284 Posts found for Source: MarketingProfs

The brand’s strategy should be the translation of your competitive-marketing strategy into terms of a promise to your existing and prospective customers.

Content: Quotation | Source: MarketingProfs | Subject: Brand

As we live our personal lives with a better understanding of how interconnected everything is, our work as marketers should also be considering how consumers take in our messages.

Today, storytelling – in its many forms – is one of the most powerful tools for presenting the truths of your product, service, or brand.

Content: Article | Author: Andrea Learned | Source: MarketingProfs | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Attending networking events can be frustrating and ultimately a waste of time for many business owners and professionals. Here are three ways to make them pay off for you.

Content: Article | Author: Paul McCord | Source: MarketingProfs | Subject: Personal Development

Here’s a popular way to generate online leads: Buy a keyword ad on a search engine site. In your ad, offer free content — such as a white paper — to respondents who complete a short form.

In theory, this type of campaign works well: The people who respond get something of value. You get leads. Everyone’s happy.

Not so fast…

Content: Article | Author: Anna Talerico | Source: MarketingProfs | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Jonathan Kranz suggests a few ways folks on the marketing side can ease the marketing-sales tension by better serving their sales brethren with more productive collateral.

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

I think that the success of MySpace has taught us all a number of lessons, such as that people like to create things. And they like to show off what they care about, especially when it’s made easy for them. If you let people participate in your brand, they will become brand warriors.

Any company can search through MySpace, YouTube, or the whole blogosphere for … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: MarketingProfs | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Marketing professionals widely use the 4 Ps for marketing a product. But how do you market yourself when YOU are the product? How do you make your own accomplishments believable?

Content: Article | Author: Abhay Padgaonkar | Source: MarketingProfs | Subject: Career

There is a crucial step that marketing departments can take to have a positive impact on the outcome of their initiatives for the year: deploying an effective lead-management process.

Content: Article | Author: Robert J. Moreau | Source: MarketingProfs | Subject: Marketing / Sales

We all want press coverage. We all have visions of the rest of the world valuing us, our companies, and our contributions.

But what happens when a reporter really is on line one? A blessed few can pick up the phone and say brilliant things. The vast majority of us panic.

Content: Article | Author: Cheryl MCPhilimy | Source: MarketingProfs | Subjects: Personal Development, Public Relations

For marketers, technologically sophisticated products and services pose a special problem-translating the technical talk that engineers love into the plain talk customers need and will act upon.

From the depths of my experience with bits, bytes, high-voltage devices and semi-toxic chemical compounds, we offer a few suggestions that will help you turn good science into compelling marketing copy.

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

Your initial contact with a prospective customer leaves little margin for error. The first conversation is the most critical and least forgiving point of the entire sales process.

Within the first 20 seconds you must simultaneously establish relevance and credibility–or you will be dismissed as just more marketing noise in the relentless barrage of sellers looking for attention.

Content: Article | Author: Jeff Thull | Source: MarketingProfs | Subject: Marketing / Sales

The traditional advice for copywriters is to engage readers by focusing on problems rather than benefits. Now I can’t quibble with this counsel. It’s spot on. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t go far enough. In truth, a host of techniques can improve your readability. Here are seven of the best.

Content: Article | Author: Daphne Gray-Grant | Source: MarketingProfs | Subject: Marketing / Sales

When this [Web 2.0] model allows many new ideas, then the cost of solving problems and of generating content will go down. It also means the cost and the need for filtering will go up. You will need to filter not only for what’s good versus what’s bad but also for what fits your strategy. Not every idea will work given your asset base, your … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: MarketingProfs | Subjects: Knowledge, Problems / Solutions, Trends / Analysis

As the old adage goes, “timing is everything.” But while the idealistic mantra of direct marketing has always been to make the right offer to the right customer at the right time, the reality is very different.

Content: Article | Author: Mark Klein | Source: MarketingProfs | Subject: Marketing / Sales

In tradeshow marketing, it is tempting to boast about the busy buzz at your booth and how many leads you generated. But don’t succumb to temptation. You would be so much better off if you paid attention to lead quality instead of quantity. One secret to tradeshow success is your ability to qualify prospects on the tradeshow floor.

Content: Article | Author: Ruth P. Stevens | Source: MarketingProfs | Subject: Marketing / Sales

How often has a sale been lost after we believed the customer clearly understood their problem and would make a logical, quality decision?

Content: Article | Author: Jeff Thull | Source: MarketingProfs | Subject: Marketing / Sales

To create a complete marketing plan, one that drives near- and longer-term marketing action, I need only four “colors.” Those colors are created through a set of analyses that we perform:
1. Customer analysis
2. Competitive analysis
3. Whole Product analysis
4. Forces analysis

Content: Article | Author: Michael Fischler | Source: MarketingProfs | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Writing an effective questionnaire is not a task for novices. At the very least, it requires an understanding of four basic issues:
1. Considering the differences between a questionnaire that respondents fill out themselves and one that a professional interviewer administers
2. Knowing what questions should be asked early on in the questionnaire, in the middle, and toward the end
3. Understanding how to phrase … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Robert J. Kaden | Source: MarketingProfs | Subjects: Market Research, Marketing / Sales

The Web has changed the rules for press releases. The thing is, most old-line PR professionals just don’t know it yet.

Content: Article | Author: David Meerman Scott | Source: MarketingProfs | Subject: Public Relations

It’s been called “selling the invisible”-delivering intangible services as a core “product” offering.

Invisibility (intangibility), inseparability, variability, and perishability are four factors that distinguish services marketing from product marketing. These characteristics affect the way clients behave during the buying process and the way organizations must interact with them.

Content: Article | Author: Cynthia Coldren | Source: MarketingProfs | Subject: Marketing / Sales