2423 Posts Found

How do you turn short-term transactions into long-term relationships? Harvard Business School professor Narakesari Narayandas finds answers in mature industrial markets.

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

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Keeping an eye on brand metrics can become part of the CIO’s job.

Editor’s Note: despite the title’s focus on IT, this article offers a nice overview of brand-related metrics, specifically touch-point and strategic metrics.

Content: Article | Author: Jeff Smith | Source: Optimize Magazine | Subject: Marketing / Sales

“Big Boy” businesses know how to market to millions. And while there are plenty of areas where the Big Boys fall short, there are plenty of things the Big Boys do well to account for their fair share of growth and their mastery of marketing.

Small business owners can take a cue from the Big Boys by dedicating themselves to smart marketing. Here are 8 … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Kirsten Osolind | Source: MarketingProfs | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Why are customers who say they’re satisfied not necessarily repeat customers? Because satisfaction is a measure of what people say, whereas loyalty is a measure of what they actually do. Many managers still don’t recognize this fundamental difference, so they use customer satisfaction and customer loyalty interchangeably, as though they were synonyms.

Content: Quotation | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Customer Related, Marketing / Sales

From the Publisher
Customer loyalty has always been grounded in human interaction. Years ago, you’d walk into your favorite store and the staff would know your name, they’d remember your favorite brands and they’d smile, nod and take pains to make sure you came back. Because you were treated well by a personable, friendly staff-and because you were physically constrained by time and … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Ellen Reid Smith | Subjects: Customer Related, Marketing / Sales

SEO consultant Phil Craven’s website has an excellent assortment of articles on search engine optimization, copywriting, marketing and the like, but its real beauty lies in a dedicated focus on the big Kahuna of them all, Google. If you are interested in improving your Google ranking (and who isn’t?), here you will find articles and tools to help you do so. First, you must understand … [ Read more ]

Content: Online Resource | Author: Phil Craven | Source: WebWorkshop | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Today, the typical sales organization faces steep challenges to bringing in new business. A weakened economy and uncertainty about when times will improve have made sales harder to close and heightened competition in many market sectors.

However, a recent study conducted by Accenture and The Economist Intelligence Unit suggests that disappointing sales performance among global companies has as much to do with companies’ effectiveness at … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Sources: Accenture, The Economist | Subject: Marketing / Sales

DBM.com is a great site that provides essential information on database marketing in simple, direct terms. With regard to measuring success, DBM believes that key questions for evaluating marketing results are: How can I compare the response rates of two different mailing designs which I tested on the market? What sample size will I need to achieve a certain reliability? How reliable is a specific … [ Read more ]

Content: Online Resource | Source: DB-Marketing.com | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Determining the ROI on a newsletter program is not as straightforward as it is for a standard direct mail or direct email campaign. For most direct marketing campaigns, determining the ROI requires simply calculating the direct sales and costs for the campaign. With newsletters, direct sales are usually not the primary focus of the campaign, so the standard calculation neglects the principal objectives of the … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Peter Meyer | Source: MarketingProfs | Subject: Marketing / Sales

When it appeared in the pages of the Harvard Business Review in May 1983, HBS professor Theodore Levitt’s article “The Globalization of Markets” ignited a debate that still goes on twenty years later.

Levitt argued that technology such as television was a powerful force homogenizing the world’s needs and desires, and that smart global companies could sell standardized products using standardized marketing approaches around the world. … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: International, Marketing / Sales

MarketingFix is owned and maintained by marketing consultant and author Rick E. Bruner, with contributions from several other well-known marketing voices. Check this ad-free site daily for a serving of marketing news and trends with a slice of personal (often sarcastic) commentary. No matter what your marketing interest, you’ll likely find it categorized here – topics range from ad pricing to cool tools to direct … [ Read more ]

Content: Online Resource | Author: Rick E. Bruner | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Customers don’t want to be managed, says marketing consultant Newell in this contrarian take on the current state of CRM. Instead, he says customers must define their relationships with you and shows how to refocus CRM efforts and programs, such as e-mail, permission marketing, and loyalty cards, to allow customers to specify and communicate their wants and needs.

Content: Book | Authors: Frederick Newell, Seth Godin | Subjects: Customer Related, Marketing / Sales

Marketers complain that their business colleagues and the public don’t take their work as seriously as they would like. But marketers have only themselves to blame. They tend to set goals that cannot be fulfilled: sustained growth; brand differentiation; persuasive advertising; added values; maximizing profits or shareholder value; and instant new knowledge based on just a single set of isolated data.

Editor’s Note: Warning! Many … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Andrew Ehrenberg | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Ever-changing, ‘dynamic’ pricing may be the wave of the future, but many customers resist.

Content: Article | Author: Laurie J. Flynn | Source: Context Magazine | Subjects: Marketing / Sales, Pricing

Customer segmentation: More than just a marketing tool. Customer segmentation is at its most powerful when used as a fundamental part of the strategic process and not simply as a marketing tool. After aligning an organization to serve targeted groups identified and focused upon by a sound segmentation, a company can beat the competition with a differentiated and defensible value proposition.

Content: Article | Authors: Dorie Krawiec, Vijay Vishwanath | Source: Bain & Company | Subjects: Marketing / Sales, Strategy

Crafting these first words or sentences to entice readers to click through for the full story is both an art and a science. Successful teasers draw on the basic principles of direct response marketing as well as good journalism. And they throw in a little sex, to boot!

Content: Article | Author: Debbie Weil | Source: MarketingProfs | Subject: Marketing / Sales

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If you have an e-newsletter you have probably already realized the impact spam filters are having on bounce-backs. Here is a short article offering some advice, focused on subject lines.

Content: Article | Source: GrokDotCom | Subject: Marketing / Sales

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