The Competitive Advantage

September 26, 2012

If Content Marketing is not part of your Marketing Strategy… it should be!

(Part 1 of a 2-part series.)

Read through any marketing resource, website or blog post these days and you’ll see that ‘content marketing’ is THE hot marketing topic… and with good reason (we’ll get to that in a minute).

First, what is ‘content marketing?’

As simply as I can state it, content marketing is the development and sharing (a.k.a. giving away) of useful information that will help the reader to better understand a particular subject and/or help them to do his or her job better.  As an example, for a research firm, that could include providing content with titles like:

• 10 things to look for when sitting “behind the glass”
• Conducting ethnographic research in the digital age
• How to save time and money with online bulletin boards
• The top 5 coming trends in CPG research

Notice anything unusual?  None of the topics are salesy.  None of them are internally focused.  Content marketing is about providing genuinely helpful information.

Are you giving away some of your ‘secret sauce’ when you do this?  Maybe.  But, it’s the price of admission.  If you don’t – your competitors will.  And those that provide the best content often win.

September 18, 2012

Download our latest eBook on Marketing & Sales for the MR Industry

This week, we released Marketing & Sales for the Market Research Firm: Part 2 – How to Build an Effective Business Development Structure, a 14-page eBook that can be downloaded for FREE from our website.

Some of the eBook’s topics include:

• Understanding the goals and responsibilities of the marketing and sales functions
• Exploring the different marketing and sales positions common in the MR industry
• Reviewing options for sales commissions plans
• Managing marketing & sales inside the small firm.

To download your copy, CLICK HERE.

September 4, 2012

After attending a conference this fall… don’t let the flame go out. Nurture those leads!

Our industry offers up some great conferences, particularly in the fall of the year – CASRO, QRCA, ESOMAR, MRA, TMRE and so on.  They are all great places to learn and (wait for it…) network.

That’s right… these conferences provide you with the chance to meet with prospective clients in a non-threatening environment.  Whether it’s during a conference session, at a cocktail reception or on the exhibit floor, conferences give you the opportunity to shake hands, swap business cards, do a little personal “selling” and lay the groundwork for future business conversations.

But then you head home from the conference… return to your back-to-normal business routine… and before you know it, that pocketful of business cards representing a number of warm leads now has a thin layer of frost on it.

August 14, 2012

A Checklist for Conducting your own Sales Audit

Last week, we discussed ways to step back and take a look at your marketing with a fresh set of eyes.  This week, let’s apply that same philosophy to your sales effort…

July 18, 2012

Exhibiting at a conference this fall? Get your event marketing plan in place!

You’ve committed thousands (maybe tens of thousands) of dollars and several days of several people’s time to exhibit at a conference this fall.  The worst thing you can do is just show up and hope it goes well.  As the popular business book is titled, “Hope is not a strategy!”

July 10, 2012

Webinar – Creating a Winning Marketing & Sales Plan: 40 Tips in 40 Minutes

When: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 1:00 pm Eastern Time / 10:00am Pacific Time

Who: Sponsored by Quirks, presented by Harpeth Marketing

What: Developed for the owners, managers and hands-on marketers at research firms, this free webinar provides an overview of the process for creating a clear, functional marketing and sales plan, along with tips and tricks for implementing each phase of the process. In this fast-paced session, you’ll explore:

• The basic structure of a marketing and sales plan
• A simple way to develop a profile of your best clients
• The keys to setting effective marketing strategy
• Why your success is in the details
• Easy ways to manage your marketing and sales efforts
• Why a lot of money is NOT necessary for successful business development
• And much more

Where: For details and to register online, click here.

July 5, 2012

Hiring your first sales rep? Consider these 7 “must-dos” first…

If you’re about to hire your firm’s first sales rep, then let me congratulate you on taking a very big – and vitally important – step for your firm.  Having someone other than the principal(s) of the firm do your selling is an important and often scary thing to do.  You’re letting go and relying on “an outsider” to help make you successful.  But until you do, you’ll never be able to realize your firm’s full potential.

June 27, 2012

Dramatically Improve your Marketing with A-B Testing… it’s Easy and Free!

There’s an old saying that I really like… “That which is easy to do is also easy not to do!”  Evidently, that sentiment applies to A-B testing in marketing, because almost no one does it.