2423 Posts Found

Many sales and marketing managers continue to have faith that price cuts can “fix” problems such as undifferentiated products or an obscure brand image. Their faith is misplaced. Price decreases are easy to implement–especially compared to changes in product attributes or customer service, for instance–but extremely difficult to reverse. It often takes years, to bring a price back to its original level. What’s most regrettable … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Mercer Management Journal | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Why are you losing sales to the competition? It’s likely that they are better than you at answering the prospects primary Why Buy™ questions. At the heart of every sales opportunity lie two fundamental questions that all prospects want answered:
1) Why should I buy this product?
2) Why should I buy the product from you rather than competitor X, Y or Z?

The company with the … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Michael Cannon | Source: Silver Bullet Group Inc. | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Geoff Ayling, in his book, “Rapid Response Advertising,” provides fifty reasons why people buy. Here they are plus one.

Content: Article | Author: Jay Conrad Levinson | Source: Guerrilla Marketing | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Marketing organizations that don’t meet their companies’ needs are distressingly common these days. A new joint study by Booz Allen Hamilton and the ANA identifies six types of marketing organizations — each with its own strengths and challenges — and provides a free, five-minute test to help you identify where your company stands and what can be done to up the performance ante.

Content: Article | Authors: Andrew Tipping, Brodie Dixon, Edward Landry | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Marketing / Sales, Organizational Behavior

Is there a better way to support sales? Is there something you can leave with prospects that’s just a bit more memorable – and more effective – than the standard brochure with its forced march through company “visions,” product descriptions, and corporate bios?

Yes, indeed. Here are eight suggestions, not as comprehensive answers to every sales-communications situation, but as inspiration and provocation for creating material less … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Jonathan Kranz | Source: MarketingProfs | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Marketing communications is shifting away from mass media toward an approach informed by deep audience knowledge. This places database marketing groups — and the customer insight they have amassed — into the organizational spotlight. But many of these groups play a service-focused role that hampers customer -centric communication. To help firms map out a vision, road map, and skills portfolio for customer-centric direct-to-consumer marketing, Forrester … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Elana Anderson | Source: Forrester Research | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Just like hitting a baseball, timing is everything when talking to your customer. If you don’t provide the right message using the right delivery vehicle at the right time, chances are your customer is going to ignore your hard-crafted pitch. In an article in the November issue of Harvard Business Review, authors Kirthi Kalyanam and Monte Zweben envision a computer-based model called “dialogue marketing” that … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Kirthi Kalyanam, Monte Zweben | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Customer Related, Marketing / Sales

This content is restricted to site members. Please log in or register

When a customer says, “Your price is too high,” the salesperson needs to look to himself as the likely problem, not the product. There are two possibilities: 1) the customer is not experiencing a significant absence of value and the solution should never have been offered; therefore, the price is too high. Or 2) the absence of value is there and the customer does not … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: CEO Refresher | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Different local market environments create quite different opportunities for pricing. You must understand these environments to set prices optimally.

Content: Article | Authors: Cristopher C. Eugster, Eric V. Roegner, Jatin N. Kakkar | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Marketing / Sales, Pricing

Acquiring new customers is the “show biz” side of direct marketing: The budgets are much larger, and you get to be more creative and perhaps use a broader variety of media. There’s this problem, though: It costs five times as much to find a new customer as it does to keep an existing one.

That’s why smart organizations are focusing more of their resources on keeping … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Jay Bower | Source: MarketingProfs | Subjects: Customer Related, Marketing / Sales

When we approach negotiations by tactically reacting to customers’ requests, by merely giving in because they ask us to do so, seemingly disparate transactions have the effect of “rolling upward” and defining our negotiation strategy. We teach the marketplace, our customers and our competitors, who we are based on the deals we do. By rolling over in negotiations, we run into several problems:
1. Customers … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Think! Inc. | Subjects: Marketing / Sales, Negotiation

RBC Royal Bank has opened a window on the unmet needs of its customers-and grown its market share-using segmentation.

Content: Article | Author: Alice Dragoon | Source: CMO Magazine | Subject: Marketing / Sales

The concept of branding is one of the most talked about topics in modern business. To the converted, it’s an effective way to build a substantial business which continues to feed on itself. To the uninitiated, it seems to be much ado about nothing. Many millions of dollars are spent in the name of building a brand. Yet, its value remains … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Alan Yu | Source: TheWorkingManager.com | Subject: Marketing / Sales

The best brands succeed because they excel at each stage in their lifecycle. They don’t skip steps. Great brands are founded on more than a compelling promise and innovative marketing communications. This report outlines the lifecycle and the different stages in branding and explains the brand definition, the awareness experience, the buying experience, the using and service experience, and the membership experience.

Content: Article | Authors: Bret Kinsella, Joseph Benson | Source: brandchannel.com | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Management wants more leads, but you can’t get an increase in your budget. To meet their demands, you have to lower your cost per lead. You have to either increase response rates or cut your cost per contact.

There are literally dozens of ways to accomplish those goals. Here are 10.

Content: Article | Author: Jay Bower | Source: MarketingProfs | Subject: Marketing / Sales

This content is restricted to site members. Please log in or register

Companies are increasingly using business performance management software to slice and dice their profitability and improve decision-making.

Content: Article | Author: Meg Waters | Source: Business Finance Magazine | Subjects: Finance, Marketing / Sales

By incorporating several of the best no-cost keyword suggestion tools into one interface, NicheBOT makes it very easy to explore and discover new, untapped keywords and topics that you can use to drive more traffic to your website. Simply enter a keyword or phrase, such as “internet marketing”, and choose your weapon.

First, get the top 15 related, active keywords from Wordtracker. Then explore the thesaurus … [ Read more ]

Content: Online Resource | Source: NicheBOT | Subjects: Free Stuff / Tools, Marketing / Sales

This content is restricted to site members. Please log in or register