Archive for the ‘market intelligence’ Category
Thursday, April 21st, 2011
By Barbara Bix
Shortly after I got up this morning, I strolled over to Marketing Over Coffee for a quick shot before heading off to work and found this great article, entitled How to restore the faded luster to marketing by Rich Guha. In my opinion, it’s a “must read” for anyone looking to build a business or aiming to build a career in marketing.
It’s about the big picture
Referencing management heroes such as Peter Drucker and Ted Leavitt, the article discusses what companies have lost as marketing becomes more specialized. Guha advises marketers that wish to add significant value to the business to:
Tags: 6 Ps, behavior, branding, buyer personae, click stream, customer, customer needs, Drucker, Leavitt, market intelligence, market value, Marketing, Marketing Over Coffee, marketing research, marketing specialization, priorities, strategy, tactics, value of marketing, value proposition, voice of the customer
Posted in Framework, How to, Internet marketing, market intelligence, Marketing communications programs, Marketing strategy, Pricing, Uncategorized, value propositions | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011
By Barbara Bix
This morning, I attended a program at the Massachusetts Technology Leadership forum featuring John Lewis, Regional VP of Sales, of athenahealth. John’s presentation centered on his company’s experiences of selling what he referred to as health care’s first cloud-based service.
Following on the heels of recent conversations, I’ve had with CIOs, about placing confidential patient data in the cloud; I expected John to tell us how he overcomes this objection. Instead, he spent the morning convincing us that operating in the cloud is his company’s competitive advantage. John supported this thesis with figures, facts, and logic.
Tags: athenahealth, cloud, collections, confidentiality, cost, data, data standards, efficiency, EMR, EMRs, health care, healthcare, knowledge management, meaningful use, privacy, reimbursement, revenue cycle, SaaS, standardization
Posted in health care, market intelligence, Marketing strategy, SaaS, Speaker notes, value propositions | No Comments »
Monday, March 21st, 2011
By Barbara Bix
I bookmarked today’s MarketingProf’s article entitled “Three tips for maintaining a solid voice-of-the-customer program”. And, I recommend that you do the same.
For one, it’s chock full of useful tools that companies can use to find out what matters most to customers–and why. For another, it provides a link to some great statistics captured by Right Now in their Customer Experience Impact Report 2010 that are a good reminder of the importance of great service.
It’s easy to assume that all customers care about is price
Tags: customer behavior, customer conversations, customer experience, secret shopping, voice of the customer
Posted in market intelligence, Marketing strategy, value propositions | 2 Comments »
Friday, December 31st, 2010
Recently, I lost my crystal ball. So, I won’t be adding to the posts about predictions for the new year. Instead, I took a look backward to see whether previous year end posts still apply. I think they do.
Learn from the past, capitalize on success
At the end of 2008, in Shorten the sales cycle next year: Year end marketing planning, I advocated taking stock of what worked and what didn’t—so that you can capitalize on your successes and avoid repeating what turned out to be mistakes. In particular, I suggested focusing on buyers’ perceptions in four areas: the desirability of the solutions, the reputation of the vendor, the effectiveness of the communications, and the responsiveness of the individuals leading the sales or business development effort.
Tags: buyer personas, buyers' perceptions, buying process, customer development, customer insights, customer research, demand generation, lead gen, market planning, online communities, sales cycle, sales enablement, web analytics
Posted in Internet marketing, market intelligence, Marketing communications programs, Marketing strategy, social media, social media marketing, Uncategorized, value propositions | No Comments »
Friday, December 3rd, 2010
Today, everyone is all a-twitter about the importance of being relevant. As they should be.
According to Marketo’s Andrew Spoeth, the average B2B buyer receives 20+ campaign touches per week. What this means is that prospects will only pay attention to that information they deem highly relevant to their situations.
Know prospects’ priorities
If we want to capture prospects’ attention, engage their interest, and ultimately win their business we need to speak directly to our prospects’ highest priorities. What that means is that we need a way of determining what these highest priorities are.
This is a preview of
Wondering what content your prospects find most relevant? Ask them.
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Read the full post (396 words, 4 images, estimated 1:35 mins reading time)
Tags: buying process, customer feedback, qualified prospect priorities, relevant content, win loss
Posted in market intelligence, Marketing strategy, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Monday, October 25th, 2010
In a recent post, Laura Ramos observed that business-to-business marketers have long struggled to reach decision makers and measure marketing results. She observed that they may encounter difficulties because they don’t spend enough time understanding who their best customers are and what distinguishes them–noting that understanding buyer behavior is much more than conducting customer satisfaction surveys or publishing success stories.
I found her post timely. I’ve been struggling with articulating the very concepts that she relayed so fluently as I revise own website.
Shorter sales cycles depend on deep customer insights
This is a preview of
B2B marketers struggle to reach decision makers and measure marketing results
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Read the full post (704 words, 4 images, estimated 2:49 mins reading time)
Tags: attract business, B2B marketers, behavioral data, business-to-business marketers, buyer behavior, buying criteria, buying process, customer research, customer satisfaction surveys, high-tech marketing, increase revenues, lead generation campaigns, marketing collateral, marketing processes, marketing systems, product managers, product marketing managers, professional services marketing, web analytics
Posted in market intelligence, Marketing strategy, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Monday, October 11th, 2010
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Boston is rapidly rebranding itself as what Boston Globe columnist Scott Kirsner, and perhaps others, have dubbed as the Innovation Economy. This week the focus was on marketing.
MITX, under the umbrella of FutureM, organized dozens of (mostly free) events dedicated to exploring and sharing how the newest technologies and insights are changing the way that marketers think, create, engage, and measure. It was information-packed, exhilarating, and exhausting.
This post focuses on what excited me most as a B2B marketing consultant. Hint: My company’s tagline is “using customer knowledge to increase sales”.
This is a preview of
The future of marketing will be all about customer data
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Read the full post (878 words, 5 images, estimated 3:31 mins reading time)
Tags: B2B marketing consultant, customer development, customer engagement, customer feedback, customer information, customer research, customer-centric, digital marketing technologies, FutureM, innovation, market need, marketing research, minimally viable product, web analytics
Posted in Buying process model, Internet marketing, market intelligence, social media marketing, Speaker notes, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Friday, August 13th, 2010
Last night, 50 Wharton alums gathered in downtown Boston to hear Professor Peter Fader speak about “The Paradoxes of Interactive Media”. Of special interest were Dr. Fader’s comments on how target marketing has changed. His message: when profiling your most promising prospects, focus on differences in behavior rather than demographics.
To illustrate his point, Dr. Fader looked at the data underlying a study that concluded that Hispanics were more likely to purchase DVDs than Caucasians. He began by acknowledging that the conclusion was accurate–but not particularly useful.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics
Tags: Boston, demographics, market segmentation, market segments, marketing campaigns, purchasing behavior, target marketing, trigger events, Wharton
Posted in Buying process model, How to, Internet marketing, market intelligence, Marketing communications programs, Marketing strategy | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010
Over the past six months, I’ve noticed heightened interest in market intelligence. To learn more, I interviewed marketing executives at several local companies to find out why–and summarized the results in The Secret to Success in a Down Economy: Market Intelligence published in today’s issue of MarketingProfs.
In this article, I discussed how one mid-sized company was using market intelligence to maintain its competitive edge and then asked readers if they had made similar marketing investment decisions. The article concluded with some questions to which I’d welcome your comments. They are:
This is a preview of
What role does market intelligence play in your company?
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Read the full post (193 words, 1 image, estimated 46 secs reading time)
Tags: competitive edge, down economy, market information, market intelligence, marketing executives, marketing investment, marketing messages, reach, target
Posted in market intelligence, Marketing strategy | 2 Comments »
Friday, February 12th, 2010
I was just reading Mashable’s post on Google Buzz. What struck me most is the potential social media has for empowering users to affect product development.
Google Buzz users “organize” to advocate for new features within days of product launch
Google announced Google Buzz earlier this week. Today, Mashable reported that it had received “just shy of 500 responses” within several hours of asking followers: “What features would you like to see in Google Buzz?”.
Just think about it. This is an incredibly inexpensive way to capture market reaction and present supporting evidence to a vendor you’re trying to influence. Let’s look at two alternatives.
This is a preview of
Will social media increase users’ influence over product development?
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Read the full post (377 words, 1 image, estimated 1:30 mins reading time)
Tags: Google Buzz, market reaction, market response, product development, product launch, social media
Posted in market intelligence, social media, Uncategorized | No Comments »
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