August 15, 2008 | 4:42pm
Selling Higher (Lance Baird)
-- Scott Adams, The Dilbert Principle
Have you ever submitted such a well-groomed proposal and/or delivered such a smashing presentation that you were sure your customer would move forward? A few days go by... no big deal. A week goes by... maybe they’re traveling. A few weeks go by... maybe they’re on vacation. A month goes by... they’ve selected somebody else. Where did you go wrong? One concept that has always helped me throughout my career is the notion of selling higher – selling your proposition to those higher in the organizational food ---More--- |
May 16, 2008 | 10:52am
Marketing Ideas for HVAC Contractors (Mike Wayde)
The economy is creeping towards a recession. The DOE’s 13 SEER mandate has helped level the playing field, household buying habits have changed dramatically since the popularity of the internet, and media options have drastically fragmented. With all of this going on, how can a low to mid level HVAC contractor compete against the big guys? While there is no perfect answer to this question, there are some suggestions to help you spend your precious marketing dollars wisely. Start by looking to your manufacturer and distributor advertising programs. There are literally thousands of dollars available to dealers who agree to use branded and sometimes pre-packaged advertising programs. In fact some manufacturers offer up to 4 times a dealer’s advertising investment! Next, think about timing and placement of your advertising. What are you really getting out of your investment? Case in point: if you put all of your dollars into yellow pages advertising then you |
May 8, 2008 | 8:40am
Advance Sales Via The Web Part 3 (Mike Wayde)
More sophisticated sites offer product comparisons and tools that enable customers to better choose their own solutions. But even something as simple as a brochure, offered as a free downloadable pdf, can go a long way towards deepening the relationship between you and potential customers. As you provide customers with tools and information, remember to instill a level of confidence. Customer testimonials are helpful, but only if they are genuine and presented well. Validation from outside sources, like trade organizations and government agencies, also goes a long way toward instilling confidence in your company. Consider including their logos on your Web site where visitors will see them. |
March 18, 2008 | 9:38am
The top 10 questions that indicate you need to think beyond traditional marketing tactics (Jim Castanzo)
I’m looking at things from a slightly different perspective now – a perspective of someone with a lead “creative” title and responsibilities. As I remove my account manager hat, something strikes me. We creative folks have more tools at our disposal – blogs, podcasts, email marketing, and the list goes on. Our primary function has always been to think of new and unique ways to tell our client’s story, demonstrate a benefit and craft compelling ways to reach out to a marketer’s various constituents – engineers, channel partners, integrators, other influencers and ultimately, end-users. Sure, we still need to apply our traditional creative skills, but we now have these new, exciting tools at our disposal. ---More--- |
March 7, 2008 | 9:54am
Peanuts and PowerPoint - Part 1 (Lance Baird)
Have you ever attended a business conference where many of the presenters were qualified, yet when given the spotlight, their presentations were lacking? You know what I'm talking about. You're sitting with hundreds of other people in a large room. The presenter stands front-center, articulating what he or she believes to be an oratory masterpiece, when in actuality what occurs is similar to a classroom scene from the early Peanuts cartoon movies (muah muah, muah muah muah muah). The sound of people text messaging on their BlackBerrys increases at a steady pace. Papers begin to ruffle as attendants flip through the pages desperately trying to discover when the next coffee break begins. A few people are even sleeping, only to move when their heads nod so lowly, they wake themselves up, reset, then repeat the process ad nauseum. When did we get so poor at public communications? It all began in 1990, when Microsoft bundled PowerPoint in their Microsoft Office suite of |
March 3, 2008 | 8:57am
Advance Sales Via The Web Part 2 (Mike Wayde)
Once you get customers to your site, make sure it’s a site you’re proud of. Keep it clean and uncluttered. First impressions are important and provide opportunities to immediately engage visitors with information that meets their needs. Begin by providing a brief description of who you are, including the products and services that you offer, along with language that relates to the visitors need or problem. Don’t give people a reason to leave your site too early. Addressing their “pain issues” up front rather then burying them deeper in your site will encourage visitors to stay longer. Avoid industry speak, and keep your history and mission statement off the home page, reserving this valuable real estate to tell visitors how you can help them. Make the site easy to navigate and the source of relevant content that is short, simple and to the point. ---More--- |
February 18, 2008 | 3:29pm
Advance Sales Via The Web Part 1 (Mike Wayde)
In the Internet age, consumers like to comparison shop. Help them make better decisions with a robust Web site. Today, when most people want information, they go to the Web – to educate themselves, to look for solutions or to compare companies and products. Often they may be ready to buy, based on the information they find. That’s why it’s so important to design a Web site that includes all the information customers need at any stage in the buying process. Your Web site is your electronic storefront and as such, it should accomplish three things. First, it should be easy to locate. You can invest thousands of dollars on the best Web site in the world, but if you don’t drive traffic to it, the site won’t do you much good. Second, your Web site should position your |
January 25, 2008 | 1:47pm
In a recent article published by The Economic Times, Nirmalya Kumar encourages B-to-B companies to embrace a new culture of communications when selling to prospective customers – the 3Vs – “valued customer, value proposition and value network.” While seen as a complement to the 4Ps that comprise the typical marketing mix (product, pricing, promotion and placement), the 3V-approach is more strategic in nature. Therefore, it is more likely to engage the CEO at a strategic level during a time when many CMOs are struggling to stay relevant and remain on the payroll (the average tenure of a CMO is 26.8 months according to BtoB Magazine). Realizing this philosophy of customer value management |
