2423 Posts Found

Segmenting, at its most basic, is the separation of a group of customers with different needs into subgroups of customers with similar needs and preferences. By doing this, a company can better tailor and target its products and services to meet each segment’s needs. It sounds straightforward but often it isn’t. Here are a few pitfalls that many companies fall into when they start thinking … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Gretchen Gavett | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Why do your customers buy from you rather than from your competitors? If you think the answer is your superior products, think again.

Products are important, of course. For decades, businesses sought competitive advantage almost exclusively in activities related to new product creation. They won by building bigger factories, by finding cheaper raw materials or labor, or by coming up with more efficient ways to move … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Niraj Dawar | Subject: Marketing / Sales

The era of the traditional marketing campaign is ending. In this interview, McKinsey’s David Edelman explains what companies get wrong when it comes to digital marketing and the changes needed to better engage consumers.

Content: Multimedia Content | Author: David Edelman | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Marketing / Sales

What do Porsche fanatics, a video game hater, and a person who cooked two weeks’ worth of meals in a rice cooker have in common? They are all “extreme consumers”—those whose tastes are so out there that mainstream market researchers tend to dismiss them as “noise” when trying to figure out how typical consumers think.

That’s fine if you only want to keep making incremental improvements … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Jill Avery, Michael I. Norton | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Customer Related, Market Research, Marketing / Sales

Diverse offerings make it tougher than ever to associate prices with a product’s or service’s underlying costs. Developing pricing arrangements for specific customers or customer groups also is increasingly difficult. One possible solution is a fully allocated price and cost waterfall.

Content: Article | Authors: Anthony Milani, Hyun Suk Oh, Ray Florio, Tiago L. Salvador | Source: Accenture | Subject: Pricing

New research shows there’s a surprising gap between the brand messages that suppliers offer to customers and what their customers really want to know.

Content: Article | Authors: Philipp Hillenbrand, Sascha Lehmann, Tjark Freundt | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Your shopping habits reveal even the most personal information—like when you’re going to have a baby.

Content: Article | Author: Charles Duhigg | Source: The New York Times | Subjects: Industry Specific, Marketing / Sales

If you’re not exactly sure which pricing strategy will work for your business, these 6 steps can help you successfully set your company’s prices.

Content: Article | Author: Dileep Rao | Source: OPEN Forum (American Express) | Subject: Pricing

Why are people so drawn to social media? The question long haunted Mikolaj “Misiek” Piskorski and eventually led to his new book, A Social Strategy: How We Profit from Social Media. Drawing from years of research dating back to before Facebook, the book offers an in-depth analysis exploring why some social media platforms soar while others fizzle, and how business can use them to generate … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Carmen Nobel | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Measuring the success of social media interactions cannot be done using traditional ROI metrics. The nature of the communication channels involved requires a brand new approach.

Editor’s Note: I like the concept of positional vs. relational metrics, but the article didn’t really do much to discuss what relational metrics are worthwhile or how to measure them.

Content: Article | Author: David Dubois | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subject: Marketing / Sales

The problem with marketing is […] lots of people tend not to believe it. […] Instead, most people tend to place more credibility in the opinions of their friends. Horrible truths like this keep marketers awake at night.

Content: Quotation | Source: Fast Company | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Marketing is […] the planet’s largest religion, but the billions who worship it don’t know it.

Content: Quotation | Source: Fast Company | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Call it a more sophisticated LinkedIn. It might just be the magic bullet for business development.

Editor’s Note: this is a somewhat topical article and the companies of importance will certainly change rapidly, but the underlying topic is of long-term interest. I was a bit disappointed that internal corporate network mapping and research wasn’t discussed more or tied to the larger idea.

Content: Article | Author: Greg Lindsay | Source: Inc. Magazine | Subjects: Marketing / Sales, Organizational Behavior

For years I’ve been preaching that a lot of customer service is common sense that, unfortunately, isn’t so common. It is the great companies that consistently deliver an experience that meets, if not exceeds, expectations. And, much of this experience is common sense.

Content: Article | Author: Shep Hyken | Source: CEO Refresher | Subjects: Customer Related, Management, Marketing / Sales

Companies that understand the stages of consumer purchasing decisions have an outsized influence in their outcome.

Editor’s Note: this article strikes me as a bit of Marketing 101 material, which might make sense as it is written by a professor. It’s not bad, but a bit more generic than what is usually published at s+b.

Content: Article | Author: Niraj Dawar | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Brand is a three-legged stool: It is conveyed visually, verbally, and experientially. “Visually” is the easy part: your logo, your colors, your design, your packaging. “Verbally” is how you talk, what you say, and which messages you convey. For example, do you lead with price, or do you lead with value? Does your company speak in conservative, authoritarian tones, or are you more playful and … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Maria Ross | Source: MarketingProfs | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Social media is a critical piece in the online marketing puzzle for local businesses (and others). But, some days, you have so much to juggle that you just need a quick, easy way to post interesting, engaging content.

So, here are 10 ideas you can use to keep your social channels full of relevant, timely, and useful content—fast!

Content: Article | Author: Tiffany Monhollon | Source: MarketingProfs | Subject: Marketing / Sales

If these “harbingers of failure” love what you do, you are in trouble.

Editor’s Note: This is one of the more interesting pieces of research I have read about in a while. Based on the work of Eric T. Anderson, Song Lin, Duncan I. Simester and Catherine E Tucker

Content: Article | Author: Jessica Love | Source: Kellogg Insight | Subjects: Customer Related, Market Research, Marketing / Sales

Conventional management wisdom suggests that price should reflect value. But what is the value that prices should reflect? And just whose perception of value should determine price? As these questions and the answers to them suggest, pricing is no longer only an economic challenge. As this author suggests, pricing today is also a marketing challenge, and in this article he describes how managers should deal … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Tim J. Smith | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subject: Pricing

Four clear paths for winning over—and retaining—customers in the digital era.

Content: Article | Authors: Matthew Egol, Michael Peterson, Stefan Stroh | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Marketing / Sales