The Competitive Advantage

August 4, 2015

Partnering with others can accelerate your growth.

I’ve been doing a little thinking and planning lately around the future of Harpeth Marketing – noodling on a variety of strategies and tactics – and one of the things I’ve realized is that a key driver of our past success has been ‘relationships’… no, not just the buyer-seller kind, but the ‘partnering’ kind.

July 31, 2015

Take Charge of Your Own Success… Stop Relying on Others!

One of the things that I always do when having that ‘first conversation’ with a prospective client is to ask about their current marketing and sales efforts… that is, what they’re doing to grow their business. And for the 3½ years that the doors of Harpeth Marketing have been open, the most popular answer has not changed… it includes all or part of the following:

• “We have a number of repeat clients.”
• “We have a great relationship with a couple of really large clients.”
• “We get a lot of referrals and word-of-mouth recommendations.”

Let’s be clear… those are all really good things. The problem with them is that they rely on someone else to help make your firm successful… and that’s when serious problems can occur:

July 29, 2015

Need Fresh Content for Content Marketing? Do Survey Research!

A Guest post by Debra Semans. Based in Atlanta, Debra, is the lead writer for Harpeth Marketing, as well as an independent researcher and focus group moderator. She can be reached at Debra@HarpethMarketing.com.

While the debate rages about whether “Content is King”, many marketing researchers feel like Content is some maniacal despot, or at least a weighty albatross hung around your neck. You already have a 70-hour (or more) a week job! How are you supposed to make time to produce fresh content? And how do you make it fresh when everyone else is publishing content on the same topics? How many blogs on customer satisfaction measurement can the world endure?

Ironically, marketing researchers have the best source for fresh content right at their fingertips. I’m talking about marketing research! The results of a quick survey can fuel your blog posts for weeks.

July 21, 2015

Marketing & Sales Advice from Leaders in our Industry, Part 5

This is the last of five posts in which we have interviewed noted business owners and leaders from across the Market Research industry to explore how top firms look at and utilize marketing & sales for their businesses.

This week, we talked with Steve Schlesinger, CEO at New York-based Schlesinger Associates.

July 14, 2015

Marketing & Sales Advice from Leaders in our Industry, Part 4

This is the fourth of five posts in which we are interviewing noted business owners and leaders from across the Market Research industry to explore how top firms look at and utilize marketing & sales for their businesses.

This week, we talked with Anne Bailey Berman, President and CEO of Chadwick Martin Bailey, based in Boston, Mass.

July 7, 2015

Marketing & Sales Advice from Leaders in our Industry, Part 3

This is the third in a series of posts where we’ve interviewed business owners and leaders from across our industry to help get an understanding of how top firms look at and utilize marketing & sales for their firms.

This week, we talked with Merrill Dubrow, President & CEO of M/A/R/C Research, based in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area.

June 30, 2015

Marketing & Sales Advice from Leaders in our Industry, Part 2

Last week, we began a 5-part series on how business owners and leaders in the market research industry really feel about marketing & sales. For this week’s post, we interviewed Brett Watkins, CEO at L&E Research, based in Raleigh, NC.

June 29, 2015

Getting first-time clients to take a chance on you.

Imagine that a research buyer at a Fortune 1000 firm is about to start looking for a new agency to work with. She starts with a list of potential suppliers, gets some recommendations from colleagues and industry contacts, does some online research… and eventually narrows it down to a short list of 4 or 5 – and your firm is one of them!

Congratulations! All of your marketing – your new website, your active social media sites, your email marketing, networking and advertising – has paid off.

But now the real fun begins… what can you do to convince the buyer to select your firm… to mitigate any fears she has about switching suppliers… to convince her to take a chance on you?

Well, if you’ve made it to the “Final Round,” then you have two big opportunities to answer that question… at capabilities presentation time and with your proposal.