Frontline Perspectives

Most marketers know that having a database is important to their organization’s marketing efforts. But creating one, maintaining it and using it effectively are much easier said than done. To ensure you’re getting the most sales from your lead generation efforts, here are seven tactical things every marketer should do right now with their marketing database…followed by one piece of advice on strategy. Read more »

This question generally strikes fear (or anguish) into most of the marketers I talk with…because they don’t know what the competition has been doing. They know who the competition is, and once a year they might look at the list to think about market share as they prepare for a management meeting.  But regularly assessing what the competition is doing isn’t on the marketing radar at all. Read more »

A lot of marketing time and money is spent generating leads. And these leads often go directly to the sales team for follow up. If the leads don’t immediately turn into sales, the complaints start flying. Marketing generally complains that the sales team doesn’t follow up quickly and effectively, and sales generally complains that the leads aren’t worth the effort. And management is left to wonder why this is so difficult to resolve. Read more »

There’s an old saying that says you should never “assume” anything because it makes an “@$$ out of you and me.” While trite, this is particularly important for us marketing folks to remember. The best copy or the most powerful visuals won’t take the place of really understanding what your target market’s pain points are, and offering the solutions they need. And the best way to know this is to ask. Read more »

Never stop asking "why?"

I think of this when I talk to marketing teams that are going to the same trade shows year after year and coming back with 40 leads, or placing print ads in the same publications that generate 0 leads, or using brochures that are five years old, or haven’t put new content on their Web sites in over a year….. Why? Why are you doing these things again and again when they obviously don’t produce tangible results? Read more »

No lead follow-up will break your sales cycle.

When new clients come to us, I am always amazed at how little thought has been given to lead fulfillment and follow-up in a lead generation campaign. I can get a detailed list of what has been done in marketing, but I rarely get a database that provides insight into what produced orders, and the status of the other leads.

This is a huge misstep. Every marketing campaign should have a metric to measure responses, and every lead should be entered into a database that then scores, qualifies and fulfills the lead request. Along with this, you need to have mapped your buying cycle so you understand what needs to happen next to nurture this prospect further down your buying cycle. Read more »

Winning moves for 2010.

Based on everything I’ve read and the discussions I’ve had with our clients, it’s going to be another difficult year. Some of us will see sales decreases, some of us will drag along the bottom, and a few lucky ones will start to see our bottom lines change from red to black.

2009 was a year filled with frustration, and for many, fear. The companies that proactively analyzed where to make changes (and invariably cuts) are in a much better position than the ones that chose a wait-and-see approach.  None of those were easy decisions, but making them also provided clarity as to the true strengths and weaknesses of an organization.

Many marketing budgets were cut deeply  for 2009. For 2010 we are seeing a mix of holding to the 2009 budget, 5% decreases and 15-20% increases.  The question I am most asked now is…where do we spend the marketing dollars this year? What will make the biggest impact? Read more »

On any given day of the week, I get several hundred e-mails. Thanks to my IT department, 98% of spam gets filtered out before getting to me so I’m not confronted with black market pharmaceuticals and other tawdry offers on a daily basis. After I answer all my client and staff e-mails, I’m left with a large number of eNewsletters, offers and announcements to peruse.

Here are the top three things I see companies doing wrong: Read more »