Other Articles
Internet Marketing
- Boosting Website Lead Conversion With Pay-Per-Click Landing Pages
- Corporate Websites: ROI or DOA?
- Dress Your Website For Success
- Ginger or Mary Ann? Yahoo! Answers.
- Give Your PPC Ad “Authority” and your CTR will skyrocket
- How To Be A Blogging Idol Instead Of An Idle Blogger
- How To Be An Ideal SEO Client
- How To Create Your Own Wikipedia Page
- How To Setup A PPC Campaign For An "Established" Website
- If Your Website Were A Rock Band, Your SEO Plays Bass
- RSS Can Feed Your SEO Efforts
- The Elasticity of Online Content
- The Power of Other
- The Search Engines Lost My Website...What Can I Do?
- What Affiliate Marketers Want
- Your Corporate Website: The Best Kept Secret on the Internet
Sales & Marketing
- Beyond Traditional Marcom: Building Marketing That Sells
- CRM/SFA That Accelerates Sales: The Sales Process Integration Approach
- Hire The Best, Weed Out The Rest: Recruiting Top Sales Producers
- Increase Your Pipeline: Deploying the Cost Effective Sales Team
- Is It Time To Hit The Reset Button On Your Sales Department?
- Knocking Down The Ivory Tower
- Linking Performance to Company Values
- Measure Your Marketing ROI
- Sometimes Team Success is About Harnessing the Power of Self
- Telesales Success: Begin with the End in Mind
- The Dark Side of Management: People are Selfish and Greedy
- Using CRM to Improve Your Marketing ROI
- Why Internal Lead Development Departments Fail
Beyond Traditional Marcom
Building Marketing That Sells
When the word "marketing" comes up, most people immediately think of fancy ad campaigns and big budgets. They may make you feel good, but in today's economy, most companies can only afford to spend money on marketing programs that actually drive sales leads in the door.
A tightly focused "guerrilla" marketing program, when done right, can help a company accelerate its sales at a fraction of the cost of traditional programs and campaigns.
As the economy starts to rebound, now is a great time to re-energize your marketing programs and focus on Marketing that Sells. Start by asking and answering the following questions:
- Are my marketing programs maximizing awareness and lead generation at minimum cost?
- Do my website, collateral and PR messages clearly communicate my company's Unique Selling Proposition (USP), and why customers should pick us over the competition?
- Is there effective hand-off of sales leads from Marketing to Sales, and am I sure that my Sales team is following up on every lead?
- Do I really know what my Return On Investment is from my marketing spending?
Once you've answered the above questions, do what top companies are doing today, to maximize marketing ROI through guerilla marketing programs:
- Continuously update/refresh your website and collateral to make sure you are clearly communicating your company's USP.
- Build low cost e-marketing campaigns using newsletters, search engine optimization and internet ad placement (such as Google AdWords).
- Focus your PR efforts on feature article and case study placement in trade press that targets your customers.
- Deploy an inside sales/lead development function to qualify leads generated by Marketing programs and ensure effective hand-off to Sales.
- Customize your CRM system to track the source of all incoming leads, measure Marketing ROI, and ensure that every lead is actively managed by your Sales team.
These are just a few ideas to help get you started on the path toward "Marketing That Sells."