The Competitive Advantage

November 27, 2012

Get prepared… part 4 of a 5-part series on how to create your marketing & sales plan for 2013

So, how’s your 2013 marketing & sales plan coming along?  Have you been following the steps in our process?

Have you done your homework and analysis (Phase 1)?  Did you establish the strategies to help drive your business (Phase 2)?  Have you crafted your plan with all the details (Phase 3)?  Great!

OK, now it’s time to execute and manage that plan (Phase 4).  And here are some guidelines for doing it…

November 20, 2012

Get prepared… part 3 of a 5-part series on how to create your marketing & sales plan for 2013

In last two weeks, we discussed the first two phases of the marketing & sales plan process:  Phase 1 – Conducting your Background Review & Analysis; the results of which lead to Phase 2 – Developing your Marketing Strategies.

Phase 3 is about Creating the Marketing & Sales Plan.  It starts with determining which tactics are the best ones to support the strategies. This is where all of the details are spelled out for your action plan – the what, who, when, how many, how much, how often and so on.   Yes, there is a lot of detail to manage here… but without it, you’ll be flyin’ by the seat of your pants.

November 16, 2012

Harpeth Marketing Launches Lead Nurturing Program™

I’ve blogged about the benefits of Lead Nurturing on a couple of occasions (Click Here or Click Here to read them)… and now we’re doing something about it.  I’m pleased to announce that Harpeth Marketing has just launched our Lead Nurturing Program™.   Lead Nurturing is the on-going process of building relationships with prospective buyers that are not quite ready to buy, with the goal of earning their business when they are ready.

We’re all too familiar with the common lost opportunities in our industry – the business cards gathered at a conference that never get followed-up on… or the hundreds of names in an in-house database that are cold and getting colder.  The Lead Nurturing Program™ eliminates those problems.  In this program, we reach out to our clients’ clients to build relationships on their behalf, to maximize awareness, enhance their position in the marketplace and ultimately, to have them included in more bid opportunities.

To learn more about this program, go to: www.LeadNurturingProgram.com.

November 13, 2012

Get prepared… part 2 of a 5-part series on how to create your marketing & sales plan for 2013

In last week’s post, we discussed Phase 1 of the marketing & sales plan process – Conducting your Background Review & Analysis.  This week, we’ll look at Phase 2 – Developing your Marketing Strategies.

‘Strategies’ are broad directional statements that define WHAT you will do to achieve your goals.  Don’t confuse these with ‘tactics’ – which are the HOW you’ll do it.  For example, a strategy might be to ‘position our CEO as an expert on the topic of mobile research.’  A tactic that might help you support that strategy could be ‘to have him write an ebook on mobile research.’

In this phase of the process, you will take what was learned during Phase 1 and use it as the basis for developing your strategies. This is the most critical step in developing your marketing & sales plan.  Here are several things to think about:

November 6, 2012

Get prepared… a 5-part series on how to create your marketing & sales plan for 2013

Link over to our website… and you’ll find an overview of The Marketing Loop™.  It’s the process we follow when helping our clients create a marketing & sales plan.

In this post – and the next several – I’ll walk you through the steps of that process to help you get started on the 2013 marketing & sales plan for your firm.

October 31, 2012

Your best prospects are right in front of you… just open your eyes!

Let me ask you a question… “How long have you been in business?”  Two years?  Five years?  Ten or more?

Now, my follow-up question… “In all those years in business, how many clients and prospective clients have you come in contact with… responded to their inquiries, met at conferences, submitted bids or done projects for?”  Hundreds?  Maybe thousands?

What that says to me is that somewhere in your organization – captured in a CRM, listed on a spreadsheet or collected on business cards wrapped in a rubber band – you’ve got the names, phone numbers and email address of hundreds (or thousands?) of potential clients.

So, what are you doing with those names?  How are you engaging them?  What’s your plan for staying on their radar so that when they need to send out an RFP – they think of you?

October 25, 2012

25 low- or no-cost ways to grow your business

I talk to a lot of research business owners who tell me that they still are not back to pre-recession business levels – that it’s still a little tough out there, that profit margins aren’t what they used to be. Fair enough. Can’t argue with the facts. However, they also use those excuses not to invest in marketing and business development efforts of any kind. OK, so they might not have the dollars to spend on big, fancy marketing campaigns but they decide to stop there without considering other options.

It doesn’t have to be like that. Even without large marketing budgets, you can still put in place effective marketing initiatives. It just requires a little thought, a little planning and a little creativity. To help get you thinking in that direction, here are 25 low-cost or no-cost ways to help increase awareness, generate leads, position your firm and increase revenue:

October 23, 2012

Get out from behind your computer!

Are you familiar with match.com, the dating website?  I’ve never really spent any time on the site, but it is evidently one of the most popular sites of its kind in the world.

You know how it works… men and women log in and pore over profiles to try and find someone whose background looks appealing… then they email or IM back-n-forth to learn about each other and maybe schedule a date.  And from all accounts, it’s been a pretty successful site.

But have you seen the latest offering from them (on TV ads)?  They now sponsor events around the country called, “The Stir.”  They’re live, in-person social gatherings – wine tastings, group bowling, and so on.  Not online… not virtual… but real people meeting and talking in an effort to get to know one another.  What a concept!