Tag: Marketing
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| Brandon Carter |
| Dude, where's my jellybeans? |
| 2008.12.12 07:07:23 | |
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Don't you get frustrated when you plop down $5 for a box of candy at the movies only to get back to your seat, open the box and find that the dang thing is only half full? Potato chips pull this prank all the time. Being the cheapest person on the face of the earth, I actually have a method for feeling around on bags of chips to be able to tell which one is the most full. You'll never find a bag more than 3/4 of the way full. It's a fact of life. Now jellybeans have joined the fray. Someone brought in a box of jellybeans as a treat for Sproutians (who, in all honesty, don't need more treats). It was a big honkin' box from a leading jellybean company. Delicious. Compare the actual beans to the box in which they came.  Dude, where's my jellybeans? The amount of beans is about 1/3 the size of the box. I don't think there's a law against this, but it strikes me as a total breakdown of a promise. Not to mention a total waste of materials. Are your customers getting what they think they are when they fork over their dollars? Or are you charging them for a big ole box, when all they want is jellybeans?
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 Jennifer Hoglin
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| Running through the Sales Field |
| 2008.11.26 07:08:47 | |
 Throughout most of October I was fortunate to spend time with clients in the field. I observed sales guys pitching existing and potential customers. I managed conversations and answered questions when my sales guys were engaged with other discussions. I spent a lot of time in the car with sales guys talking about what they need to support their efforts, how we need to deliver our message, and why we are successful and why we are not successful. Every time I go on customer visits I am reminded how important it is to stay directly connected to the customer. By directly, I mean interacting with them face-to-face actively and inactively. It is so important to learn from these interactions about their issues and understand how our products/services meet their needs and overcome their issues. Each interaction gives a marketer more insight and knowledge about the customers’ culture. With this holistic view marketers can approach every strategy and tactic with intention and customer insight. Plus, it also gives you ideas for potential new products or line extensions. Everyone knows that business travel is not glamorous and stresses out the home front. But don’t let that slow you down. Marketers need to be in the field. It is vital to the job, career and discipline. Tags: Marketing | Sales | field visits | sales guys | marketeers
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 Josh Carr
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| mapping your twitter friends with Yahoo pipes |
| 2008.11.19 23:51:22 | |
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So yesterday we went a little crazy with the sproutmarketing twitter account (you can click on that link to follow us). We took all the sproutians twitter accounts and looked at who they were following and then invited those people to follow sprout proper. It worked great and many of the people we were following also followed us. But I think we went a little too crazy because the they shut us down for a while. So if that link at the top isn't working try again tomorrow :) This is what you really came to see. This is a map made with yahoo pipes that will show you where your twitter friends are located. Click here to build your own. Tags: Twitter | web 2.0 | Web | Marketing | Yahoo Pipes | yahoo | Mashup | Social Networks | Social Media Hits: 75 | Read more... |
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| Brandon Babb
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| Communicate! |
| 2008.11.17 06:31:29 | |
 I have been thinking a lot about how we communicate and share our ideas. Take a look at these Pool Balls; they both convey the same information each in a individual way. It's obvious which of these balls would be easier to play a quick game of pool with. It can be just as easy to tell if your marketing makes sense for your customers, especially if you know your target audience. If 75% your customers appreciate a simple and straightforward approach, it would be dangerous to launch a brainy rocket-science marketing campaign.  So you have your messaging down. A perfect message can be completely ruined without the right design. Communication is key! Tags: Marketing | Graphic Design | Commiunication | Designer | Target Audience | Marketing Campaign
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| Bruce Law |
| Random acts of marketing |
| 2008.06.07 16:34:57 | |
 On occasion I meet clients who say they have done some marketing for theirbusiness in the past. They¹ve dabbled in search engine optimization, tried a tradeshow, issued a few press releases, or placed an ad in a magazine. As we delve deeper into what they accomplished, I often hear the same phrase: "We tried it, but it just didn't work for us." I call these individual attempts, "random acts of marketing." Some companies prefer to toy with marketing without ever actually getting serious about it. They end up wasting money over time on several different vehicles with nothing to show for it. Their marketing is unstructured--lacking any real strategy, unmeasured--lacking any true feedback, and invariably results in mediocre success. In the book Good to Great, Jim Collins talks about the flywheel concept. If businesses invest the time, resources, and money in doing one thing really well, getting the wheel turning, eventually all the momentum built up will allow the wheel to easily spin on its own. Companies that spread their investment across a variety of random marketing tactics should instead place their money in a couple of keenly focused areas of marketing with sound strategies as the foundation, get these marketing activities working well, and then layer additional vehicles on top of well-run campaigns. With this structured, strategic marketing approach, it is easy to measure success, and consistently improve your marketing efforts over time.. Tags: Random Acts of Marketing | Advertising | Marketing | Jim Collins | Flywheel | Good to Great | SEO | Search Engine Optimization Hits: 595 | Read more... |
