The third step of the B2B Purchase Process is the Request for Proposal (RFP). As our dear readers have learnt, just because the job description is detailed and you check all the boxes, you do not get a job interview! Similarly, from the point of view of the B2B Marketer responding to RFP’s does not mean that there is equal opportunity for all vendors.
Category Archives: Branding Strategy
Service Recovery: The secret to retaining loyal customers
All organizations are ultimately in the service business. And when people are involved- mistakes do happen. And customers can become unhappy. This is “service failure”. How you make customers happy again, is “service recovery.” Happy customers are loyal customers.
Content Creators: Would Mark Twain have written 4000 words a day during the Spanish Flu of 1918?
The Coronavirus has challenged everyone globally. However, all content creators can get inspired by some popular nuggets from Mark Twain.
Giving Tuesday: Why Non-Profits must focus on marketing their impact
Today is Giving Tuesday, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. It’s timely think about the impact that a non-profit is able create and communicate . With 1.5 Million non-profits in the US, it’s hard for both beneficiaries and donors to find the non-profit that will actually make a difference. Most beneficiaries are incapable (eg too sick or too poor) or unaware (eg US opiate epidemic) that there are helping hands around.
Why marketing attribution continues to be a problem
The backstory starts in the pre-internet age when sales folks were very reluctant to adopt technology because they wanted to keep their leads to themselves. After all, commissions were earned depending on who “closed” the sale. Similarly in direct mail and catalogs, the coupon code and a mailed in order identified which mailing worked. As digital and internet marketing developed, the legacy metrics were adopted and “last click attribution” became important. If you think about it “last click” or the ad that you clicked mirrored the “sales closing” and fitted neatly with the old direct mail coupon code model. All you had to do was to put a code on the ad, email and upon checkout just match the ad to the transaction and “Eureka” you had attributed the ad spend, specific email or ad to the purchase.Â
Github acquisition by Microsoft: Managing in the Knowledge Age
Enter big, bad, old world, clunky Microsoft who acquires Github last year and the Internet exploded with jokes. Both Bill Gates and Steve Balmer were tough industrial age managers and Satya Nadella realized that the world had changed- see “How Microsoft got its groove back.”Command and Control” and top down strategy days are over in the knowledge age.
The Furniture Brand Fiasco – resolve to Google your brand reviews in 2019
2019 has rolled in and understanding the digital assault on Brands is timely.Brand owners don’t seem to Google their own brands. How could many brands with 1.5 star reviews still be in the market? Our guess is that managements don’t seem to checking. If they checked, they’d find solutions to this brand fiasco.
Blockchain will make supply chains stronger but challenge brands
Blockchain technology will start shaking up supply chains and brands. But first, what is blockchain? Here's our take: Blockchain is a distributed accounting ledger . A mechanism to share how much was paid and received by whom, where each transaction is verified on a peer-to-peer basis. Sort of like verified reviews on Amazon. The personContinue reading “Blockchain will make supply chains stronger but challenge brands”
Why Big Consulting is able to compete with Big Ad Agencies for Digital Marketing work
Big Consulting firms are competing with Big Advertising agencies according to E.J. Schultz in the current issue of AdAge. Big consulting firms like IBM, Accenture , PwC and Deloitte are growing their digital marketing practices and competing with big ad agencies like WPP, Omnicom, Interpublic, Dentsu etc. for digital marketing work. Here is a quoteContinue reading “Why Big Consulting is able to compete with Big Ad Agencies for Digital Marketing work”
Brand positioning for authenticity: Focus on mission or competition?
Positioning is a market facing concept while authenticity is about looking inward at the organization.Originally introduced by Jack Trout and Al Reis in 1973, positioning suggests that you must be clear about what your brand is to the customer compared to the competition.