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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
6 Reasons You Still Need Print in a Smart Marketing Strategy
Do marketers still need printed promotional materials in a tech-driven world? The answer is yes. Here are six reasons why print still packs a punch in a smart marketing strategy.
The Ultimate B2B Content Marketing Tactic? Publish a Book
If you’re a B2B marketer and an expert in your field, there’s a content marketing tactic you should seriously consider: Writing a book. Here’s what makes a book such a powerful element of a smart marketing strategy, as shared by an expert at Content Marketing World in Cleveland, Ohio.
7 Reasons Why You (Still) Need a Blog for B2B Marketing
Here are seven reasons why you still need a blog in a smart B2B marketing strategy, plus a compelling B2B blogging success story shared by Rick Short of Indium Corporation at Content Marketing World 2015 in Cleveland, Ohio. #CMWorld
5 New Rules and 5 Proven Principles for Marketing Success
In this new, technology-driven world of marketing, do the proven principles of marketing strategy still apply? Or are there new rules for marketing success? Here are five new marketing rules created by the enormous impact of technology plus five time-tested marketing principles -- and the reasons to consider both in a smart marketing strategy.
B2B Marketing Strategy: 10 Goals that Belong in Every Plan
The most important step in developing a business-to-business marketing strategy is the first one: Setting your goals. Why are you investing in marketing? What do you want that investment to achieve for your business? For B2B marketers, the answer to these questions can be surprisingly straightforward. In fact, in my experience as a B2B marketing consultant, there are 10 critical goals that apply to almost every B2B marketing strategy, whether you’re selling manufactured products, professional services, or commodities. Here are the 10 goals that belong in a smart B2B marketing strategy and why they matter:
B2B Marketing Strategy: 7 Ways to Sell to Influencers
One of the trickiest aspects of business-to-business marketing is selling to influencers – people who are not end-users of a product or service but whose opinions influence the purchasing decision. Here are seven tips for marketing and selling to influencers in a smart B2B marketing strategy.
Mocking or Mean? When Ads Go Too Far to Be Funny
One of the most common creative approaches in advertising is making fun of someone or something.When it’s on point, an ad that mocks can engage and entertain. But when it goes too far, it feels mean, casting the marketer in a bad light and unsettling the audience.How do you know when funny goes too far in advertising? Here are five tips for developing a creative approach for your smart marketing strategy that mocks without being mean.
10 Bad Marketing Habits to Break in the New Year
Even the best marketers can find themselves stuck in bad habits – harmful behaviors that limit the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and waste valuable marketing resources.Like breaking any bad habit, the New Year is a good time to make a fresh start. Here are 10 ways you could be hurting your marketing and recommendations for a better approach from a Cleveland, Ohio marketing consultant.
7 Smart Reasons to Use Catalogs in B2B Product Marketing
Before the web, marketers of business products relied on direct mail catalogs as their primary selling tools. But now everyone shops online. In a web-based world, do B2B product marketers still need print catalogs? Yes: Here are seven reasons why print catalogs continue to play an essential role in a smart marketing strategy for marketers of business products.
Association Membership Marketing: 12 Steps for Success
Member acquisition is a constant challenge and a top priority for most trade associations. Who do you target? How do you reach prospective members? And how do you convince them to join your organization?Here’s how the American Advertising Federation-Cleveland (AAF-CLE) developed a successful membership marketing strategy and campaign that exceeded its goals and laid the foundation for future member acquisition.
11 More Timeless Tips for Smart Marketing
How to be a smarter marketer:11 more timeless tips for creating smart marketing strategies from Cleveland, Ohio marketing consultant Jean Gianfagna -- part 2 of a 2-part post
A Peek Inside the C-Suite: CMOs Re-define Marketing’s Role
Chief marketing officers at top companies are using customer insights and passion to build brand equity and increase the strategic value of marketing within their companies, according to new research by Dr. Rachel Talton, an award-winning marketing and branding consultant, researcher, and author in Cleveland, Ohio. Here’s what Talton has learned about today’s CMOs and some tips for how marketing agencies can help clients create smarter marketing strategies.