Small Business Marketing
I was invited recently to speak on The Profit Partner program. This is a local television show focused on helping small business owners succeed.
Profit Partners
I was recently a guest on Profit Partners, a local television show dedicated to helping small business grow into larger ones. It was a great experience.
The Profit Partner Presents Kelly Harman from Innovative Video Productions on Vimeo.
Five “Gut Checks” for the marketing plan
This is the time of year when marketeers everywhere are putting the final touches on next year’s marketing plan. A good plan doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, the simpler the better. Every business I know is tightening the budget and looking for measurable ROI on every activity. So it makes sense to do a few things very well instead of a shallow attempt at 25 different marketing activities. Also, remember that a marketing plan is a guide, not a mandate. Things that appear to be a good idea now may not perform well when actually executed. Flexibility is key and data is everything. If you can’t measure what you do then you probably need to question whether it should be in the marketing mix to begin with.
With that said, here are some things we hope you’ve taken into consideration when finishing up your marketing plan for 2009:
- Collaborate with the sales team. Have you met with the VP of Sales and discussed the objectives for 2009? Have you attended the sales meetings on a regular basis? Do you know how the pipeline works and do you have a written agreement with the VP of Sales that describes exactly what qualifies as a lead from the marketing department? This way, you can avoid the conversation in July when you say you generated 2,000 leads and they say you generated 20. Read more
Landscaping & Websites
Imagine building a home, meeting with the architect and having that first conversation about your dreams and goals for the house. Then the architect returns with some plans for you to review. You open the drawings and what he’s rendered is the complete landscaping design for your entire property.“What about the house?” you ask. “What about the bedrooms, the kitchen, how the structure is built? What about how we’ll use the house, the materials and content we want inside the house? What about all that?”
The architect looks at you and waves his hand. “Oh, we’ll get to all that stuff later, but look at these great bushes I want to plant up your driveway. Are they cool or what!!??” At this point, you are probably going to bean the architect and go find someone else a little more qualified.
Every day I see this scenario played out with business websites. The first concern is always about the look of the site, the graphics, the pictures. All the landscaping. But what about your structure? Your information architecture? What thought have you given to how people will use the site, how you’ll track performance, and give the visitors to your site the experience and information they need to move forward in the buying cycle? Read more
Zephyr Strategy offers strategic planning and practical, sales-driven marketing services to technology, telecommunications and professional services firms in the U.S. and abroad. We help companies capture new customers, keep existing clients, and grow revenues profitably.
From our strategic planning comes the need for tactics and execution. To support these tactics Zephyr offers a VMO Program (Virtual Marketing Organization) as well as project-based support.
