I discussed positioning in my previous post when I had written about the individual brilliance of David Mamet and how he had, perhaps inadvertently, positioned himself as a macho and direct-to-the-point writer in our minds.
This led me to ponder about one of the definitive books on positioning called Positioning – The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout.
Here are my thoughts on this brash but still relevant book.
» Read more: Positioning – Thoughts on Al Ries & Jack Trout’s book
The B2B selling process is long-drawn and ranges from a few months to a few years. It’s no surprise then, that businesses should focus on leads that are highly relevant. Sometimes, a lead from a Fortune 500 company may not be the right one simply because they’re very price sensitive or their purchase is a straight re-buy or there’s a lack of fit between your products and their needs.
So, it’s essential to qualify the nature of the lead to a point where you know the urgency of the business need, the budgets involved, the participants in the buying process and finally, the time of decision-making.
Here are 6 parameters that are required to be predefined in order to completely qualify a lead and take it into the next step of your prospecting process. » Read more: B2B Lead Qualification – 6 Critical Criteria
This sure aint easy. You want to enter or expand in a market where someone is a dominant player who has excellent distribution, is strongly positioned as the leader and has a few brand extensions. What do you do?
Situation : You’re a runner-up firm in a certain industry and you want to enter/ expand. Start with the basics. Ask yourself what you would like to accomplish here. » Read more: How to grab Market Share from an existing leader
Opinions can be caustic. At least, mine was when I heard about Amazon’s Kindle. And, of course, I’ve been proved wrong. Kindle’s success has been quite strong, if not spectacular.
Here’s something I wrote last year about my thoughts on Kindle having limited sales prospects. Needless, to say, I’ve already eaten my share of humble pie. » Read more: My Mea Cupla about Kindle
Every new generation is refreshing. It’s because they are about change. Marketers selling to the youth or young adult demographic are always trying to catch up in terms of understanding their current preferences. The unique, highly relevant and exciting subset of the young adult market is the college student market.
How big is this market? Well, in 2008, there ware about 22 million students enrolled in full-time and part-time schools in the US. That’s a serious chunk of marketing potential. Here is a brief writeup on the psychographic makeup of the college student market: » Read more: The Dynamics of the College Student Market
B2B firms operate differently from B2C firms. They have fewer (but larger) customers, the products sold are in a semi-finished form, the sales cycle is lengthier and product pricing usually is much higher.
One aspect of marketing that B2C firms have been using effectively has been social media. In contrast, B2B businesses are struggling with the question of social media in their marketing plans. rightly so, it is a different but challenging medium. Well, here are some tips on how B2Bs can use social media today.
» Read more: 4 Step process for B2B firms to use social media
Yesterday, Adobe announced that it had agreed to buy analytics firm Omniture for $1.8 billion in cash, or $21.50 a share. This purchase is a major and rather unexpected diversification for Adobe with a move into the high-growth SaaS market on which Omniture focuses. According to Adobe’s CEO Narayan, their customers wanted to integrate Adobe’s online products like Flash with services like those offered by Omniture, hence the deal.
Yeah, right! And Disney bought Marvel because they wanted to have a Spiderman/Mickey Mouse teamup. Here’s what probably happened… » Read more: The Adobe-Omniture Deal
B2B purchases differ from B2C purchases in many ways even though they both meet a need. B2B buying varies in the sense that a company has policies and purchasing processes in place that decide the order in which the buying decision is made.
For B2B marketers, it’s important to understand the characteristics of B2B buying behavior (including the purchasing process as well as the influencers involved) in order to create effective marketing programs to reach the buyers. » Read more: Understanding B2B Buyer Behavior
You are currently browsing the archives for the Marketing category.
© 2010 Marketing Bones · Proudly powered by WordPress & Green Park 2 by Cordobo.
Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional | Valid CSS 3
