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Posted via web from Michael Wachholz’ “EasySMBMarketing.com” – Easy Marketing Strategies & Tactics To Build Sales & Increase Profits Without Hassle
Do you make promises or committments to others you don’t realize? Check out new “Michael’s Marketing Minute” on this topic at http://www.easysmbmarketing.com/vids.html
Posted via web from Michael Wachholz’ “EasySMBMarketing.com” – Easy Marketing Strategies & Tactics To Build Sales & Increase Profits Without Hassle
I came across this and thought it could be helpful to some.
Written on 4/24/2009 by Ashlea Wheeler. Ashlea is a young woman currently working in Print Production but hoping to start her own tourism business.
Do you get jealous of the couple next door? You know, the people who seem to have everything including a big house, nice car, and leftover money for holidays with the kids? Don’t be. Set your sights and make it happen.
I am currently building a house, about to go on a trip overseas, and planning on starting my own business in the next few years. All of this and I’m only 20 year old and admittedly on a very low income. How do I do it?
I’m going to let you know how I achieve all those big goals that so many people think they can’t do. You can’t just wait around for the perfect opportunity because more likely than not, it will never come. Create your own opportunities and you will get what you want.
This list sounds simple because it is. There is no reason for anyone to sit and wallow in regret or doubt when it comes to hitting goals. Make it a simple process that allows for a slow progression and you’ll see just how simple it can be!
Posted via web from Michael Wachholz’ “EasySMBMarketing.com” – Easy Marketing Strategies & Tactics To Build Sales & Increase Profits Without Hassle
(from the Boston Biz Journal)
The chief executive of EMC Corp. said Thursday he believes the freefall in global technology spending is nearing its nadir.
“We believe the global IT spending environment has reached — or is very near — the bottom,” said Joseph Tucci in a statement accompanying the Hopkinton, Mass., IT infrastructure giant’s first quarter earnings. “We expect IT spending to improve in the second half of 2009 as customers will have better budget visibility, be further through their own restructuring programs and broader stimulus packages should be underway.”
The comments come as EMC (NYSE: EMC) reported a 9 percent drop in revenue year over year to $3.2 billion and a 23 percent year over year drop in net income to $194.1 million or 10 cents per share. Analysts were expecting earnings of 16 cents per share on revenue of $3.3 billion.
Despite Tucci’s statement, the company said its “best estimate” on global IT spending growth in 2009 is high single digits to low double digits, with the vast majority of the growth coming late in the year. Second quarter spending is expected to be flat compared with the first quarter.
EMC Chief Financial Officer David Goulden said the company is taking additional cost cutting measures that will save an additional $100 million this year. The cost savings will be a 5 percent cut in pay for all salaried employees and a 10 percent cut in pay to EMC board members. Earlier this year, EMC announced a $350 million cost savings program that shaved the workforce by 2,400 jobs.
The company also warned investors that the IT spending environment will result in lower gross margins in 2009 compared with last year.
One bright spot for the company was the performance of VMware Inc. (NYSE: VMW), which is majority owned by EMC. VMware’s revenue grew 7 percent year over year to $470.4 million.
Shares of EMC were down 21 cents to $12.45 in morning trading.
Posted via web from Michael Wachholz’ “EasySMBMarketing.com” – Easy Marketing Strategies & Tactics To Build Sales & Increase Profits Without Hassle
13 April 2009 – Denver, CO
EasySMBMarketing with both it’s general Small Business website (www.easysmbmarketing.com) and it’s companion IT marketing web site (www.easystechnlologymarketing.com) announced the “EasySMBMarketing YouTube Channel” at www.youtube.com/easysmbmarketing. The first video on the site is a the debut of a new series called, “Michael’s Marketing Minute” where Michael will provide a quick video marketing tip in about 60 seconds. These tips will cover a wide range of topics and will give the viewer a brief tip on marketing thier small business or small IT/MSP business.
Also available for the youTube channel is the ability to receive a RSS feed alerting interested parties to new videos as they are posted.
Posted via web from Michael Wachholz’ “EasySMBMarketing.com” – Easy Marketing Strategies & Tactics To Build Sales & Increase Profits Without Hassle
19 February 2009, Denver, CO
Members of the Rocky Mountain Region Microsoft Small Business Server User Group partner with 9News BizTech Line to provide Free Call-In Tech Support. Joe Axne, President of Denver-based IT Guru, LLC. (www.IT-Guru.net) and President of the Rocky Mountain Region Microsoft Small Business Server User Group stated, “The is the third year our group has been invited to partner with 9News and staff the phones to help users with a wide variety of their computer issues, challenges and frustrations. It’s certainly a privilege to be asked to provide expertise to the public in this manner.”
The Microsoft Registered Partners participating in the 9News BizTech line are:
Joe Axne, President, IT Guru, LLC. (www.it-guru.net) Luke Wignall, Managing Partner, Common Knowledge Techology, LLC. (www.ck-tek.com)
Jason Blanckaert, President, Platinum Computer Services, Inc. (www.platinumcomputer.com)
Eric Mosher, President, Dynamic Data Technology Group, Inc. (www.dynamicdatatech.com)
The Microsoft Small Business Server User Group is a group of IT Professionals, IT Vendors and IT Service Providers dedicated to providing high quality technical support and managed services to SOHO (small office home office) and SMB (small and medium business) businesses.
Marketing and Public Relations services provided by EasySMBMarketing.com
Posted via email from Michael Wachholz’ “EasySMBMarketing.com” – Easy Marketing Strategies & Tactics To Build Sales & Increase Profits Without Hassle
EasySMBMarketing has signed a partner agreement with Swiftpage, an on-demand and marketing automation supplier.
Press release and other info to follow.
Posted via web from Michael Wachholz’ “EasySMBMarketing.com” – Easy Marketing Strategies & Tactics To Build Sales & Increase Profits Without Hassle
(A followup to Jon Miller’s 14 June blog post.)
Michael G. Wachholz
Now that we are officially in a recession (at least in most states), it seems like more and more marketers are looking for tips and ideas about how to adjust their practices given the macro-economic conditions.
For the past two months, the number one post on my blog has been “7 Strategies for B2B Marketing during a Recession: The Definitive Guide“. Originally published in June, what’s really dramatic is how quickly it’s ramped up since September when the crisis really took hold. Take a look at the Google Analytics report:
Put another way, that’s a 1,300% increase in searches, clicks, and page views on that topic in just seven weeks, and yet another way, each and every day more than 35 people are typing “marketing in a recession” into Google and clicking through to read that blog post. (And, when they get there, they are really spending time reading it, spending almost four and half minutes on average on the page.)
What does all this mean? It means that now, more than ever, marketers need to:
Do you have any additional tips for marketing in a recession If so, please share!
Posted via web from Michael Wachholz’ “EasySMBMarketing.com” – Easy Marketing Strategies & Tactics To Build Sales & Increase Profits Without Hassle
I thought this was a particularly good piece and there are several other pieces and websites noted that some could find helpful While Marketo is really focused on the larger side of the medium sized business on up to the Fortune 1000 business, the concepts described are solid and with some adjustment for execution, applicable to the smaller SMB business. This piece was originally posted 14 June 08 and things have definitely become much worse since then. Michael G. Wachholz
Should B2B marketers change their strategies during a recession? Does a recession always mean marketers have to work even harder to find ways to do more with less? Can a recession create opportunity for smart marketers to grow and thrive? These are some of the topics I recently explored on a panel at the SMX Advanced conference in Seattle.
Are we in a recession?
First off, let me explain I do not think we’re in a recession in the US — yet. A recession requires two quarters of negative growth in GDP, and Q4 last year saw 0.6% growth while preliminary numbers for Q1 this year were 0.9% growth (Bureau of Economic Statistics).
So we may not yet be in a recession, but times are growing increasingly difficult for consumers. The subprime mess is real, exorbitant energy and food costs are cutting into discretionary spending, and the weakening dollar is importing inflation to our economy. According to How I Spent My Stimulus, the $152 billion stimulus package is going primarily to reduce consumer debt or to pay for higher gas and food costs, i.e. it is not going to stimulate incremental spending.
What this means is that we are in the worst possible non-recession. Prior downturns avoided becoming a (global) recession because of the resilient American consumer. This time, it looks like we won’t have that saving grace — meaning things may still get worse before they get better.
What does this mean for B2B marketing and advertising?
Fewer consumers means less demand; less demand means that efforts to stimulate demand (i.e. marketing) are less effective overall. Put simply, when people buy less, advertisers spend less. According to research firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson, US advertising dropped 9% in the 2001 recession while Internet advertising fell a whopping 27%. I should point out that this slowdown applies to business-to-business marketers as well because of second- and higher-order effects, i.e. as consumer spending drops, the businesses that sell to those consumers reduce their spending as well.
However, these overall numbers hide two important facts:
What this means is that a recession will accelerate the decline of interruption-based mass advertising that simply shouts your message to customer. In its place we will see increased growth in measurable and relationship-based strategies such as search marketing, email marketing, lead nurturing, and online communities.
A downturn can also create opportunity for the companies that are more efficient at turning marketing investments into revenue, since there will be less competition overall. In a study of U.S. recessions, McGraw-Hill Research found that business-to-business firms that maintained or increased advertising expenditures during the 1981-1982 recession averaged significantly higher sales growth than those that eliminated or decreased advertising. In fact, by 1985 companies that were aggressive recession advertisers grew their revenue over 2.5X faster than those that reduced their advertising.
Seven strategies for B2B marketing during a slowdown
Given these macro economic trends, how should you allocate your marketing budget — and time? Here is my definitive guide to B2B marketing during a downturn:
1. Use lead management to maximize the value of each lead. In a recession, risk-adverse buyers take even longer than normal to research potential purchases. When you first identify a new prospect (regardless of whether they downloaded a whitepaper, stopped by your booth at a tradeshow, or signed up for a free trial) they are more likely than not still in the awareness or research stage and are not yet ready to engage with one of your sales reps. What this means is you need lead scoring to identify which leads are highly engaged, and lead nurturing to develop relationships with qualified prospects who are not yet ready to engage with sales. Without these capabilities, as many as 95% of qualified prospects who are not yet sales-ready never end up turning into a sales opportunity. These prospects are valuable corporate assets that you worked hard to acquire — so in a down economy you need to do everything possible to maximize value from them. Implementing even a simple automated lead nurturing program can yield a 4-fold improvement in the conversion of qualified prospects into sales opportunities over time. That’s a dramatic improvement marketing return on investment! Net-net: Companies that can do a better job of managing leads and developing early-stage prospects into sales ready leads will be in the best position to thrive in a downturn.
2. Focus on your house list. In a recession, you may have less money to spend on acquiring new customers. The solution is simple: spend more time marketing to (and building relationships with) the people you already know. Some activities that can help you get the most out of your existing relationships include lead nurturing campaigns, creating new content to offer to existing prospects, and cleaning and augmenting your marketing lead database with progressive profiling.
3. Build and optimize landing pages. When times are tough, it’s more important than ever to maximize the return on your advertising. Whether you are using Google AdWords, banners, sponsorships, or email campaigns, a dedicated landing page is the single most effective way to turn a click into a prospect. MarketingSherpa’s Landing Page Handbook shows that relevant landing page can easily double conversions versus sending clicks to the home page, and testing your pages can increase conversions by another 48% or more. Together, these tactics alone can result in 2.5X more leads for every dollar you spend, something that’s sure to look good in tough times. However, MarketingSherpa also reports that most companies are under-using this important technique: just 44% of clicks for B2B companies are directed to the home page, not a special landing page, and of B2B companies that use landing pages, 62% have six or fewer total pages. A recession is perhaps the best time to focus on some of these basics.
4. Content for later in the buying cycle. When buying slows down, you need to focus more than ever on making sure you are finding the prospects who are actually ready to buy — or even better, make sure they are finding you. One great way to do this is to focus your offers on content that will appeal to someone who’s actually looking for a solution (as opposed to thought leadership and best practices content, which can appeal to prospects who may one day have a need but are not currently looking). Examples of this kind of content can include “Top 5 Questions to Ask a Potential Vendor” whitepapers; buyers guides and checklists; analyst evaluations; and so on.
5. Appeal to the nervous buyer. A recession can mean more risk-adverse buyers, which may lead to a tendency to go with “safe” solutions. This is fine for large established companies, but it means younger companies need to do more than ever to reassure and build trust. Tactically, this means including customer references, reviews, expert opinions, awards, and other validation as part of your marketing. Strategically, a recession means fewer risk takers and visionaries, so take a lesson from Geoffrey Moore’s Crossing the Chasm and use methods that appeal to mainstream pragmatists: industry-specific marketing tactics and solutions; vertical customer references; relevant partnerships and alliances; and whole product marketing.
6. Align sales and marketing. Today’s prospects start their buying process by interacting with marketing and online channels long before they ever speak with a sales representative. This means companies must integrate marketing and sales efforts to create a single revenue pipeline. The old days of functional silos and poor communication between the two departments must end. A tougher selling environment, driven by a recession, means this is more true than ever.
7. Don’t be a cost center. Most executives today think that Sales delivers revenue and Marketing is a cost center. Marketers are partly to blame for part of this mindset, since when we use metrics such as “cost per lead” we frame the discussion in terms of costs, not in terms of impact on revenue. More subtly, using language like “marketing spending” and “marketing budget” instead of “marketing investment” perpetuates these beliefs. In a recession, marketing needs more than ever to change these perceptions. This means that marketing investments must be justified with a rigorous business case and should be amortized over the entire “useful life” of the investment. And it means marketing must increase marketing accountability by demonstrating the impact of each marketing activity on pipeline and revenue. Of course, this is easier said than done, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. Even small steps, like reports that show the total opportunity value for each lead source or campaign, can make a big impact.
Conclusion
Even if we aren’t in a recession, we are in for some tough economic times — and an economic slowdown means a tendency to scale back marketing spending. However, research shows that a downturn creates opportunity to accelerate growth faster than your competitors. This means it may be the best time to step up your marketing — at least in quality if not quantity. The marketers that focus on getting the most out of every dollar spent and on demonstrating marketing’s impact on revenue and pipeline will be well positioned to come out of the slump looking like a star.
Posted via web from Michael Wachholz’ “EasySMBMarketing.com” – Easy Marketing Strategies & Tactics To Build Sales & Increase Profits Without Hassle
I thought this was a particularly good piece and there are several other pieces and websites noted that some could find helpful While Marketo is really focused on the larger side of the medium sized business on up to the Fortune 1000 business, the concepts described are solid and with some adjustment for execution, applicable to the smaller SMB business. This piece was originally posted 14 June 08 and things have definitely become much worse since then. Michael G. Wachholz
Should B2B marketers change their strategies during a recession? Does a recession always mean marketers have to work even harder to find ways to do more with less? Can a recession create opportunity for smart marketers to grow and thrive? These are some of the topics I recently explored on a panel at the SMX Advanced conference in Seattle.
Are we in a recession?
First off, let me explain I do not think we’re in a recession in the US — yet. A recession requires two quarters of negative growth in GDP, and Q4 last year saw 0.6% growth while preliminary numbers for Q1 this year were 0.9% growth (Bureau of Economic Statistics).
So we may not yet be in a recession, but times are growing increasingly difficult for consumers. The subprime mess is real, exorbitant energy and food costs are cutting into discretionary spending, and the weakening dollar is importing inflation to our economy. According to How I Spent My Stimulus, the $152 billion stimulus package is going primarily to reduce consumer debt or to pay for higher gas and food costs, i.e. it is not going to stimulate incremental spending.
What this means is that we are in the worst possible non-recession. Prior downturns avoided becoming a (global) recession because of the resilient American consumer. This time, it looks like we won’t have that saving grace — meaning things may still get worse before they get better.
What does this mean for B2B marketing and advertising?
Fewer consumers means less demand; less demand means that efforts to stimulate demand (i.e. marketing) are less effective overall. Put simply, when people buy less, advertisers spend less. According to research firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson, US advertising dropped 9% in the 2001 recession while Internet advertising fell a whopping 27%. I should point out that this slowdown applies to business-to-business marketers as well because of second- and higher-order effects, i.e. as consumer spending drops, the businesses that sell to those consumers reduce their spending as well.
However, these overall numbers hide two important facts:
What this means is that a recession will accelerate the decline of interruption-based mass advertising that simply shouts your message to customer. In its place we will see increased growth in measurable and relationship-based strategies such as search marketing, email marketing, lead nurturing, and online communities.
A downturn can also create opportunity for the companies that are more efficient at turning marketing investments into revenue, since there will be less competition overall. In a study of U.S. recessions, McGraw-Hill Research found that business-to-business firms that maintained or increased advertising expenditures during the 1981-1982 recession averaged significantly higher sales growth than those that eliminated or decreased advertising. In fact, by 1985 companies that were aggressive recession advertisers grew their revenue over 2.5X faster than those that reduced their advertising.
Seven strategies for B2B marketing during a slowdown
Given these macro economic trends, how should you allocate your marketing budget — and time? Here is my definitive guide to B2B marketing during a downturn:
1. Use lead management to maximize the value of each lead. In a recession, risk-adverse buyers take even longer than normal to research potential purchases. When you first identify a new prospect (regardless of whether they downloaded a whitepaper, stopped by your booth at a tradeshow, or signed up for a free trial) they are more likely than not still in the awareness or research stage and are not yet ready to engage with one of your sales reps. What this means is you need lead scoring to identify which leads are highly engaged, and lead nurturing to develop relationships with qualified prospects who are not yet ready to engage with sales. Without these capabilities, as many as 95% of qualified prospects who are not yet sales-ready never end up turning into a sales opportunity. These prospects are valuable corporate assets that you worked hard to acquire — so in a down economy you need to do everything possible to maximize value from them. Implementing even a simple automated lead nurturing program can yield a 4-fold improvement in the conversion of qualified prospects into sales opportunities over time. That’s a dramatic improvement marketing return on investment! Net-net: Companies that can do a better job of managing leads and developing early-stage prospects into sales ready leads will be in the best position to thrive in a downturn.
2. Focus on your house list. In a recession, you may have less money to spend on acquiring new customers. The solution is simple: spend more time marketing to (and building relationships with) the people you already know. Some activities that can help you get the most out of your existing relationships include lead nurturing campaigns, creating new content to offer to existing prospects, and cleaning and augmenting your marketing lead database with progressive profiling.
3. Build and optimize landing pages. When times are tough, it’s more important than ever to maximize the return on your advertising. Whether you are using Google AdWords, banners, sponsorships, or email campaigns, a dedicated landing page is the single most effective way to turn a click into a prospect. MarketingSherpa’s Landing Page Handbook shows that relevant landing page can easily double conversions versus sending clicks to the home page, and testing your pages can increase conversions by another 48% or more. Together, these tactics alone can result in 2.5X more leads for every dollar you spend, something that’s sure to look good in tough times. However, MarketingSherpa also reports that most companies are under-using this important technique: just 44% of clicks for B2B companies are directed to the home page, not a special landing page, and of B2B companies that use landing pages, 62% have six or fewer total pages. A recession is perhaps the best time to focus on some of these basics.
4. Content for later in the buying cycle. When buying slows down, you need to focus more than ever on making sure you are finding the prospects who are actually ready to buy — or even better, make sure they are finding you. One great way to do this is to focus your offers on content that will appeal to someone who’s actually looking for a solution (as opposed to thought leadership and best practices content, which can appeal to prospects who may one day have a need but are not currently looking). Examples of this kind of content can include “Top 5 Questions to Ask a Potential Vendor” whitepapers; buyers guides and checklists; analyst evaluations; and so on.
5. Appeal to the nervous buyer. A recession can mean more risk-adverse buyers, which may lead to a tendency to go with “safe” solutions. This is fine for large established companies, but it means younger companies need to do more than ever to reassure and build trust. Tactically, this means including customer references, reviews, expert opinions, awards, and other validation as part of your marketing. Strategically, a recession means fewer risk takers and visionaries, so take a lesson from Geoffrey Moore’s Crossing the Chasm and use methods that appeal to mainstream pragmatists: industry-specific marketing tactics and solutions; vertical customer references; relevant partnerships and alliances; and whole product marketing.
6. Align sales and marketing. Today’s prospects start their buying process by interacting with marketing and online channels long before they ever speak with a sales representative. This means companies must integrate marketing and sales efforts to create a single revenue pipeline. The old days of functional silos and poor communication between the two departments must end. A tougher selling environment, driven by a recession, means this is more true than ever.
7. Don’t be a cost center. Most executives today think that Sales delivers revenue and Marketing is a cost center. Marketers are partly to blame for part of this mindset, since when we use metrics such as “cost per lead” we frame the discussion in terms of costs, not in terms of impact on revenue. More subtly, using language like “marketing spending” and “marketing budget” instead of “marketing investment” perpetuates these beliefs. In a recession, marketing needs more than ever to change these perceptions. This means that marketing investments must be justified with a rigorous business case and should be amortized over the entire “useful life” of the investment. And it means marketing must increase marketing accountability by demonstrating the impact of each marketing activity on pipeline and revenue. Of course, this is easier said than done, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. Even small steps, like reports that show the total opportunity value for each lead source or campaign, can make a big impact.
Conclusion
Even if we aren’t in a recession, we are in for some tough economic times — and an economic slowdown means a tendency to scale back marketing spending. However, research shows that a downturn creates opportunity to accelerate growth faster than your competitors. This means it may be the best time to step up your marketing — at least in quality if not quantity. The marketers that focus on getting the most out of every dollar spent and on demonstrating marketing’s impact on revenue and pipeline will be well positioned to come out of the slump looking like a star.
Posted via web from Michael Wachholz’ “EasySMBMarketing.com” – Easy Marketing Strategies & Tactics To Build Sales & Increase Profits Without Hassle
