My Marketing tips

Archive for June, 2009

Why Buy A Ferrari If Youre Living On A Dirt Road?

If your dream home is 5 miles from the nearest paved road what would the true cost be to purchase and get “value” from a Ferrari? Well if getting “value” from a Ferrari is taking advantage of the handling acceleration and car’s appearance the rough up front cost for the Ferrari would be as follows:

* Ferrari = 250000
* 5 miles of pavement = 4000000

After you have made the upfront investment your maintenance costs per year would then kick in:

* Ferrari = 12500 per year
* 5 miles pavement = 100000 per year

The point being:

1. No one with 5miles of dirt road outside their front door would consider buying the Ferrari without first considering the cost and time associated with building a new road.
2. The cost of the Ferrari pales in comparison to the cost of the infrastructure road that will enable you to take advantage of what the Ferrari has to offer.
3. Ongoing maintenance of both the Ferrari and the road need to be considered

While the above scenario is admittedly absurd I would argue that this very scenario presents itself each and every week in sales and marketing organizations around the world. Surprisingly most organizations either do not consider or ignore the fact they have varying degrees of “roadwork” to do before they drop their money/budgets on a Ferrari!

That is a great number of sales and marketing organizations budget for and then spend significant amounts of money on the latest CRM SFA and lead automation solutions read Ferrari without taking into account the processes infrastructure and people read road needed to maximize value.

In my experience there are 3 primary drivers for why this seemingly inexplicable behavior continues to repeat itself over and over again within marketing and sales organizations.

1. “Roads” lead lifecycle management processes staff discipline and infrastructure typically take more time money and labor to build maintain. In addition after all the hard work to successfully build the “Roads” they are not very easy to “show off.” The “Roads” do not actually do anything or deliver anything they make the doing and delivering more efficient faster and consistent.
2. “Ferrari’s” CRM SFA Lead automation solutions have enormous marketing budgets behind them driving brand market demand and interest. As the saying goes there is not an easier person to sell to than a sales person and no one easier to market to than a marketer! “Roads” on the other hand are not feature rich web enabled tools supported by flashy sales presentations.
3. Lack of time “Budget”: The Average CMO tenure is still well under 2years. In 18months he/she can pull together an ROI and implement a CRMSFA or lead automation system in hopes of demonstrating their value to the executive team. There is little chance the CMO can fully evaluate the current condition of their “infrastructure” make the significant investment multiple’s of the Ferrari and deliver measurable ROI in less than 18 months. To be fair to the CMO most have their hands tied by head count limitations and ill conceived budget constraints that make doing the right thing fixing infrastructure all but impossible.

Regardless of the initial quality and performance characteristics of any software application or piece of equipment without the implementation of supporting processes execution of a proper maintenance plan performance and reliability will consistently deteriorate over time.

While the previous statement is not an epiphany to be sure most of the marketing sales lead management systems that are implemented today seem to ignore this simple fact. The end result is that many marketing and sales leaders are left spinning their wheels in the dirt wondering why their high performance feature rich systems are not delivering as promised!

About the writer:  Brian Steel is responsible for driving Performarks overall sales of lead lifecycle management solutions encompassing database services inquiry management lead generationand lead nurturing. He was a pioneer in the area core business process outsourcing sales and marketing working for industry leaders Kodak and Xerox. You can visit his blog at B2B Lead Lifecycle Management .

Direct Sales Home Party Plan Marketing Information : How Can Social Media Benefit My Business

The astute and very pleasant Direct Sales Consultant known by the handle The Traveling SalesWoman asked the following question of me?
You were the person who encouraged me to join Twitter and I’m so grateful for that! Can you share some further thoughts about Twitter and why home party business owners should join in that conversation?

Are you are brothers and sisters fan? If so you have not missed the obvious connection between Sarah Walkers Greenotopia company and its many references to social networks and social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter!

And if you dont know by now you are noone if you are not on twitter. I was amused to find that my vocabulary has changed considerably over the past year!

I am Youtubing plurking Facebooking tweeting blogging linking MySpacing texting and a host of other things too! All these are some of the most popular social media sites and as you can see things can get pretty hairy so I definitely recommend that you have a social media system.

Direct Sales Home Party Marketing Tip: Any task you do more than once NEEDS a procedure system or checklist!

Before Bill Gates no one had a personal computer! One man single handedly revolutionized the world with a dream…his dream was that every home would have a computer! His dream was to provide value to every single household in the world!

Even after Bill Gates created such an incredible tool that gave rise to the Internet Easy Online access amp; ECommerce; it STILL amazes me just how many people refuse are afraid and/or have not taken advantage of the power of the computer and the Internet! Computers as far as I am concerned are the best social media tools of course for the obvious reason without one you cannot access social media ? yep!

I told the travelling saleswoman that social media and social networks are all about relational capital. And like any thing social media marketing is an art form. The question I often get asked by home party consultants and direct sales reps. Is why dont they buy my product. The answer is simple you have written a check which came back with the red stamp mark insufficient funds! thanks Martin Luther King Jr. for that one.

You see people buy because:

i they know you
ii they trust you
iii they believe that you have the solution the problem which the face and
iv for status

People dont buy a product nor do they buy a feature and the benefits are as they are decided upon by the story they tell themselves. Your juice drink mwy help me loose weight. But the story I am telling myself is that I am going to look sexy finally that size 0 pair of jeans that I have seen on display for a year will be mine. I am going to get hit on by men.you get the picture? So if your pitch is not in line with my story

How does all this fit into social media and social marketing? Simple you are building relational capital by depositing in the bank of getting to know you getting to know all about you! And you are not only doing it with one person no you are reaching out to many in one shot!

There are people on these sites that follow you there are those that interact with you and those that want to see what you are about. The cool thing about social outlets is that you are King and Queen of your own little internet real estate King/Queendom!

Social media and social marketing is all about building that relational capital that gives you the all access pass to make your direct sales pitches to those who are ready able and willing to hear what you have to say and have the money to spend on what you have to sell. Do not underestimate the power of relational capital!

How else do you think Pres. Barack Obama did it? I will be holding a special in a week or so about the Pres. Obama Social Media Effect : How You Too Can Go From Zero To Hero!

For more on social media and how to use it effectively just google social media blog!

About the writer:nbsp;nbsp;And now you too can secure your own personal copy of
The Little Black Book Of Home Party Plans Success Secrets. This is a guide that will show you how to to STOP being a struggling home party consultant and put you on the path to becoming a 6Figure Home Party Success!

Affiliate Marketing Benefits
?Affiliates are an extension of your brand ensure that your brand carries the same good name it started with.? Affiliate marketing is one of the biggest advantages a business can when being online. A properly run affiliate program allows you to lower your costs create a fixed marketing costs control your marketing message on a vast scale mass promote through your affiliate network get your message in front of a bigger audience and be on the forefront of creativity and innovation. In an affiliate marketing campaign you pay your affiliates for sales that were generated through their marketing efforts of your products/services. For this article I will use the example of a business selling apples. Control Costs Example: You are selling apples online for 1.00 an apple and you create an affiliate program of offering 20 of sales. For every apple the affiliate sells for you they are entitled to 20 of sales or 0.20. The more apples they sell the more money they make and you make. This is money you otherwise would not have had. They will work hard with the marketing material you provide them and with their own tools skills and knowledge to promote your apples. Create Fixed Marketing Cost Since you are only paying the affiliate 20 your marketing costs are fixed at 20 for that specific traffic. This will allow you to scale your sales upward by simply promoting your affiliate program and the benefits to website owners that want to make some extra money by linking to your website that sells apples. Mass Promotions Through Networks Since your apples brand?s online presence is growing and becoming more popular you can start selling specialized green apples and relay this new product to all of your affiliates. Your relationship with your affiliates becomes stronger since you allow them to promote another great product for you and open the opportunity for them to make more money. Control Marketing Message on A Vast Scale You apple brand?s identity is very important so as part of your affiliate program your affiliate agree to not misrepresent your apples as another type of apple or fruit. Since all of the apples customers are tracked through the affiliate program you are able to tell whether some customers have been told by the affiliates that they were really buying oranges. You can now easily get rid of the ?bad apple? affiliates Pun intended and deal with the good affiliates that don?t hurt your brand. Bigger Audience Reach Since your network is made up of other website owners your brand is on website that normally would not have been and now you are making money you would not have been making without the exposure of the website owners/affiliates. The bigger your affiliate network is the more people that see and hear of your special brand of apples. Creative Innovations And Test Ideas Some affiliate might decide to create recipe websites using your brand apples as the secret ingredient. Some affiliates might open up candy apple stores using your apples exclusively. Others might do sponsor contests using your apples as the center piece like bobbing for apples or apple pie baking contests. Since your affiliate network is huge and has several affiliates working individually trying to promote your product uniquely different and creative ideas are created. One idea might work so greatly that you start using that for your own nonaffiliate marketing which further reduces your costs. Affiliate networks allow your brand a huge test ground for new promotion ideas with exciting and outside the box thinkers. Affiliate Marketing Affiliate Marketing has huge potentials for any business. Most big retailers and online brands have some sort of affiliate program since it allows them to reduce costs and expand their market reach without increasing their spending until there is a sale made. The real beauty is that you only pay for the marketing for apples you sell. So if no apples are sold you don?t pay your affiliate anything. To learn more about how affiliate marketing can help your online business grow contact Karma Snack today. Follow me on Twitter at: twitter.com/AdelardGasana.

About the writer:  Get advice on Affiliate Marketing Benefits for free. Karma Snack is an excellent cutting edge web 2.0 advanced Miami SEO Company learn more by visit their website.