How to Rethink Your Marketing Plan in a Crisis
If an event like the Covid-19 pandemic happens again – or another development upends your marketing plan with little notice – what should you do? Here’s how to quickly rethink your marketing plan for a smart marketing strategy.
After the Pandemic: 7 Lessons for Smart Marketing Planning
The pandemic forced marketers everywhere to rethink their approaches. Some marketers stopped promoting entirely, while others adjusted and prevailed. Here’s what we can learn about smart marketing planning from those who successfully navigated an unprecedented challenge.
How Your Company DNA Can Differentiate Your Brand & Business
DNA analysis is all the rage as people seek to learn more about who they are and where they came from. Businesses have a form of DNA, too: The passion that led the founders to create the business, the dream that became a reality, the seed that blossomed into a thriving enterprise. Understanding your company’s DNA and telling this story in marketing can be a powerful way to differentiate your business and brand. Here’s how and why to use your company’s DNA in a smart marketing strategy.
40 Questions for a Smart Branding Strategy
Branding is critically important to every successful business. That’s why smart marketers approach branding strategically.But how do you create an effective branding strategy? What should you consider when developing a new or revamped brand? What do you need to know to do branding right?As marketing and branding consultants, we’ve developed branding strategies and brand identities for many types of organizations. Here are 40 questions we ask when we’re creating a smart branding strategy for a client.
7 Ways to Use Your Value Proposition in a Marketing Strategy
Understanding and articulating the unique value your organization delivers to your customers – your value proposition – is crucial for smart marketing. Here are seven ways to use the value proposition insights gleaned from customer interviews in a smart marketing strategy.
What’s Your Value Proposition? Ask Your Customers
Understanding the unique value your business delivers to customers is essential for a smart marketing strategy. Yet many businesses struggle to define their value proposition, especially B2B marketers that sell intangible business services.But defining your value proposition is easier than you think: Just ask your customers.In part one of a two-part post, here’s how Cleveland marketing consultant Jean Gianfagna recommends conducting customer interviews to determine a value proposition.
Why Your Reputation Trumps Your Marketing – Every Time
Why the things people say about your business matter far more than what you say about yourself in your advertising -- no matter how much you spend on marketing.
How to Survive Losing a Big Client: 12 Smart Strategies
The loss of a major client can be a huge blow to your business. But there are ways you can survive – and even thrive – following a customer defection. Here's how to do it strategically.
Marketing Best Practices: Using a CRM System for Marketing
A customer relationship management (CRM) system enables you to store, manage, and use your customer and prospect data for sales and marketing. Here are five best practices for using the capabilities of your CRM system in a smart B2B marketing strategy from my experience as a B2B marketing consultant.
10 Ways to Promote Premium Content in Your Marketing Strategy
Publishing premium content is a powerful tool for B2B lead generation. Here's how to promote premium content in a smart marketing strategy in part 3 of our 3-part guide to creating and using premium content for marketing.
Content Marketing Strategy: How to Create Premium Content
Premium content is a powerful marketing tactic, especially for B2B lead generation. Here are guidelines for developing effective premium content and seven tips for success, in part two of our three-part Smart Marketing Strategy series on premium content.
How to Use Premium Content in a Content Marketing Strategy
Most of the content marketers create – such as blog posts, tips, articles, and videos – is free. But if you’re using content marketing to generate leads and sales, especially for inbound B2B marketing, you also need to create “premium” content. What is premium content and how do you use it in a smart marketing strategy? Here are some answers in part one of a two-part post.
How to Create a New Brand Identity: 7 Steps to Success
Does your organization need a new brand identity? Branding is one of the most important strategic decisions you will make. Getting it right can help your business vault to the top of your industry. Getting it wrong can result in costly misconceptions about your business. Here are the seven major steps of creating a new brand identity from our experience developing branding strategies and brand identities for many organizations.
Why it’s Smart to Audit Your Marketing–Even If Sales are Up
Even if sales are up, critical marketing issues could be lurking behind the scenes that are limiting your company's success – or threatening your future. A marketing audit can help you find out. Here’s why auditing your marketing – when times are bad or good – can be so important to a smart marketing strategy.
7 Ways Your Best Customers Can Help You Market Your Business
Loyal customers are essential to a successful business. But in addition to helping you reach your sales goals, your best customers can also play a powerful role in a smart marketing strategy. Here are seven ways to capitalize on the value of your best customers in marketing.
10 Crucial Marketing Questions for Every New Business Owner
Marketing is one of the most important factors in the success of a new business. So before you put your name on the door, consider this: Every business needs a marketing plan that outlines objectives, positioning, messaging, targeted audiences, channels, tactics, and implementation. Whether you develop that plan yourself or hire a marketing consultant or agency, there are the 10 key questions every new business owner must answer to create a smart marketing strategy.
Big News: How to Tell Clients about Changes to Your Business
At some point, almost every business has important news to share with clients about major changes. Communicating big news is a pivotal moment in the customer relationship and it’s essential to do it right.Here are 12 tips for delivering important news to clients about your business from B2B marketing consultant Jean Gianfagna.
7 Ways to Avoid Overcommitting with Marketing
Even if you have the budget to execute marketing projects and a marketing agency standing by to help, there’s another factor that can impact your success: Your internal marketing bandwidth. Someone on your team has to make all that marketing happen -- and it's easy to get in over your head. Here’s how to prevent this problem in your smart marketing strategy.
When Bad Data Happens to Good Direct Mail
Customer and prospect data drives direct mail marketing. Data that’s outdated, inaccurate, or poorly processed can turn a good direct mail campaign into a wasted opportunity. Here are two examples of excellent mailings that failed because smart marketers that are usually highly skilled users of the channel relied on the wrong data.
7 Reasons Why Referrals Don’t Turn into Sales
Referrals are like gold in marketing and sales. Someone who knows you endorses your capabilities to someone who trusts them AND needs what you provide. It’s an ideal setup for new business, especially if you’re a B2B marketer selling professional services.But many referrals don’t turn into sales. Marketers make costly mistakes that derail the sales process before, during, and after a referral takes place. Here are seven reasons why a referral may not result in a new customer and tips to avoid these mistakes in your sales and marketing strategy.