Innovation is the lifeblood of the marketer – not just in promotions but across the whole marketing mix (that’s also known as the 4 ps).  Markets and customers change – and at a faster rate today than ever before.  What are you doing to keep up with the changing demands of your customers?

Innovation has been on my mind this week because we at The Purple Edge have just launched our new Group Coaching Programme in response, we believe, to demand from the market.  Time will tell!  Many of you will know that one of my favourite quotes in marketing is from Peter Drucker:

“Because its purpose is to create a customer your business has two purposes and two purposes only: Marketing and Innovation.” 

So I got to thinking – is innovation actually a separate being from marketing?  Possibly not in my view.  But as I looked further into innovation I came across a strong contender for my new favourite quote:

"The sole purpose of marketing is to sell more to more people, more often and at higher prices.  There is no other reason to do it." 

This comes from Sergio Zyman, now a writer, speaker and consultant, but formerly the Chief Marketing Officer at Coca-Cola.  And, famously, the person responsible for introducing both diet coke and new coke, the latter to reviews so disastrous that 77 days later they had to reinstate the original. 

Actually, the most interesting part of this story is about attitudes to risk and failure in innovation and marketing.  Sergio did indeed leave his job, “wounded”,  but was re-hired 7 years later.  And the final assessment of the Coke debacle was that it was a huge success – the re-introduction of old Coke had the effect the company was after, a huge growth in sales and a reversal of share decline.  You can read more about the story of Sergio and Coca-Cola in Fortune Magazine, "So you Fail.  Now Bounce Back.", here.

Right now you might be thinking so what? What has a mighty brand like Coca-Cola got to do with me?  Well, as the article above clearly points out, bigger risks do bring bigger rewards.  Understanding your own attitude to risk could give you real insight in your own approach to your business.  What risks have you taken lately?  Not stupidly (it is pointed out that Coke could have given themselves a safety-net, although you might argue the publicity value of the failure gave them the real boost) but using the wisdom you have about your market and your products?  Do you have the confidence to take a big decision and innovate to keep your company ahead of the game? 

We’re taking a small risk in the grand scheme of things with our new Group Coaching Programme – but risk and innovation will definitely be addressed by anyone brave enough to take the risk to come along and invest in creating ‘amazing marketing’ for their business!

The room was packed this Tuesday for the Canterbury Christ Church University Business Forum event on Social Networking - thank you to all those who attended to hear me and Mark Zaretti of Sparticle Ltd aiming to open your minds to some of the possibilities that these new tools offer to business.  I was happy to admit I am a novice, starting Facebook just a month ago (you can see my first efforts here: www.facebook.com/thepurpleedge), and Twitter not long before that, but Mark had some inspiring and cautionary tales to tell about this relatively new phenomena.

Some people were more au fait with one or other of the tools and there was a healthy mix of cynicism and enthusiasm.  We were certainly not there to promise that social networking alone would bring untold riches, rather that you need to be aware of the possibilities in order to be able to make an educated decision about how well Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. might work for you.  And the numbers signing up show that more and more people (some of whom are likely to be in your target audience) are joining all the time.

As always, before you start any marketing activity be clear about your business objectives/goals - that way you will find it easier to judge what is valuable and what is not.  But think more widely than the end game of just signing up new clients, you may find greater success in finding suppliers or just boosting your PR.

As you might be grappling with some of the same issues, I thought it might be useful to share with you the list of things that people most wanted to know as they set out on their journey to explore the brave new world. 

How do I move from a purely personal user to a business user on Facebook?

You can do this slowly, and there is no need to entirely separate your private life from your business life as long as you pay some attention to general propriety!  A good test is 'would you be happy for you Mum to see this?'.  People buy from people and social networking is a great way to show more of the personality of your business and help people feel they know and like you before trusting you with their business.

What is a Facebook business page?

With a business page you can ensure only business messages are published and can have different members of your team publishing and interacting on the site with those people who join you ('like' you in Facebook speak).  They are a good tool for PR and customer service.

How can I target specific groups and manage my time?

There are add-on tools and applications available and of particular use to businesses (for example, but not only, Hootsuite) that allow you to organise your contacts into groups, search for keywords, receive alerts if your business is mentioned, and even schedule messages to go out across the day/week.  And most of these work on mobiles too.  So you don't need to be online every minute of the day, although you may need to spend a bit of time getting things set up to suit you and learning the ropes.  Nevertheless, social networking can be compulsive and you are right to worry about time wasting so you need to be enforce a bit of discipline on yourself.

How do I filter junk?

Use the tools available as mentioned above - identify your favourites, set up keyword alerts, and aim to control it rather than let it control you!  The best way is to search on Google for reviews of useful applications.

Do I have to contribute?

It is possible to use Twitter and LinkedIn in particular just to listen and learn - and that can be very useful.  However, to get Social Networking to contribute to your bottom line results you need to engage more actively, but selectively, with your contacts.  That is being social after all!

Is there a point to Twitter - and what is the etiquette?  I don't want to upset clients by unfollowing them.

If you want to ignore someone rather than unfollow them because they may take offence then use the lists and favourites functions to prioritise those people you are interested in.  Twitter is a constant stream of chatter, but if your targets are there then you can make it work for you to build profile, engage in conversations, present your expertise, and learn what's going on in various communities.  A bit like following the office gossip.

What are the best tools for business?

The best tool for your business will depend on the audience you are trying to reach.  LinkedIn is purely professional users so is good for B2B, but businesses are increasingly active on Facebook and Twitter.  The best thing is to be clear about who you are looking for then go looking.  But start with one and move on slowly as you become more confident and familiar - then if it is not working for you then you can discreetly pull back.

How can you measure return on investment?

ROI in marketing has been the subject of many long and boring books - and the jury is still out.  You may be able to track directly that a new piece of business came from your contacts online, or you may need to trust your gut instinct and test it by scaling up and down, but do be clear about what you are aiming to achieve so you know what to measure against.  There is a wealth of analytics that can show you how much extra traffic you are getting to your website, and even the demographics of your audiences, which is far more than you would get with many other forms of marketing promotions.

How do LinkedIn Clubs & Groups work?

This is where you are able to engage in discussions and pose questions and publish information to like-minded groups.  You'll need to apply to join usually, but there are groups for many subject areas and professions.  And if you don't find what you are looking for then you can create one yourself!

What ways are there to engage with existing clients?

All of the above!  Go looking for your clients and find out if they are already active - if they are and you're not then you may really be missing out!  Not only can you keep in touch with what they are doing but you remind them what you can do - there may be more things you could do for them that you've not thought of mentioning to date.  You can also search on specific potential clients to target and ask for introductions. 

Over whelmingly at the end of the session people felt more confident and more inspired to have a constructive 'play' with Social Networking.  Mark and I felt pleased that we had succeeded in opening up a few minds and pointing people in the right direction - a good morning's work!

In preparing for the next seminar for the Canterbury Christ Church University Business Forum I realised that at The Purple Edge we needed to stop sitting on the sidelines and dive in and see if we can really make social networking work for us.  So we have created our own Facebook business page - which you can visit and if you 'like' us you can follow our progress, and maybe learn from our mistakes!

Luckily at the event itself at Hall Place, Canterbury on 6 July there is a more knowledgeable speaker, Mark Zaretti of Sparticle Limited, who will covering the detailed hows and whys, while my role will be to focus on the importance of integrating social networking tools into a wider marketing strategy.  While I've studied the subject for sometime, reading the case histories and being fairly active on LinkedIn, there is no substitute for real live experience - hence the Facebook page and my increasing engagement with Twitter (follow me here). 

The numbers speak for themselves - Facebook has now overtaken Google in terms of visitors, and the big name online tools are reporting healthy growth across all age groups.  At a recent Chartered Institute of Marketing seminar Simon Wakeman of Medway Council explained how they are using Facebook and Twitter - and shared some of the data he used to make the business case to the organisation, including showing comparisons of audience size between Facebook and the local press (see photo above).

It is by no means the only game in town, but social networking is growing fast - which is why, for your business, you need to understand the opportunity and be considering if and how these networks could work for you.  The ultimate test is no different to any other marketing tool - can you reach your target customers (or influencers of your customers) through this media?  Or maybe think more widely in terms of audience - my one big success on Twitter so far is finding a new PR associate to work with on client business.  Usefulness doesn't have to be all about sales. 

From my research and experiences so far I can see real value in engaging in social networks for the following reasons:

1. You can engage with more people, more personally than any other medium.  This allows you to develop a deepening relationship with the community of customers, suppliers or networking colleagues.
2. You can learn from your communities and be better informed in your field.
3. You can share news and insights that will drive traffic to your websites - where you can aim to take visitors on a more direct journey to sales.
4. Activity on social networking sites can contribute to a higher ranking in search engines.

But there are also some caveats to consider:

1. As already said - you need to find the right communities to engage with, and there to be enough of your specific target audience active to make it worth your while.
2. If you start you have to keep going - relationships only thrive with regular attention!  So start small and build up.
3. Social networks can become compulsive and time-consuming - you will need to develop some discipline based on understanding of their role and importance in your overall marketing strategy.
4. The tools are young - no-one has all the answers about what you should do, so you will need to be prepared to be brave and find your own way, one that suits you.

I would urge you to take a look, find out how the networks work, and then work out how they might work for your business.  Don't be afraid to experiment, and don't be afraid to admit that they are not for you - at least not right now!  At least you'll be making a conscious decision rather than one in ignorance.  And if you in the Canterbury area on 6 July come along to the seminar and find out the answer - is social networking for you?

Pricing is an area of marketing that particularly fascinates me - particularly when we seem to act in unpredictable ways!  In these austere times I read that it is mid-priced items that are suffering - the luxury goods market is holding up, as is the bargain basement.  Where would you rather be operating your business?

Right now I'm reading a great book (and one that you will hear more of as I work my way through it): Roberto Cialdini's "Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion".  In it he tells the story of a jewellers in Arizona who had tried everything to shift some items made from good quality turquoise: keen pricing, prominent displays, sales person's attention, etc.  In desperation the shop owner decided to slash the prices by half to get rid of the stock.  However the employee who was left a scrawled note to this effect mis-read the x 1/2 as x 2, and doubled the prices instead!  The surprise was that within days every article had been sold!

Cialdini's explanation for this is that it is a form of human automatic action - the holiday-makers, with little real knowledge of turquoise, were using a standard principle to guide their decision-making: "expensive=good".  The higher price made the jewellery more valuable and desirable - and I'm sure, if you're honest, you can find examples in your own life when you have followed this principle.  And if you have been brought up on the maxim "you get what you pay for" then price is a good shortcut to efficient decision-making.

The converse is also true, of course: "cheap = rubbish" in many (granted, not all) cases.  Be sure to bear this tale in mind when deciding your own pricing strategy.  Understanding the needs and attitudes of your target customers is critical to determining where to pitch your price in order to maximise your profit.  And note I say 'profit' not 'revenue'.  You can make more money by selling fewer items at a higher price - and potentially for less effort - than by going for volume at a lower price.  Being the cheapest is not an easy option - it requires ruthless cost management and, at the same time, making significant investment in marketing to hit the volumes.  Particularly hard for small businesses without the scale and buying power of larger corporations.

Some industries seem determined to devalue their whole market - websites for £99 anyone?  Faced with this offer this may be a good time to stop and remember "you get what you pay for".  If you are tempted to go cheap in this area stop and consider what value you are intending to get from or create using your website, and what therefore is a more rational and reasonable approach to take.  And if you are competing with people offering very cheap versions of your products or services, spent some time to understand and articulate the value you truly can provide to your customers to help them feel they are making the right decision.  Always remember:

“Marketing’s objective is to be able to charge the highest possible price for what you offer – and for people to smile after!” 

There is never enough time in business to do everything you feel you should be doing.  Priorities have to be juggled and renegotiated every day.  My clients struggle to find time to move their marketing activities forward - and in The Purple Edge we too have more ideas for things we want to do than we find time to do them!  And, as always, when I'm talking about 'marketing' I'm not confining myself to just the promotional activities.  I'm including the full scope of marketing: understanding the market and customers, developing your product and service portfolio, setting price, and, last but not least, telling your target audience about what you can do!

Of course I believe that marketing is the single most critical activity in any business - because it is the process by which you will thrive and grow, if that is what you want for your business.  And that is the nub of the issue.  What do you want for your business?  Step one of any marketing plan is setting your business objectives so that you can build a suitable and relevant plan.  Get that bit right and setting your priorities and making decisions about how much marketing budget you need to invest and what activities you will (rather than should) do to achieve those objectives comes that much easier. 

A plan needs to be built on the resources you have available.  It is not a wishlist.  So if you carry out all the activities in house in the timeframe needed then you should be looking at whether it is better use of your time and money to outsource the work.  This is especially true if your own time is worth more when spent on the delivery (i.e. directly money earning) part of your business.

Marketing does not need to take up a huge amount of your time.  As it impacts on so many areas you are probably thinking about one or other aspects throughout the day (for example improving service to customers) as you carry out many other tasks, but a few hours every week should be set aside to really concentrate on marketing.  Time when you can check you are on track in your plan and take at least some small steps to move matters forward.  If you find you are way behind on hitting your objectives it can be a long process to implement action that will generate new business if you are coming from a standing start.  Building and maintaining profile, awareness and reputation cannot be done overnight!

So, to help focus you on making time for marketing, here are my top 3 priorities for your marketing:

1. Build a plan for the year linked to your objectives.  This will make it real and help you take decisions on how you will use the resources you have to hit your targets.
2. Establish some level of regular communications to the market, and I include in that keeping your website up to date.  I talked about customer contact in a previous blog post, and maintaining a light contact programme can take relatively little time.  More importantly it gives you the wherewithall to 'increase the volume' without huge time or expense when you need to increase your results.
3. Review your plan regularly - that way there are no nasty surprises and you can take any additional action calmly, without having to put everything else aside while you catch up on the marketing that you have let get so far behind.

Time management is all about focusing and priortising what really matters - and marketing does matter to every business!  Little and often will help you keep it under control, and if you are hitting your plan you can stop worrying that you are not doing enough!

A new dawn for British politics, or the start of a period of increasing instability ending in another election. The commentators are divided on the likely success of our shiny new coalition government. Either way the coalition will begin to implement their agreed policy in the coming weeks and months. In business we can’t directly influence policy but we certainly have to live with it. That absolutely doesn’t mean we have to be passive though – quite the reverse. There is always opportunity in change and as in nature the most successful businesses will be those that best adapt to the changing circumstances.

So how do you ensure that your business is one of the success stories, a business that grows and thrives rather than a victim who declines and perhaps fades to extinction? Well, the good news is that it is within your control. Adaption in business doesn’t usually happen by accident but as a result of clear thinking, analysis and planning. Yes I’m talking about your Marketing Plan people! If you have a marketing plan, fantastic, but now is the time to review it in light of the changing political and economic environment. If you don’t have a marketing plan then shame on you! If you only have time to do one thing for your business this month make it writing your marketing plan.

Your marketing plan is essentially in three parts:

1. Analysis - What environment are you operating in, what markets do you have, what is your portfolio and how is it performing etc. The important thing about this section is it should be forward looking, identifying trends and likely outcomes.
2. Objective setting – Based on your analysis what are your marketing objectives e.g. grow sales by 10% in 2010 by launching a new product, grow profit by 5% in 6 months by launching into a new geography etc.
3. Planning – What specific programmes, projects or actions are you going to undertake to achieve the objectives, in what timescale and how will you measure success.

A key tool you can use in the analysis section of the plan is a PESTLE analysis which aims to provide a structured approach to identifying the key trends affecting the environment in which you do business. The acronym stands for:

• Political – taxation policy, government spending priorities, European, UK and local government objectives, grants, etc.
• Economic – interest rates, GDP growth rates, inflation, disposable income, unemployment levels etc.
• Social – life style trends, demographics, media etc
• Technological – innovations, research funding, communications, internet/ecommerce /social media developments etc.
• Legal – employment law, competition law, health and safety, etc.
• Environmental – green policy, recycling, alternative energy etc.

Don’t get too hung up on which category a specific factor fits into. The impact is the important insight not which box it goes in. It is not important whether you consider a change in income tax rates to be a political or economic factor. The important thing is that it might mean a change in consumer disposable income. Also don’t worry if you don’t find factors in a section which are important to your business. All categories are not equally important to all businesses.

The key reason for undertaking the PESTLE analysis is to help identify opportunities for your business to grow and threats to your existing business or growth. It is important when reviewing the analysis that you try to keep an open mind about your business, and a positive outlook. Things which initially look like threats can in fact be converted into opportunities. For example if you provide services to the public sector a reduction in government spending could be considered a significant threat to your revenues. It could also be considered a significant opportunity if you can provide services which allow the budget holder to cut costs. It may help to share your findings with a trusted outsider who may be more objective about your business than you!

Once you have identified the opportunities and threats that the change in government will create you can then develop plans to exploit the opportunities and minimise the threats. Remember there is always opportunity in change.

When it comes to marketing communication the most basic piece of advice I can give anyone is to establish a customer and prospect database - and use it to stay in touch!  The proliferation of media and tools that you can use to establish and maintain contact has made this one task that is within the reach of even the smallest business - you can make it as simple or sophisticated as you have time, skills or inclination.

The key steps are:

1. Capture some detail for everyone that has contact with your company (email is the absolute minimum) - as a customer or via marketing promotions, websites, networking etc. in a database. Why go to the effort of spreading the word and raising awareness about your business if you never know who is interested? 
2. Use this information to improve your understanding of your marketplace and to keep your contacts informed and up to date on what you are up to - it's not all about sales messages, share your knowledge and expertise to build your company's reputation.
3. Make it easy for them to get back in touch with you and to pass on information to others.
4. Commit to this strategy for the long term - don't stand still (up grade and improve) but stopping and starting erratically will not help you maintain a consistent presence in the market.  So when you are deciding whether to use email, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc. build gradually and develop a routine you can handle!

Obviously in order to learn a lot from your database you need to be capturing more information about the customer, their business, their location and anything else that is specific to your market.  If you do go to all this time and trouble (as you should) then please make sure you use the database to help your decision making and to target your messages effectively to the different groups, or segments, within your base.  There are plenty of free or very reasonable database systems available on the internet now if you want to upgrade from just using your address book or a spreadsheet (but they are at least a start!).

Using automated systems have other advantages too.  If you are planning to send an e-newsletter, emails or write a blog then it makes sense to link it to a specially designed email marketing system that makes it easy to capture details, send out your messages, and track how many people are reading them.  The other advantage is that these systems provide an easy way for people to opt-out of your mailings - which you must provide if you don't want to fall foul of Data Protection Legislation.  On that note, if you are creating an electronic database it is worth checking if you need Data Protection Registration - you can find a really good guide to this on the Business Link website.

In today's communications rich world not staying in contact is an unforgiveable sin - how far you take it is up to you!  Sit down and plan it out - it could be the most cost-effective marketing action you take this year.  And if you need any help then get in touch!

Some might call it foolish, but this week I attempted to get 20 small businesses to draft themselves a marketing plan in just 2 hours.  The seminar was hosted by the Canterbury Christ Church University Small Business Forum and I needn't have worried - everyone was game and up for it and it worked even better than I hoped.  Clearly a plan produced in 2 hours is only a rough draft, but getting off the mark is often the hardest part.  And from the feedback everyone managed some sort of 'penny-dropping' moment that would change what they did next back at the office.

I was at pains to stress that it is not having a beautifully polished plan that is most essential (especially if it stays in the drawer) - just forcing yourself to do the thinking that is involved in creating a plan can make a big difference to how you focus and prioritise your resources, i.e. work out what you should really be spending your time and money on to get the results you want to see.  True for any planning process but a marketing plan is differentiated from other business or financial planning by the fact that it is externally rather than internally focused, relating directly to your market and your customers. 

Planning is something that few people I meet relish having to do - indeed I know that some of you would run a mile in the opposite direction rather than be forced to create a plan.  But deep down we all know it is something we should be doing, something that could help us avoid other potentially very expensive mistakes. 

In the seminar we worked, at a very fast pace, through the main areas that comprise a marketing plan - information about the business, analysis of the market, and the Marketing Mix action plan (product, price, place and promotion) that can then be created.  While I know promotion is the area everyone wants to get to in their marketing, it is deliberately last on the list because the decisions you make about your promotions after completing the thinking and analysis stages will be so much better, and will undoubtedly help you avoid expensive mistakes!

I'm confident that we proved that with just 2 hours planning you can make a difference - but I'm now looking forward to when we all meet up again in 6 weeks time to share how much more progress everyone has been able to make, and what impact their plans are already having on their business.  I'll keep you posted!

Whether I'm coaching a new client in marketing or creating a programme for them, one issue that we focus on getting straight right up front is what business they are really in.  As I boringly say time and time again, marketing is about focusing on the customer, so describing your business from the customer's viewpoint rather than your own is an important place to start.

The answer is not about what you sell - it is about what the customer is looking to buy.  Take some everyday examples:

• Do you want glasses - or do you want to be able to see?
• Do you want a drill - or do you want a hole in the wall?
• Do you want to rent a flat - or do you want a new home?
• Do you want a photographer - or do you want to capture the memory of your wedding/kids etc.?
• Do you want a personal stylist - or do want to look good?

You get the idea.  At a recent seminar on Successful Selling (presented in conjunction with Ben Turner of The SalesPro Online Magazine) our delegates struggled, as so many of us do, to articulate their features in terms of benefit to the customer.  But turn it around and focus on what the customer is really looking for and the question is slightly different.  Not just what benefit does your product/service deliver - but is it one that will make a difference to a customer (and not just one customer but, hopefully, a whole group of them)?  If you can't offer a benefit the customer is prepared to pay for - do you have a viable business anyway?

The answers will help you communicate the difference you can make, but will also drive innovation in your products and services.  Thinking too narrowly about what you do can put you out of business when the markets move on - for example companies that think they are in the business of CDs but are really in music are going to be put out of business by the downloading of files.

If you're not sure what customers are really looking for or what they want from whatever you provide then the best thing is to ask the question.  You can ask your customers, ask the people who chose not to buy, ask friends, family, business contacts.  Talking it through will help you crystallise the answer to the question 'what business are you in'?  Armed with that information you can develop your offerings and marketing promotions to present your customers with something they will really value, something that will solve their problems more effectively than any competitors can.

What business are you really in?

This week I'm delighted to welcome a guest blogger, Neil Edwards from The Marketing Eye:

If I had a pound for every time I’d heard someone say: "we tried marketing once and it didn’t work", I could have retired long ago.

Not only does the phrase betray a lack of understanding of what marketing really is, it is often a reliable indicator of how the fateful marketing programme will have been run in the first place.

Despite many advances in knowledge and information sharing, marketing remains one of the least understood of the business disciplines. Shrouded in mystery, and slippery in its accountability, it is a topic that everybody has an opinion on and most people believe they can do better than the marketing department.

Marketing isn’t rocket science, nor does it demand significant creativity or originality (albeit a little imagination helps). Largely it is a matter of process, understanding of the human psyche and persistent effort – otherwise known as hard work.

Most marketing programmes operate like this:

A marketing campaign will be sent out. The target buyer will respond or not (most often not). Any orders will be followed up (hopefully) and the remainder will be discarded and forgotten.

This formula applies whether we are talking about a direct mail campaign, e-shot, advert, trade show or any other form of marketing.

Is it any wonder that responses are typically way below 1% and that there is no return on investment?

To run a marketing campaign in this way borders on insanity. No regard is given to the buying process and little respect is given to the intelligence and needs of the buyer. In other words, the campaign is not buyer centric.

In earlier posts, I have referred to Jolles model of the buying process and the stages that we all go through when considering a purchase. The stages apply whether it is an impulse buy or a major capital investment – all that changes is the speed with which we go through the phases and potentially the number of people that will be involved in the decision.

If we take a step back for a moment, it is clear that the buying process is highly sophisticated. The buyer operates under a whole range of influences:
– Past experience
– Peer group comment
– Social media
– Google searches
– Webinars / Seminars / Events
– Advertising / direct marketing

While advertising and direct marketing still has a role, we as buyers are much more resistant to it. We like to feel that we are researching and finding our own solutions and only want to engage the sales person in the final stages of the buying process, when our mind is pretty much made up.

An intelligent marketing programme therefore needs to take account of the buying process and run like this:

The buyer will be engaged at all stages of the buying process with methods and content that are appropriate to where he or she is in the cycle.

In the consideration phase, which may be conscious or unconscious, we need to be educating and informing to stimulate interest. This could be with White Papers, blog posts and press releases or indeed with advertising and direct mail – it is the content that is important, not the medium of delivery (which should be varied).

Once the buyer has decided to act, he or she will then start to work out exactly what they want from their purchase. Case studies, product sheets and seminars can be useful in this phase.

When the criteria are defined, the buyer will then start to look for solutions to meet those needs. Past experience, peer group recommendations and web searches will all come into play.

If our previous engagement programme has been successful, we will be firmly on the consideration list – and potentially the only name on it.

The process of converting a prospect into a client can take many months – years in some cases. Jolles tells us that we spend 79% of our time in the consideration phase, umming and ahhing over whether we have a need or not. Our marketing contact programmes must therefore be multi-faceted and continuous.

Of course, the process doesn’t stop when our product or service has been selected. We need to keep engaging the client to make sure that our solution has properly met the need and then stay in touch to ensure retention, repeat purchases and up-sell.

When we look at the buying process in this way it is obvious that simple outbound campaigns are destined to fail. Marketing must comprise multi-touch activity that builds dialogue and engages the prospect at all stages in the buying process.

The theory, when converted to practice, produces results. Recent research by Forrester Consulting showed that businesses that market successfully:

1. Focus on lead generation as a process
2. Profile and segment prospects based on customer behaviour (not just demographics)
3. Design content that builds dialogue
4. Employ some form of lead scoring / prioritisation measure
5. Nurture prospects that are not yet ready to buy
6. Make certain that marketing works collaboratively with sales

The Forrester research further shows that these businesses enjoy a more robust pipeline, better customer insight, improved marketing and sales accountability and ultimately improved marketing ROI.

What more can anybody want?

Neil Edwards, Managing Director, The Marketing Eye

Acknowledgements

How managing leads pays off in a stronger, more qualified pipeline - Forrester Consulting November 2009

Adam Needles - Demand Generation Blog 2009-10