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The Competitive Advantage

March 13, 2013

How Advertising can Support your Marketing & Sales for a Competitive Advantage, Part 3

This is the third in a 3-part series on a few current consumer advertising campaigns that really got it right with their advertising – all of which were an excellent execution of a strong marketing strategy. [Yes, they’re B2C, but they illustrate very important marketing lessons.]

In the last two posts, we showcased Hardee’s/Carl’s Jr. and Chik-Fil-A and the interesting work they were doing with their TV ads.  This week I want to talk about the law firm of Cordell & Cordell.

I first heard about them through their radio ads here in Nashville.  They are a firm that focuses on men in cases of divorce.  That, in itself, is very interesting.

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March 5, 2013

How Advertising can Support your Marketing & Sales for a Competitive Advantage, Part 2

This is thChick-fil-A-Cowe second in a 3-part series on a few current consumer advertising campaigns that really got it right with their advertising – all of which were an excellent execution of a strong marketing strategy. [Yes, they’re B2C, but they illustrate very important marketing lessons.]

Last week, we talked about Hardee’s & Carl Jr’s.  This week, I’d like to focus on Chik-Fil-A (http://www.chick-fil-a.com/), the fast-food restaurant chain serving [great!] chicken sandwiches, etc.

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February 28, 2013

Eight proven ways to build awareness – and why you should!

Do you remember the old Kevin Costner film, Field of Dreams? Early in the movie, his character, Ray Kinsella, is walking through his Iowa cornfield when he hears a voice that says, “If you build it, he will come.”

Well, that might work in movies but in the real world, just because you build a business doesn’t mean that everyone (or anyone) will show up. They need to know you exist. They need to know a little bit about you. And that’s why building awareness is the most important thing you can do to grow your business.

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February 26, 2013

How Advertising can Support your Marketing & Sales for a Competitive Advantage, Part 1

This is the first in a 3-part series on a few current consumer advertising campaigns that really got it right… they didn’t advertise simply to build awareness (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing) or to make people laugh (which two of the three do)… but their ads are an execution of a specific marketing strategy.

Yes, I am a B2B consultant and most of you reading this work in a B2B environment… but there are three really good lessons to be learned here about executing marketing in support of a broader strategy.

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February 20, 2013

You’re a researcher… so do some for yourself to gain a competitive advantage!

Every day… you get up, go to the office, collect some data for your clients, interpret that data and give them some feedback to help them do their jobs better.  Yeah, a little over-simplified, but you get my drift.

So, here’s the question… are you doing that same thing for yourself?  Particularly with your marketing & sales as a way to help you do it better?

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February 13, 2013

You only get One Chance to make a First Impression

My wife, Lisa, and I are doing some updating to our home – knocking out a wall, putting in hardwood floors and the like.  And Lisa is the one in charge of the project.

During this process, she’s called numerous contractors to come to the house, look around and provide an estimate on doing the work. Her interaction with them has been really interesting… with some of the contractors not responding at all to her initial calls and others not submitting bids after visiting our home.

That’s nuts!  You’d think that these small, local businesses would jump at the chance to participate in a project like this.

Here’s what their lack of responsiveness has done… they’re off of our list!  Period.  We just won’t do business with them… even if they come back later with an apology and a lower bid.  Our feeling is that if they can’t be any more responsive when they’re trying to impress us to close the deal, what is it going to be like if we actually hire them?

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February 6, 2013

6 Simple Marketing & Sales Ideas that almost Never get implemented

In trying to build our businesses, we often get so wrapped up in working on the bigger marketing & sales initiatives (e.g. social media strategy, advertising campaigns, etc.) that sometimes, the simple little things just pass us by.  So, to help with that, here are six simple marketing & sales ideas to get you thinking in that direction:

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January 30, 2013

Suspects, Prospects and Clients: Is your firm focused on the right target?

In its simplest form, all businesses can look at their target market as divided into in three primary groups.

  • Suspects are those organizations that fit the profile of a client but with whom you’ve had no interaction. They’re just “out there.”
  • Prospects are those firms that you have connected with at some level and that have some interest in/need for what you do.
  • Clients are those organizations that have purchased from you at least once.

What’s interesting is that the focus of most firms’ marketing efforts is on groups one and two.

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