Recently I had an interesting debate with a CEO who has built her business sustainably and profitably over a long period of time.  She has a lot to be proud of and has done this without any on-board marketing expertise.

Her view point was that she wanted to build a marketing function slowly within her own business, a laudable ‘roll your sleeves up’ attitude.  Mine was that having worked for many a large organisation, and quite a few small ones, I have rarely seen this work successfully. ...

Continue reading ...

In the course of my consultancy work I come across many businesses which offer a service rather than a product.  Service based businesses need to add a few extra elements to their marketing because there is not a physical product to sell that is exactly the same for whoever buys it, physical products can be seen, touched, smelt etc. and purchasers are able to evaluate the product quality easily - this is not the case with services (they are different for each person that buys them, you can...

Continue reading ...

Following on from my last post, here are some (hopefully thought provoking) things to consider before embarking on a marketing campaign...

Have you got all your ducks in a row? Can you meet any potential demand?  Do you have processes in place to capture prospect data in order to market to it again in future?  What are your competitors doing at the moment (if you consider a promotional offer, are you simply going to get into a price war?)  What is the current market perception of your products...
Continue reading ...

What is a marketing campaign?

A marketing campaign is a planned series of activities that take place in order to support the strategic or tactical objectives of a company.  Usually these objectives encompass at least one of the following (see ‘choose your strategy’):
• increasing or creating market awareness of your company/products/services
• lead generation or sales of your products or services
• customer up-sell, cross-sell or retention activity

A campaign usually has a set theme...

Continue reading ...

Very broadly there are three main types of marketing activity:

Awareness

General brand awareness (let your potential customers know you exist)

Reputation (positively influencing the perception of your brand)

Education (people don’t know why they need your product or service)

Acquisition
Lead generation (acquiring prospects which you turn into customers)

Retention
Positively impact customer loyalty (keep your customers for longer)
Up-sell/Cross-sell to existing clients (generate more profit ...
Continue reading ...