Has the number of new customers you serve been declining? Take heart. Try local target marketing. More business buyers search for products and services online than anywhere else, so it’s important to make sure your business listing can be easily found on Google.com and Google Maps.  And believe me it doesn’t cost money. Probably, this is a good plan marketing tip for your marketing proposal during a downturn!... 

Will a company focus on survival or growth during recession? Or does it think long term or short term? Would you spend time and resources on strategizing business plan or acquisitions or mergers or strengthening the ever weakening sales pipeline? Tricky, isn’t it? To get a better grip over these pertinent questions, let us go the greatest teacher of all – History. McKinsey compares the patterns of the four previous... 

My customer called me into a meeting and told me that he has a peculiar problem and he wanted my opinion on it. He said that his organization has a huge sales pipeline but they are not resulting in sales. Then we went step-by-step and started looking at them in detail: 1. They are able to create opportunities 2. They are able to provide information on their solutions 3. They give their pricing and do negotiations on them 4.... 

I was talking to one of the sales resources of a company I’ve been associated with. He is primarily selling a retail solution that allows his customers to increase their sales. Pretty decent to have a solution that increases sales, isn’t it? But then, he wasn’t able to sell his solution as he assumed that it would sell, because his prospective customers weren’t seeing it the way he does. Fortunately,... 

Last week a prospective customer in India wanted to know whether he should have email newsletters (or webletters) as a part of his B2B marketing mix. I answered him with a question – “what do you want to achieve with an email newsletter?” And then a series of questions:   Is it to bring in new customers, generate leads? Establish expertise or build thought leadership? So customers will flock to you when they are... 

In the B2B segment, traditional marketing is losing its ground and people are more and more looking at Thought Leadership marketing towards differentiating their products and services in the market. Customer typically have started controlling the B2B messages and you need to be on the money to have an impact in your target customer space. 1. Write whitepapers that lets its readers know something that they already do not... 

All B2B marketing partners enter in saying that they will help you grow business. Ask them how? Response to this pointed question will reveal whether your would-be partner is a Marketing Falcon or an Advertising Parrot. If they give you a bag full of ‘strategic’ intent, initiatives and programs as part of the marketing mix – give it back to them. Ask them what they are? Be wary of ‘social media marketing’... 

Do your marketing initiatives result in positive return on the invetsment? This is the question that every marketeer should ask himself. If the answer is not in the affirmative, then it is time to throw away your existing marketing initiatives and improve what you do. Every marketeer or the marketing team has loads of wobbly ideas and huge list of programs. To list a few, it can be advertising, public relations, trade...