sophisticated cloud-hosted app, almost everyone in business today is using some type…
Marketing has become increasingly complex and data-driven. Every year, new tools that pull better data from more sources and enable increasingly personalized marketing become available, but using them to get better results is not as simple as it sounds. Choosing the tools to use and putting them together in a cohesive program is difficult at best – even for a…