“Niche marketing,” aka “Vertical Marketing,” aka “Program Marketing”. The strategy may be known by a number of names, but it’s really just “smart marketing” when you choose to market into a particular niche. Why? Unless you have a large budget and have the operational power of a large company, marketing your product or service to […]
Amazon wishes upon a (marketing) star
Do you remember the last time you committed to making a purchase of something without ensuring it had a decent quantity of firmly positive reviews, plus four or more stars denoting further approval? I was going to write a story about the importance of reviews and associated stars in terms of the online shopping experience, […]
What’s old is new again…
A spirited discussion during a networking session this morning helped me realize, once again, the importance of email…and yes, the ‘front-end’ emails like eNewsletters, promotional messaging, welcome and referral emails are all key, but today, more than ever, ‘back-end’ emails are equally as important. What are ‘back-end’ emails? They could be considered follow up emails, […]
Nefarious Marketing: The tactic has never looked so bad
I believe marketing to be an admirable profession, reaching out to the consumer or to businesses with messages that, however contrived they may be, minimally deliver some value along the way. Not so with what I think of as “nefarious marketing” techniques. Ones that take advantage of or attempt to change behavior. One doesn’t have […]
The Importance of Management Teams
For some forty years, I have been involved in strategic planning both for my clients, and my own successful companies. It has been extremely exciting to see the results of my approach – some clients have doubled, even tripled their businesses, within as short a time frame as one year! Not only that, they have […]
The 5th “P” of marketing – and the most important?
Everyone who took ‘Marketing 101’ learned about the 4 “P’s” of marketing: Product Price Physical distribution Promotion But since you attended college, a fifth “P” has been added signifying “Positioning”…and it should take a leading place when developing your marketing strategy prior to working through price, physical distribution and promotion. After all, how can you […]
Marketing: Why You Should “Pull” Rather Than “Push” (and Skyrocket Your Results)
Adopt an attitude of deference and demonstrate much greater patience… Visual licensed from adobe stock. The days are gone when you can push your sales message out to your target audience in a manner and using verbiage and visuals that would, in today’s marketing environment, be deemed “pushy” at best. In addition, using follow-up approaches […]
The Importance of Mentorship: Giving is even better than getting
According to a survey by the American Society for Training and Development, seventy-five per cent of executives say mentoring has been critical to their career development. We all need mentors. Guiding lights who push us to think or act in different, more aspirational ways. I was no different. I needed a mentor to accelerate my […]
After Conversion
And then later, after conversion… A Welcome Series Send a series of welcome messages to new customers and you’ll see measurable sales increases when they up-sell and cross-sell themselves. eNewsletters and Holiday eCards An email newsletter is used to inform your audience about the latest news, tips, or updates about your product or company. They […]
Utilizing Email As The Primary Tool To Help Automate Conversion
Naturally, conversion will require the involvement of your salesforce and a combination of marketing and sales techniques. This article focuses on how making email your primary marketing tool will help you automate this task. Here are two examples: Inquiry Responders When you receive an online inquiry all you know is that it’s someone shopping for […]
Map Out A Well-Segmented, Dynamic Email Strategy
So your marketing campaign was successful and leads have been generated. If you thought that was hard enough, now comes the really hard work entailed in converting your leads into customers. But here’s some good news…mapping out a well-segmented, dynamic email strategy with a focus on analyzing data to find patterns and insights that indicate […]
Marketing Priorities & Challenges For The Year Ahead
Implementation of your plan is typically a marathon not a sprint HubSpot recently issued their “State of Inbound 2018” Report. This annual report asks respondents what their company’s top marketing priorities will be over the next 12 months. 6200 respondents in 99 countries from a mix of industries, company sizes and levels of seniority weighed […]
How will you acquire these new, primary customers?
This is key to understanding the best marketing tactics you need to employ. When you look at your present customer profiles, where are your customers originating? As an example, are they coming from referral sources, is it an Adwords lead, are you using email lists to reach out, (of course, it is probably all of […]
How many leads will it take?
In order to formulate your budget requirements, and to understand the extent of your marketing campaign, you need to calculate the amount of leads required to be placed in the customer conversion process. This understanding comes from an extrapolation of how many leads it takes to convert one customer. If you’re looking to acquire 100 […]
What is your target audience and who are your primary customers?
It’s imperative that you identify the target audience for your product or service in order that your message reaches those most qualified. Naturally, you need to reach them with the right message and/or offer in order to drive demand, but that’s another subject altogether. Assuming you either have customer data to analyze, or have performed […]
Marketing Priorities
When it comes to marketing challenges, 61% of the respondents said generating traffic and leads was their #1 challenge. Clearly, at 69%, converting leads to customers is a major priority, and at 61%, generating those very leads is the key challenge.
Account Rounding Increases Insurance Revenues
Last year I wrote about the importance of Account Rounding to increase insurance revenues. Since then we have continued to refine this idea of account rounding and have learned valuable information on how you can use account rounding to increase your business. To help you understand how this tactic can work for you, here are […]
Integrated Marketing Communication – Marrying the Old and the New
Integrated Marketing Communication (IMP) popped up recently as one of the ‘new’ marketing techniques web marketers are using to drive business. What’s amusing is that intouch Business has been using IMP to generate leads for our clients for a LONG time now. So, why all of a sudden is there this hype about IMP? Because […]
How to Develop Brand Recognition for Your Insurance Agency
One study of the insurance industry found that in 2012, roughly 38,500 insurance agencies were operating in the United States. With that much competition, how can insurance brokers and agents get ahead in what has become such a highly-competitive industry? That’s a question we will address in this article on How to Develop Brand Recognition for Your […]
The Research Numbers Prove That Customer Engagement Pays
The numbers prove it out…customer engagement is the key to edging out the competition in the insurance industry. It can also increase customer retention, and the amount of business established clients do with your company. Price Doesn’t Have To Be The Answer Traditionally, companies have felt they needed to undercut the competition in order to secure […]
