Three Marketing "Must Dos" for 2014

If you do nothing else this year to boost sales and generate leads, do the following three things:

1.    Implement Search Engine Optimization so prospects will find you.
2.    Revise your website copy for keywords and phrases so your web copy is relevant to your prospect’s information needs.
3.    Implement a monthly email program to create Top of Mind Awareness for your company.

If you need help with any of these, NM Marketing Communications (NMMC), LLC can help. We are a leading business-to-business marketing firm serving clients nationally and internationally from our headquarters in suburban Chicago. We are an ideal choice to be your marketing firm because:

•    Google currently rates us No. 1 for B2B marketing planning and auditing services.
•    We are experienced in industrial and event marketing.
•    We know how to get results for our clients

But it isn’t enough to take your marketing to next level if you don’t take your business up a notch. As you move forward into 2014, consider how you will make your company more attractive to prospects.
1.    What three things will you do to improve quality?
2.    What three things will you do to improve service?
3.    What three things will you do to justify a price increase?

May I suggest that you throw these challenges at your management team for discussion… more importantly… for action.

For more ideas on how to build your business in 2014, call or email NMMC at 847.657.6011 or info@nmmarketingbiz.com

Does Your Brand Really Matter?

Many B2B companies or service businesses struggle with the concept of their brand.  Some organizations think of their brand only at the most rudimentary level – as a combination of logo, colors, design and taglines that they might use on their website or printed materials.  Others may have a deeper understanding that branding extends to the company’s personality, price, service and customer interactions. 

But however they consider their brand, many B2B organizations think that branding is something that’s only important for well-known, nationally advertised consumer products.  Granted, major consumer products companies can invest a lot of marketing dollars to reinforce their image.  But even without that advantage, companies should pay careful attention to their brand.

That’s because in one sense, perhaps the most important sense, a brand is a promise.  As Lois Geller explains in “Why A Brand Matters,” (Forbes.com, May 23) when you think of some top brands, such as McDonald’s Coca Cola or Apple, you immediately know what they promise.  The combination of a brand’s attributes creates an impression in the customer’s mind.  For instance, Geller says, when think of Volvo, your first thoughts are probably going to be something like “well built, comfortable, Swedish” and, most of all, “safety.”

The good news is that you don’t have to be a major company to create your own particular brand attributes.  In some respects, reinforcing a set of brand attributes for a B2B company is easier because you have a much more focused customer base. The other advantage is that you probably have more direct contact with customers, making the role of employees in reinforcing the brand vitally important. 

Employees should know what your brand stands for and what their roles are in supporting the brand. This is particularly true as social media and other communications methods have given customers methods to share their experiences – both good and bad – at light speed.  A failure to live up to a brand promise, whether through a poor sales experience or a faulty product, can quickly snowball into a full-fledged crisis of confidence among customers.  Studies by the U.S. Office of Consumer Affairs show that a dissatisfied customer may tell as many as 11 people about his or her experience,
and each of them will tell others.

If your company needs to work on defining your brand’s promise, here are some questions we use with NMMC clients:
• What is your company's mission?
• What are the benefits and features of your products or services?
• What do your customers and prospects already think of your company?
• What qualities do you want them to associate with your company?

Answering these questions about your brand will pay big dividends.

Websites Create Sea Change in Business Strategy

There’s no question that if you are running a business today, no matter how small or large it is, you need to have an online presence. This is true whether you are selling consumer products that can be purchased directly online, or are in the business-to-business arena utilizing a sales force or distributors.

While there are many reasons to have a website in today’s digital environment, there are two basic reasons. First, it adds credibility to your business. It wasn’t too long ago that the Internet was considered a transient form of communication. The prevailing attitude among many businesses and their customers was that you needed print brochures, catalogs and other physical materials to show you were a real company. Now, people question the existence of your business if they can’t find you on the web. Also, your website can be a non-stop promotional tool. Websites are visible 24/7, and they don’t ask for vacation or take a sick day.

Beyond these very elementary reasons for having a website, B2B companies have another compelling motivation to make sure they have a strong web presence. The Internet has brought about a sea change in buyer/seller relationships. The availability of information and greater pricing transparency has shifted power to the buyer. At the same time, the Internet has created new methods for marketers to have one-to-one dialogue with customers rather than relying on mass marketing methods. These changes have transformed the way B2B companies target customers and communicate with them, as well as often altering the role and approach of your sales force.

There’s a report on our website that you can link to here that discusses this new paradigm for sales and marketing relationships. This shift is one of the many reasons to give careful thought to how you create, design and maintain your website. I’ll discuss some of the reasons, along with examples of the website success achieved by some of our B2B clients, in a future blog.