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The Competitive Advantage

March 5, 2014

Ever mess up a client’s project? How’d you handle it?

First, you get excited that you picked up a new client.  Then you find yourself really fortunate when that client comes back to you again and again.

And then it happens.  You drop the ball… a detail falls through the crack… the research gods stop smiling on you – and a project goes badly.

What do you do?

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February 27, 2014

15 easy, low-cost marketing and sales tactics for 2014 – Part 2

low-cost-is-the-new-high-valueIn Part 1 of this two-part article, we discussed eight “little” ways a company can improve its marketing and sales in 2014 without spending much – if any – money. To recap, the list included:

  1. Improve you elevator pitch.
  2. Hand write thank-you notes.
  3. Enhance your e-mail signature.
  4. Create impressive business cards.
  5. Try A/B e-mail testing.
  6. Collect client testimonials.
  7. Test LinkedIn advertising.
  8. Clean up your database.

I hope you’ve had a chance to give a few of them a try! Here are seven more to include in your business development plans this year.

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February 26, 2014

Giving client gifts? Are they “unexpected?”

GiftOn my flight home from the MRA Conference in Las Vegas two weeks ago, I was watching an old movie on my iPad… Finding Forrester, with Sean Connery.  A really good movie, by the way, if you haven’t seen it.

In it, he’s giving advice to young man on the best way to a woman’s heart.  And his is advice is to give… “an unexpected gift at an unexpected time.”

Great advice… and it works for clients, too.

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February 19, 2014

Advertising works… and I was in Las Vegas last week to prove it!

I was in Las Vegas last week to speak at and attend the annual joint conference of the Southwest and Northwest chapters of the MRA.  Nancy Hernon and Rommell Montenegro and all of their colleagues put on a really nice event – good sessions, good food and some really great people.

It was the first time I’d been to Vegas in a while that I really had the chance to get out of the hotel and “experience” the city.  My wife, Lisa, was with me and after a few days there said, “You can’t describe Las Vegas, you have to see it!”

And what I saw more of than anything was advertising. Dazzling outside signs 5 stories tall, ads in the hotels and on the hotels, on buses and cabs, at the airport, on permanent and drivable billboards, in those special hotel guest magazines… even being handed out on the street corner.  It was everywhere!

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February 13, 2014

Google Consumer Surveys Ramps Up Product and Marketing… Are You Ready?

google-consumer-surveys-351x350I haven’t heard much from or about Google Consumer Surveys in the past couple of months, then all of the sudden, I received an email from them last week.  It looks like they’re expanding the capabilities of their service… with longer surveys and mobile respondents (by the way, no change in pricing).  A tough competitor just got tougher.

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February 5, 2014

Marketing’s Dirty Little Secret… It’s Not an Exact Science!

345935446_It_Depends_answer_3_xlargeHere are the kinds of questions I regularly hear from my clients…

  • “What email open rate should I expect?”
  • “How many downloads will my new white paper get?”
  • “What’s the average bid conversion rate?”
  • “What are the ‘right’ steps for the lead nurturing process?”

The correct answer for all of the above is… “It depends!”  Sorry… wish I had a better answer.

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January 29, 2014

15 easy, low-cost marketing and sales tactics for 2014 – Part 1

 

Easy-Ways-to-Save-MoneyI’ll bet that when it comes to marketing and sales, you’re handling the big stuff reasonably well: You have a website and maybe a blog; are somewhat active on social media; have a listing in the appropriate directories; network at a couple of conferences each year; and have a decent capabilities presentation.

But so does everyone else!

Where you can really begin to separate your firm from all the others is in how you plan and execute some of the smaller marketing and sales tactics. These are the little things that everyone thinks are easy to do – and they really aren’t that difficult – but they do require some effort to do well.

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January 29, 2014

Just starting (or re-starting) your marketing & sales efforts? Follow these 4 important guidelines.

backpackerI had coffee last week with the principals from a small, local firm.  Been around several years, reasonably successful… and doing virtually nothing to grow their business.

What their inactivity boiled down to – and it applies to pretty much all small firms – is that everyone there wears a bunch of hats, most of which have to do with taking care of clients.  I get it.  And it’s not that they don’t want to grow their business, the problem is that no one is dedicated to marketing & sales and no one allocates much (if any) time to the firm’s growth.  Consequently, not much growth is going on.

Sound familiar?

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