The Competitive Advantage

January 6, 2015

Stop it already with the bad marketing! Part 4: LinkedIn

In the first three parts of this series, we’ve delved into…

• Bad websites
• Bad advertising
• Bad email marketing

This week, our focus is on the bad use of LINKEDIN. Note: while this post focuses on LinkedIn, most of the comments below also apply to other social media platforms like Facebook, Google+, etc.

For professionals in B2B firms, LinkedIn should be your #1 choice for social media marketing. I’ve seen some recent stats stating that LinkedIn has more than 330 million users worldwide, with over 107 million of them in the U.S.

December 29, 2014

Stop it already with the bad marketing! Part 3: Email

So far, in this series about the bad marketing taking place in our industry, we’ve discussed websites and advertising and made numerous suggestions on some things you can do to enhance the effectiveness of those marketing tactics for your firm.

This week, we’ll take a look at EMAIL MARKETING.

By all accounts, email is still the #1 marketing tactic used by B2B businesses today. Done right, it can help you achieve four very important goals:

• Nurture sales leads
• Maintain top-of-mind awareness among your existing clients
• Position your firm in the markets your serve
• Inform and educate your readers

Sadly, far too many firms are doing their email marketing badly, which keeps them from achieving those goals…

December 9, 2014

Stop it already with the bad marketing! Part 1: Websites

This is the first in a multi-part series where we’ll discuss much of the bad marketing & sales we see throughout our industry (sadly, it’s in many other industries, too) – and what you can do about it.

Don’t believe me? Just look around. And while I’ve been involved in marketing & sales for most of my 30+ year career, it doesn’t take an expert to see all of the lousy marketing happening around us…

September 24, 2014

Stop cold calling… follow-up on warm sales leads instead.

I met with a client a few weeks ago that had one sales rep… an experienced and, by all accounts, pretty good rep. Over coffee, I talked with this rep about his day-to-day activities. I expected to hear about his calling on existing clients, responding to inquiries, following up on leads from conferences, etc. And while he did do some of that, he spent the majority of his time (the vast majority) digging through directories for new names, sending out letters of introduction (along with sales collateral) and then following-up by phone. Yup… he was cold-calling.

For a sales rep, nothing is more difficult, induces more fear or is less productive than cold-calling. If you are having your sales rep cold call more than 5-10% of his/her time… STOP IT! It is not the responsibility of sales reps to find leads… their job is to follow-up on leads and close deals. It is the responsibility of your marketing to generate those leads.

September 10, 2014

Your sales rep not working out? Maybe it’s not their fault… look in the mirror!

I’ve worked with a number of firms in the market research industry where the one (or first) sales rep they hired didn’t work out… didn’t hit their goals… didn’t meet the expectations of the firm’s owner(s) – and so was let go.

It happens… sometime the rep is just not the right fit with the organization.

But just as often (or maybe more often), the inability of the company to effectively manage that sales rep is just as much to blame. It works something like this…

August 27, 2014

Are there any GREAT Marketers in Market Research? Let’s recognize them!

I spend a lot of time writing about what’s wrong with marketing in the market research industry… and how to fix it.

Lousy websites. Ineffective email marketing. A lack of content marketing. No strategy or planning. Cheesy social media marketing. Way-too-wordy print ads. And so on… and so on…

But not all MR firms do bad marketing all the time. In fact, I’d like to ask for your help in recognizing those firms in our industry (research firms, fieldwork & recruiting firms, technology shops and panel providers) that do exceptional work when it comes to their marketing.

July 2, 2014

Great business quotes #5 – on taking charge of your business.

Thanks so much for all the positive feedback on the first four posts in this series on great business sayings… I appreciate all of the comments and ‘likes.’

Here’s a quick recap of the first four great sayings:

• “Activity breeds results.”
• “All things being equal… people do business with people they like. All things NOT being equal, people STILL do business with people they like.”
• “Sales prospects don’t care about what you can do… they care about what you can do FOR THEM.”
• “What gets measured gets done.”

Our fifth – and final – saying is…

Hope is not strategy.

June 18, 2014

Great business quotes #3 – on ‘what’s in it for me?’

See if this describes your capabilities presentation… Slides 1 and 2 are a history of the firm. Slides 3, 4 and 5 are the bios of senior staff members. And slides 6 through 15 are all the “great” things you do.

Want to know a little secret? The sales prospects sitting around the table DON’T CARE! Well, they do… but they don’t. They’ve been to your website… they’ve asked around… they already know all of that. What they’re sitting there asking themselves is, “What’s in it for me?”

In this series on great business quotes, our third one is…

Sales prospects don’t care about what you can do… they care about what you can do FOR THEM.