Invest in a Change of Scenery

Albert Einstein is credited with describing insanity as doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result and while you don’t often see him mentioned in marketing arenas, the application is equally valid here. How often have you poured good money after bad on a marketing program or message that wasn’t working just because you didn’t have the time to come up with a better idea? Make today the day you find the time to stop wasting money…  (Read on)

Why Frequency Marketing Works

Marketing Sherpa’s chart this week — entitled The Long Road from Lead Generation to Sales Conversion — further reinforces everything we’ve been saying lately about the importance of frequency marketing. Once a lead is in the pipeline, you need to nurture, nurture, nurture them until they convert to customers. Because your field sales personnel can’t possibly call these folks every week (and that kind of pestering would be downright creepy), let your frequency marketing campaigns do the work for you.…  (Read on)

Once is Not a Marketing Campaign

If I had a dollar for the number of times that a business owner told me they tried marketing once and it didn’t work for them, I would be driving a much nicer car. Marketing is not like lima beans, you can’t try them once and make a decision on the spot that it doesn’t work for you. Yet I continue to run into businesses who use that excuse when I suggest that better or more targeting marketing efforts might…  (Read on)

Why Smart Professionals Invest in Marketing

Some businesses fall prey to the great idea of if we build it, they will come. No marketing necessary. Typically this is the plight of organizations run by really smart and highly educated professionals like engineers or attorneys. They know they are really good and what they do. And they have a high expectation that prospects will recognize the value they deliver without any push in the right direction. Unfortunately, sometimes your customers aren’t as smart as you are and…  (Read on)

Common Problems in Marketing Plans

WSJ published a great piece early this summer entitled How to Write a Good Business Plan that starts off pointing out why a down economy is a great time to start a new business (lower costs, less competition) and then goes on not to tell you about the right way to do everything but some of the pitfalls to avoid. I had fun with the piece but was drawn mostly to the table (at the end of the online version)…  (Read on)