Are you ready to launch your next B2B product or service? Be sure you're also ready to extend the steady, lasting, often diversified, effort to generate sales leads.
-DON'T assume that one tactic alone, be it enhanced SEO or pay-per-click (PPC) advertising or whatever, will meet your lead generation needs... that is not likely
-DO know that, for every message point you need to deliver, you should employ multiple media to reach more ears and wallets
-DO accordingly plan that you must make the most of every marketing dollar, which may drive some of the techniques you employ
-DO leverage every form of digital marketing appropriate – considering as well that digital marketing can be very cost-effective – leveraging your own website (including the home page), creating an ongoing stream of relevant content marketing including a blog, issuing eblasts to your stakeholders, boosting both organic and paid SEO, and taking full advantage of social media relevant to your launch
-DON'T neglect more traditional venues, from trade shows and speaking engagements, to print and digital media relations, print and digital advertising, and direct mail to key decision-makers; being contrarian can separate you from the crowd
-DO encourage industry experts to vet and review your new offering, but not until you're confident it's ready
-DON'T stop. The old adage is still true: When you are sick and tired of delivering that same message, your intended audience may just be starting to pay attention
-DO get help. Launch marketing and lead generation is both science and art, and you will maximize your ROI by working with a strong, qualified launch marketing team.
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
Providing best value to the exceptionally busy client
Most days, the typical vSA client does not wake up thinking about marketing. vSA provides business-to-business (B2B) launch marketing, and our client is very often the VP of engineering or sales, a divisional manager, a product development guru, or perhaps the company president or CEO. The marketing role is a "bonus." And, in virtually every case (including when we deal with a full-time marketing executive) the vSA client is very, very busy.
Please note, we are not talking about the kind of "busy" where someone dashes about, creating a flurry of activity. No, we're referring to the productive person who travels weekly to work with multiple, distant customers; or who develops or reviews important engineering specs or new product prototypes; or answers daily to a board or parent company; or must assure a sales team meets its revenue numbers. (Sometimes this is "and" rather than "or.")
So, vSA deals with the exceptionally busy client, which means we play a role we truly relish. Often, vSA provides all the outside marketing for the company. Our client relies on us – trusts us – to meet important business goals, on time, on budget, and in a manner that makes the client company (and our client contact) shine.
Specifically, vSA must...
-Provide smart strategy and program implementation... as independently as warranted
-Assure very proactive forward movement on marketing, even when our client is devoting the lions' share of her time to other matters
-Do our homework, so that the questions we ask and the information we need isn't something we could have learned online or in the public record
-Ping the client efficiently for real needs – specific information, approvals at key junctures, etc.
-Keep the client in the loop when successes happen or milestones are achieved
-Alert the client for any challenges that require his attention, preferably also providing recommended solutions
-Supply the client with new opportunities and optimized ways to achieve business goals
-Meet and exceed the client's needs
B2B marketing – from launch marketing to social, media relations to inbound, and especially complex integrated programs – is a tremendous boon for the exceptionally busy client, assuming that client has a marketing partner who cares and knows how to make the right things happen. We do that.
Illustration © 2002 van Schouwen Associates, LLC, by Steve van Schouwen.
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