Archive for March, 2017

Best Practices for Marketing Complex Products and Services

Wednesday, March 29th, 2017

In the Information Age, consumers often have very short attention spans. There’s simply so much content out there competing for your attention. Even the typical 30-second TV commercial has become too long for many consumers to focus on. At the same time, technology becomes increasingly sophisticated. Squeezed in the middle of these two trends are those poor souls trying to tell the market about their revolutionary, spectacular product or service that happens to be extremely complicated. (more…)

Tips for Marketing Your “Boring” Business

Monday, March 27th, 2017

Let’s face it. Not all businesses are as flashy and exciting as manufacturing high-end sports cars, groundbreaking technology or exquisite luxury items. The marketing for some products is as simple as letting people know the product exists. Unfortunately, that’s not the case for most companies, and this means they may need to work extra hard or be extra creative in making sales. As Ryan Holiday writes for The Huffington Post, (more…)

Mastering Data Analytics in a Data-Rich Marketing World

Friday, March 24th, 2017

Big data is the concept of tapping into the massive amounts of data collected every day on millions and millions of people conducting countless transactions around the world. The idea is that there is so much data available, you can not only draw conclusions about the characteristics of a market, but also draw correlation between those characteristics and purchasing behavior, and also determine causation, and also predict what they will do next. Powerful stuff. (more…)

Cultivating Customer References in a B2B Environment

Wednesday, March 22nd, 2017

Most of us understand the value of positive customer reviews. Especially in the world of online retail, a positive product rating on Amazon can represent a big boost to sales. Data suggests that roughly 90 percent of Amazon users believe positive reviews influence their purchase decisions, while 86 percent say the same of negative reviews. (more…)

Identifying Product/Service Substitutes That Could Compete For Your Market

Tuesday, March 21st, 2017

Michael Porter revolutionized the world of business strategy when he developed his Five Forces framework, which evaluates the competitiveness — and resulting attractiveness — of an industry based on five competitive forces. We’ve discussed the framework previously, but now we’re taking a more in-depth look at each individual force. Today, we’re looking at the threat of substitutes. (more…)

Building Up Your Expert Status Through Strategic Communications

Thursday, March 9th, 2017

Credibility is crucial for marketing efforts, whether B2B or B2C. Just as a consumer needs to be able to trust the business selling a product or service, business partnerships need to be built on trust as well. A great way to build this credibility is to be seen as an expert on a particular subject or in a particular field. A world-renowned heart surgeon who spends time as a medical professor, for example, is likely to be much sought after by those in need of heart surgery. The difference is personal branding. (more…)

They Hate Your Ads! Creating Marketing Communications That Resonate

Tuesday, March 7th, 2017

41559931 – advertising word cloud, business concept

AJ Agrawal recently wrote an article for Forbes titled “Inbound Marketing: How To Advertise To People Who Hate Ads.” Agrawal correctly notes that successful marketing “all comes down to one principle. People don’t like to be sold to.” What do they want? They want to be helped to by. “In other words, you are a shopping assistant not a greasy car salesperson,” says Agrawal.

Agrawal offers three strategies for marketers to get their message across to those who hate ads. (more…)

Gaining a Better Understanding of Where Your Audience is Coming From

Thursday, March 2nd, 2017

What event or events would you say have had the greatest impact on the United States during YOUR lifetime? It’s a question put to 2,025 adult survey respondents in a mid-2016 Pew Research Center poll, the results of which were covered by Claudia Deane, Maeve Duggan and Rich Morin. Before looking at the article, try to answer the question yourself. What are the 10 historic events during your lifetime that have had the greatest impact on the country? (more…)