Resources
Developing A Marketing Plan
By Thomas Childs
Developing A Marketing PlanA marketing plan is essential for a home business Internet marketing opportunity. To succeed in any business, whether a home business or not, you need a Read more...
|
Resources
Building opt in list and affiliate marketing
By John Ugoshowa
Building opt in list and affiliate marketing have become synonymous to online success as an effective internet marketing strategy. For many online sites, building opt in list and affiliate marketing Read more...
|
Resources
Article Marketing is Your Best Viral Marketing Tool
By Charity Adams
The word viral marketing is tossed around right and left in internet marketing. Viral Marketing is a phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing Read more...
|
|
#Welcome to
FinancialBreakthrough102.com - your comprehensive marketing major resource.
Below, you'll find extensive information
on leading marketing major articles and products to help you on your
way to success.
Marketing for Entrepreneurs: 3 Ways to Increase Your Small Business's Marketing Effectiveness
By Susan Tatum
In the quest to increase results from marketing, companies tend to focus on tactics. They worry about creating a better brochure, upgrading the website, or running a new ad campaign. However, often the greatest leaps in effectiveness come from focusing on how it all ties together. Here are three steps for entrepreneurs to improve their effectiveness by fine-tuning their processes.
1. Know what you need.
Marketing's main job is to feed the sales force with nice, warm leads. Step one towards better is to understand how much and what kind of food they need.
The "how much" is easily answered using basic math. Start with your sales goals and work backward. You'll need to answer the following questions:
* What is our annual new business revenue goal?
* How many new customers does this represent?
* What percentage of qualified opportunities do we actually close?
* What percentage of leads actually become qualified opportunities?
Using this information, you can determine how many new inquiries your must generate in order for the sales team to meet their goals. For example, let's say your annual new business revenue goal is 10M; your average deal size is $100,000; your sales people generally close 50% of the qualified opportunities presented to them; and 5% of your inquiries become qualified opportunities. A quick run around the calculator tells us that your efforts need to generate 4000 leads for the sales team. Of course, for smaller business, the numbers you're working with is smaller, this was just an example.
With this information in hand, planning becomes much more focused. Every activity in the plan should in some way contribute to generating inquiries and developing leads. If you can't trace a program or activity to this result, don't spend the money.
2. Match your process to the buying process.
Unless you are selling an impulse item, the decision to purchase your product or service is based on a series of small decisions. Marketing helps to facilitate, and hopefully accelerate, the decision process by making the right information available to the prospect at the right time and from the right source.
It is critical to understand the entire process your customers go through while deciding to buy your product or service. Typically companies have a good understanding of what goes on
Forget To Take The Pill? - Sponsored Link
Ad - www.once-a-month.com Dec 2 2008 10:13AM GMT
Brown-Forman to Divest Italian Wines
DiGiTAL50 Dec 2 2008 10:13AM GMT
9 biggest marketing mistakes government contractors make (Part 1)
Examiner.com Dec 2 2008 9:32AM GMT
Agency, heal thyself
Financial Express Dec 2 2008 5:57AM GMT
9 biggest marketing mistakes government contractors make (Part 1) 1
Examiner-Detroit Dec 2 2008 4:34AM GMT
NBC SPORTS AND MTV ANNOUNCE THE CREATION OF ALLI, THE ALLIANCE OF ACTION SPORTS
Futon Critic Dec 2 2008 3:26AM GMT
Brown-Forman to Divest Italian Wines
Business Wire via Yahoo! Dec 2 2008 1:36AM GMT
after an opportunity has been identified, but few spend the time to understand the front end of the process.
A typical buying process could go something like this. The prospect:
a) Becomes aware that he or she has a need
b) Identifies options - often a list of vendors that offer a solution
c) Researches the various solutions
d) Creates a "long list" and issues an RFP
e) Creates a "shortlist"
f) Invites vendors for demos
g) Checks references
h) Negotiates
i) Purchases
Information needs are different at each point in the process. A successful program matches these needs. It allows the company to create awareness among the target prospects by engaging them in a flow of communication that helps navigate their way through the buying process. A program that fails to meet the buyer's needs at each step of the process won't deliver as many qualified leads.
3. Get your sales and people on the same page
It is truly astonishing how many companies suffer from a fundamental disconnection between sales and marketing. Here's a sure sign that your company has that problem. Ask the question "which programs result in revenue?" You'll likely hear people complain that the sales team doesn't follow up on leads and won't track them. And, you'll hear sales people say that marketing's leads are worthless. You can't get an answer because no one knows.
Disconnected sales and efforts result in burned leads, wasted efforts, lengthy sales cycles, and low revenue. It is well worth the effort to develop a cross-functional team.
One of the easiest and most effective places to start with is to develop a common definition of the word "lead". If you gathered your sales and teams together and ask everyone for their definition, you'll likely find the sales team has a very different view than your team. (Don't be surprised if you get different answers within the sales and staffs as well.) Now work together to establish a common definition. Use this definition to guide in developing leads before handing them off to sales.
These steps are a good start toward making your initiatives more effective. Of course, there is much more you can do to tighten the process so that your efforts produce greater results; but by taking these three steps you'll be well on your way.
Susan Tatum, Founder of The Tatum Group, speaks from experience in guiding entrepreneurs through the development of marketing initiatives that consistently deliver desired results. She is a marketing consultant specializing in helping companies increase revenue by maximizing the quantity, quality and timeliness of leads. For more information and a wealth of FREE resources, visit www.thetatumgroup.com
|
|
We strive to provide only quality articles, so
if there is a specific topic related to marketing that
you would like us to cover, please contact us at any time.
And again, thank you to those contributing daily
to our marketing major website.
- Local News Network Announces Affordable Solution Allowing Local Newspapers, Broadcast Affiliates and Cable Providers Ability to Generate Additional Monthly Revenue
Perfect solution for Newspapers, Local Broadcast Affiliates and Cable Service Providers who are looking for the "next big thing" to generate revenue. The nations first television network devoted entirely to broadcasting only local news and information is now available to all US markets served by at least one Local Daily Newspaper and one Cable Service Provider or Broadcast Affiliate. Each partnership will have it's very own branded, unique and specific Local News Channel (with the look of a National Cable News Channel) for the purpose of serving it's customers and generating additional monthly revenue. Broadcasters can take advantage of LNN for the SD bandwidth of their Digital Spectrum and Automated Overnights. (PRWeb Dec 2, 2008)
Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/BroadcastSolution/LocalNews/prweb1587674.htm ]]>
|
