Over the next couple of months, I have the privilege of speaking about marketing and sales at several Market Research industry events:
- QRCA’s Business Development SIG inaugural event
- The Insights Association Annual Conference
- Greenbook’s Insights Marketing Day
These events got me to thinking… every year, most MR professionals and principals attend a few conferences, workshops or webinars as a means of improving their research skills and staying on top of new trends in our industry.
But what about staying on top of business development for your firm? What can you do – in addition to attending the events above – to improve your marketing and sales skills? To help, here are few other resources to investigate if your marketing and sales skills need brushing up…
- Read the articles and take advantage of the free resources available from websites like: MarketingSherpa, MarketingProfs, Seth Godin’s blog, Selling Power and Marketing Land
- Subscribe to information-filled, free emails like: Social Media Today, Marketing Dive, Sales Management Digest, Social Media Examiner, and Content Marketing Institute
- Sign up for Google Alerts; this free service from Google sends emails to you when it finds new results—such as web pages, newspaper articles, blogs, or other research—that match your search terms. (hint: it’s also a great way to keep an eye on your competitors)
- Do hashtag searches on Twitter (e.g. #B2Bmarketing or #contentmarketing); not only will this result in recent Tweets related to these topics, but they will connect you to additional resources – the authors of those Tweets.
- I would be remiss if I didn’t remind you of the resources that Harpeth Marketing makes available:
- The Competitive Advantage Blog (250+ posts and counting)
- Scores of marketing articles
- eBooks on marketing and sales for the MR industry (12, so far)
- Cup of Coffee webinars (offered year-round)
- There’s another resource you might not think of for marketing and sales information… YouTube. Just search on the topic that interests you and scores of videos will pop up for your viewing.
- Finally, there are still a litany of “old school” resources available to you… just do a little online searching to find the ones that best meet your needs: books (you remember those, right?!), workshops and seminars, magazine subscriptions and finally, associations.
The biggest of the associations is the American Marketing Association. In addition to their national resources, they also have a large number of local chapters, each with their own activities. It might be worth looking into.
In Summary…
The title of my upcoming presentation for QRCA is ‘Stop Relying on Others for Your Success… Take Charge of Your Marketing and Sales.’ But for many, it’s difficult to ‘take charge’ if you’re not really sure what you need to do or how to do it.
If that describes you, then make the commitment – right now – to set aside a little time every day or every week to work on the improvement of your marketing and sales skills. And in most cases, the options available to you are free and easy to access.
Good luck.