Disparate systems can be a problem. The continuity of data which helps you understand your return on investment for marketing initiatives is easily broken. What is hard to manage becomes less motivating to use. Thus, the problem of piecemeal marketing presents itself in a world where it is completely possible to measure the lifecycle of a prospective customer from interest to doing business.
Archive for the ‘Thought Leadership’ Category
Integrated Marketing
Wednesday, November 17th, 2010Taking Your Website to the Next Level: Getting your Website Built
Friday, November 12th, 2010Continuing with tips on Taking Your Website to the Next Level, below is an excerpt from the article on “Getting your Website Built”……
It’s common for medium to large-sized companies to spend anywhere from $20,000 to $500,000 on a website design and development effort. These projects often involve specialized web and creative marketing consulting firms that perform the analysis described above and then design and build a site to fit the need.
Here is a high-level outline of the website development process that the big firms follow, with tips on how to do it for less. (more…)
Get big by starting small (Identify Niches)
Thursday, November 11th, 2010To get big you’ve got to start small. In business, as in many places in life the old adage rings true. When you are first getting started you need to figure out how to successfully solve problems. Take on too much, or problems too large and you may not have a runway long enough to discover the right formula.
This becomes a central key to messaging. Within your target market you want to start identifying niches where you can isolate common needs. The smaller the audience, the more likely you are to find a relevant point of view. Geography? Company size? You don’t need to get too cute, or overly complicated here just look for some obvious ways to segment your audience. Begin with the understanding you will need to iterate your groupings to come up with the right formula.
Real-Time Reaction
Tuesday, November 9th, 2010Think about how much you forget while surfing the internet. When you are learning about something new or searching for something you are not quite sure exists yet, you may navigate a multitude of pages until you hone in on your desired content.
If all the while you are entering and leaving storefronts, valuable content and building blocks of knowledge, you will likely forget more than you remember. The sheer amount of information becomes irrelevant. Very few sites are designed to engage and follow up with you. They stop at creating awareness rather than create a process for you to engage or be nurtured with. (more…)
Taking Your Website to the Next Level: Setting a Website Strategy
Monday, November 8th, 2010Building off of last week’s post, below is an excerpt from the Taking Your Website to the Next Level article on “Setting a Website Strategy”……
Start by carefully considering the goals for your website. Answer these two questions to help you set a strategy:
- Who do I want to attract to the site?
- What do I want them to do/learn when they get here?
Create a list of different visitor “types.” Be as exhaustive and specific as you can.
Consider a maker of vehicle fleet tracking technology. The company enables companies with mobile delivery, sales, or service people to know where the vehicles are, if they’re on schedule, if they’re safe, if they’re speeding, or if they’re following the most efficient routes, etc. Here’s how they might answer the questions above. (more…)
Unto Death Do Us Part (Go, No-Go)
Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010Or… at least until some critical thresholds have been exceeded (like leaving the seat up one too many times)! Seriously though, opening a new market requires considerable time and energy and if you aren’t committed to getting yourself across the Dip, as Seth Godin defines, then your first steps are better laid in another direction.
Taking Your Website to the Next Level: Branding Do’s and Don’ts
Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010Last week, we added Taking Your Website to the Next Level to the Sales & Marketing Best Practices exchange. Since there is a lot of very useful information in this article, I thought I would share some highlights. Below is an excerpt from the article on “Branding Do’s and Don’ts”……
Your website will communicate information about you and the products or services you offer. Your “brand” is your company’s identity (company name, logo, slogan, etc.) and more importantly, the qualities people associate with it. Your website says a lot about your brand, and not just via the messaging on your site. The way your website looks and how people experience it say a lot about your brand and your company too. (more…)
One-To-One Connection
Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010If your marketing is trying to “sell” me, I will pick it up easily and quickly. We have all been trained to recognize marketing. We have also been trained to put our guard up with suspicion. After all, talking about how great you are only causes disconnection. The new economy differentiates between mass marketing and authenticity. Buyers choose authenticity.
If you want to do it the old way, then build a message for everyone and play the numbers game. However, such a strategy loses before you even commit the time and costs to implement it. (more…)
Friend or Foe (Competitive Assessment)
Thursday, October 28th, 2010As Sun Tzu, historical author of the Art of War, once said, “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.” When considering any marketplace it’s critical to understand the competitive landscape. You need to know not only who the competitors are, but also the axes of competition and relative positioning along them.
Buying Framework
Thursday, October 28th, 2010Leads can create a lot of noise. It’s free to browse and shop for a buyer. However, the select buyers that are drowned by the superfluous activities of non-buyers can compromise opportunities for thousands or millions of dollars.
The buying framework for qualified and unqualified buyers needs to be mapped with a one-to-one personalization and precision. The buyer’s digital profile can become evident through activities, responses and frequency of action. Segmentation of lists and the respective decision tree Lead Flows in LoopFuse when properly architected nurture the buyers deemed qualified in a powerful way.
The hard part is defining the framework rather than approach the marketing automation implementation in LoopFuse with randomness. Nurturing buyers can then be measured effectively and the stages of the buying funnel can drive a true buyer to be prepared to say, “Yes,” to your value proposition. Today, clicks are easy. The battleground for conversions will be won with a carefully architected LoopFuse system based on the framework you set up for your buyer. This is the difference between having a tool and being successful.
