Three is Marketing’s Magic Number
When is the last time you read your marketing collateral from a customer's perspective? Been a while? So do this now. Go grab that latest brochure or product sheet. Now try reading it as if you knew nothing about your business, its products or its expertise.
What are the top three messages you come away with? Can you even narrow it down to three?
Technology companies tend to take the 'throw everything at the wall' approach to messaging. I don't mean that negatively. Well, maybe I do. It's just that technology products have so many different ways they can impact different customers, so many cool things that companies want to talk about.Tech marketers often fall into the trap of trying to tell everyone everything - and then let the audience pick what's valuable to them.
Top 10 Reasons Why Your Customers are Being Difficult
Why are customers so difficult? My friend Peter in a comment to a recent post, said - I understand that corporations must respond to changing consumer behavior, but I'm fascinated by the the concept of the needy consumer.
As customers, do we need a corporation to satisfy our emotional needs to earn our loyalty? In response, I thought of the top 10 reasons why your customers are being difficult:
(1.) You're the only game in town or one of a few, limited options
You may feel you have a captive audience, but realize that it takes a special effort not to be arrogant in those circumstance, and your customers don't like the treatment. For example, if you're looking for a high speed Internet provider, there may be only one to choose from in your market. Mobile network with broad global coverage? Same thing, one or two.
Six steps to improve your sales results
Having worked with many businesses over the years, to help them improve their sales results, it became apparent that there are often a similar set of core issues that each faced. This is a summary of those issues and some initial pointers on how to overcome them.
1. What is your market and position in it?
Being clear about your market, where you are in it and where you want to be are essential foundations to creating a plan to get there. A few simple questions help to clarify this.
- What do you sell?
- Who do you sell to today?
- Who are your ideal customers?
- Who are your competition?
- What is your Unique Sales Proposition - USP?
10 Things You Can Do To Increase Search Engine Exposure
Here are some very basic things that ANY site should do, regardless of how aggressive your marketing is, or what your strategy is. Maybe you’re doing all of these things already, but most sites don’t. Here we go:
1. Make a site map.
This one sounds fairly obvious, but how many sites honestly have them? Your site should contain an XML site map for Google and Yahoo, as well as a “browser view” site map for humans. Aside from the search engine value, a site map is a great navigation asset for your visitors as well. I find myself frequently hitting a site map to quickly find something.
Guide to Writing Effective Press Releases
A press release is a one-page announcement designed to generate media coverage. In order to do so, it must stand out from the hundreds of other press releases being submitted to the media at the same time. Press releases can announce events, achievements, developments, new goals, new hires… just about anything.
Before you begin writing, there are a few things you should know about the media. First, they don’t care about your announcement. It sounds harsh, but it’s true. The media only cares about the people who read their newspapers, watch their news programs, listen to their radio stations, and so on. And they only care about those people because the more they satisfy them, the more successful they will be. So, if you want to appeal to the media, appeal to their audience. This means if you’re writing a press release announcing a company’s new product, don’t talk about the product. Talk about the ways it will benefit people. If you’re announcing an event, write about the significance of the event. A good press release tells the media why their audience will care about your announcement.
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