10 New Year’s Resolutions for Smart Marketers
At the beginning of a new year, most of us will resolve to live healthier lives and clean out our closets.New Year’s resolutions also can extend to marketing – and many smart marketers use the turning of the calendar page to make some long-overdue changes to their marketing strategies.Here are 10 resolutions to make your marketing more effective in the New Year.
How to Develop a Marketing Plan: 10 Essential Steps
One of the biggest mistakes marketers make is focusing on the tactics of marketing – the new website, direct mail campaign, or Facebook promotion – without first developing a marketing plan.Though a comprehensive marketing strategy for a large company can be a big undertaking, nearly every marketing plan involves these 10 essential steps.
10 Ways to Start Off on the Right Foot with a New Client
Landing a new client is always great news for business-to-business marketers.But once the celebrating is over, it’s time to get serious. The way you begin a new client relationship can have a big impact on how long you keep the customer.Here are 10 ways to start off on the right foot with a new client in a smart business-to-business marketing strategy.
Getting Started with B2B Marketing: The First 5 Steps
Companies that sell to businesses often rely on referrals to find new customers.But the day may come when referrals aren’t enough. New competitors, new technologies, new types of customers, or new sales territories can create new challenges for your business. To achieve your goals – and capitalize on your opportunities – you need marketing.If you’ve relied primarily on word of mouth to promote your business and you haven’t done much marketing, where do you begin?Here’s advice on the first five things to do to create a smart business-to-business (B2B) marketing strategy.
11 Ideas for Using White Papers in a B2B Marketing Strategy
If you’re a business-to-business (B2B) marketer, white papers can be a powerful way to demonstrate your expertise and differentiate your company from competitors. In part three of a three-part series, here are 11 ideas for using white papers as marketing tactics in a smart B2B marketing strategy.
How to Create a Great White Paper: 10 Tips for Success
White papers are one of the best ways to market a business or professional services company. But there's more to developing an effective white paper than just writing about what you know. To create a white paper that supports a smart marketing strategy by establishing your credibility as an expert in your marketplace and positioning your company as a preferred solution provider, you need to plan carefully and think strategically. In part two of a three-part blog post, here are 10 tips for creating a great white paper from my experience as a business-to-business marketing consultant.
How to Create a White Paper to Market Your Business, Part 1
If you market to business decision-makers, there’s a powerful marketing tool that can help you stand out from competitors and demonstrate your expertise: A white paper.Part 1 of a three-part blog post explains why white papers are so effective in business-to-business marketing and how to create a high-impact white paper for your smart marketing strategy.
7 Misconceptions about Marketing that Can Hurt Your Business
A smart marketing strategy is critical to the success of your business. But many companies have misconceptions about marketing that can hamper their ability to successfully promote their products and services in a competitive marketplace. Here are seven marketing misconceptions I often see in my work as a marketing consultant that can limit the effectiveness of your marketing plan and cause you to miss sales opportunities.
Make ‘em Love You: 10 Ways to Be the Client’s Go-To Supplier
External suppliers are critical to the success of nearly every business. Some vendors become trusted partners. Others have good intentions but struggle to deliver. A few fail so miserably they’ll never get a second chance. What makes a great client-vendor relationship? Here are some insights and 10 tips for becoming your client’s favorite vendor.
And the Winner is…You! 10 Tips for Winning Business Awards
Winning awards for excellence is a valuable way to distinguish your company in a competitive marketplace, especially if you’re selling business services. Here are 10 tips for increasing your chances of success in business awards competitions and using awards in a smart marketing strategy.
B-to-B Marketing: The Power of the Personal Note
There’s a simple business communication tactic that can have a huge impact on how your clients and prospects feel about you and your organization: The handwritten personal note.Here’s why personal notes are so effective in building strong client relationships and six tips for using personal notes in your smart marketing strategy.
7 Ways to Make Social Media a Top Marketing Priority
Whether you’re marketing to businesses or consumers, social media marketing should play a prominent role in your marketing plan. Here are seven ways to make social media marketing a top priority in your smart marketing strategy.
7 Ways to Get Results from Your Business-to-Business Blog
Every marketing guru (including me) is telling their clients to blog, for lots of good reasons. But blogging is a big commitment. Do blogs produce real results for B2B marketers? Does blogging truly lead to fame and fortune? I’ve just completed my second year writing a blog about marketing strategy. Here are seven ways I’ve used the blog to increase visibility for my business (fame) and get new clients (fortune) and some blogging tips for your smart marketing strategy.
Who Owns Your Marketing Campaigns? You May Be Surprised
Many companies hire marketing agencies or freelancers to develop marketing campaigns and materials. But marketers often overlook a critical step in the process: Ensuring that they own the intellectual property they’ve paid a marketing team to develop. And marketing agencies often fail to protect their legal rights to materials they’ve produced. What are the most common intellectual property mistakes marketers and agencies make and how can you avoid them? Here are some tips for your smart marketing strategy from Sharon Toerek, an expert on legal issues in marketing.
5 Lessons from My UPS Guy: How to Create Loyal Customers
One of the most difficult marketing challenges is differentiating a service business from its competitors. One strategy is to market the knowledge and experience of the firm’s employees. Another is to focus on how the firm's employees make customers feel. Case in point: Tom, my UPS delivery guy. Here are 5 lessons in how to create loyal customers from a UPS driver in Cleveland.
5 Ways to Blow the Sale with a Bad Proposal
The quality of your sales proposal can make or break your ability to close the deal. So why do so many business-to-business (B2B) marketers produce such poor sales proposals? Here are five common mistakes in sales proposals that can cost you the business and some lessons for your smart marketing strategy.
10 Ways to Get Great Client Testimonials for B2B Marketing
There’s nothing more powerful in marketing than a testimonial from your customers about the value of your products or services.That’s why so many smart marketers, especially companies that sell business-to-business (B2B) professional services, use client testimonials in their advertising, sales presentations, brochures, and websites.So how do you get a client to give you a great testimonial for your marketing campaigns? Follow these 10 tips.
Marketing Professional Services: Sell Smarts, Not Service
Promoting a professional services firm is one of the most difficult challenges in marketing.Whether you’re selling legal services, marketing services, accounting, IT, insurance, benefits, payroll, or consulting, it can be tough to create a marketing strategy that differentiates your company from everyone else who does what you do.Here's the usual approach: “We have great capabilities and we deliver great service.” No offense, but you must, or you wouldn’t still be in business. Plus, all your competitors say the same thing.Is that really what makes you stand out? Is that the reason clients choose you?The real value professional services firms sell is their expertise and their ability to use that expertise to solve clients’ problems. Here’s how to create a smart marketing strategy for a business-to-business professional services company by selling your smarts.
How to be a Great Content Curator on Social Media
The most successful social media marketers create and publish a high volume of original content through blogs, videos, white papers, and other vehicles.But they also share quality content produced by others. Gathering, sorting, and republishing content from other authors that you believe your followers will value is called curation. By being a great content curator, you help customers, prospects, and colleagues find the “good stuff” online and know what to read. This not only makes you an informative and influential social media contributor, but it also helps attract new followers. Here’s how to find, filter, and share the best content with your social media followers in a smart marketing strategy.