Marketing Craftmanship

DECEMBER 28, 2016

For some firms with strong competitive instincts, this often becomes a lengthy, arduous process involving strategy sessions, dedicated teams, and even outside consultants who specialize in award submissions. Entering any industry award competition, if your firm is serious about winning, takes time and resources. Yes, they do exist.)

Enterprise Management 100

Enterprise Management Work Management Marketing Management Aggregators 100

Marketing Craftmanship

JANUARY 5, 2020

Here are some tangible and intangible factors that, on an individual and combined basis, can drive marketplace opinion on whether you or your firm is a “safe choice”: Transparency: Is information regarding your firm’s philosophy, products / services, processes and people available and easily accessible?

RFP 165

RFP Thought Leadership Opinions Validation 165

Marketing Craftmanship

SEPTEMBER 2, 2014

Many B2B companies, and professional services firms in particular, do not succeed at marketing for two major reasons: Failure to understand that the vendor selection process has fundamentally changed. Failure to respond properly to the new vendor selection process. At the upper limit, the responses ran as high as 70%.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership WOM B2B Marketing Thought Leadership 100

Marketing Craftmanship

NOVEMBER 12, 2015

Because most companies believe their situation and the challenges they face are unique, suggesting otherwise usually will end the sales process. What’s important to remember is that, regardless of the target industry, your credentials are only one part of the sales process.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Peer-to-peer Thought Leadership B2B 100

Marketing Craftmanship

AUGUST 18, 2017

For decades, the ONLY way to produce any type of printed material – ranging from sales & marketing brochures, to annual reports and informational flyers – involved a multi-step, time / people-intensive, costly process requiring a copywriter, graphic designer, a typesetter and a printing press.

Marketing Automation Services 100

Marketing Automation Services Sales Qualified Leads Marketing Automation High Quality Lead 100

Marketing Craftmanship

MAY 13, 2020

If the process yields any new customers, the event is considered a success. With few exceptions, the standard webinar protocol is to create an agenda that (directly or indirectly) highlights the company’s capabilities, and engage a webinar technology firm for logistics.

Blast Campaigns 130

Blast Campaigns Webinar Metrics Lead Scoring Lead Ranking 130

Marketing Craftmanship

AUGUST 31, 2018

PROCESS CONSISTENCY — B2B firms often start out with the best intentions to communicate regularly with target audiences, but lose momentum for two reasons: they’ve not assigned adequate resources, or they are not truly committed to the program. Senior management must make CRM discipline a priority.

Work Management 100

Work Management Marketing Management Marketing Automation Services CRM 100

Marketing Craftmanship

AUGUST 23, 2017

Here are 10 tangible and intangible factors that, on an individual and combined basis, can drive market opinion regarding your company’s brand integrity: Transparency: Is information regarding your company’s mission, core values, processes and people available and easily accessible?

Paid Search Agency 100

Paid Search Agency Thought Leadership Opinions Validation 100

Marketing Craftmanship

FEBRUARY 5, 2013

Every practitioner should play an active role in that process by generating relevant content – in the form of blog posts, bylined articles, case studies, industry updates, slide presentations, etc. that can be merchandised by the firm to keep the firm in play. Ask for Referrals – This is a tough task for most account practitioners.

B2B Sales 100

B2B Sales Cross-Selling Work Management B2B Marketing 100

Marketing Craftmanship

JUNE 19, 2015

He knew I was motivated, and different from those applicants who were willing to participate in his selection process. The restaurant manager had a few good reasons to put me on his short list. Your B2B firm must find meaningful ways to differentiate itself and showcase tangible assets.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership B2B Word of Mouth Thought Leadership 100

Marketing Craftmanship

JANUARY 10, 2015

Any firm that operates without a formal plan (which should be simple, and not require a lengthy process to create), eventually becomes a victim of “trust me it’s working” marketing. So understanding of a firm’s investment process, rather than brand mystique, is at least as important as its track record as a driver of asset flows.

Practices 100

Practices Planning Enterprise Management Transparency 100

Marketing Craftmanship

NOVEMBER 17, 2011

PROCESS CONSISTENCY – Firms often start out with the best intentions to communicate regularly with target audiences, but lose momentum for two reasons: they’ve not assigned adequate resources, or they are not truly committed to the program. Senior management must make CRM a priority.

Sales Cycle 100

Sales Cycle Marketing Management Lead Nurturing Sales Qualified Leads 100

Marketing Craftmanship

JUNE 28, 2016

Most often, however, the sheer volume of first-class mail processed every morning by office gatekeepers made it more likely that your personalized pitch letter and costly sales brochure would end up, unopened, in the garbage can. Dead on arrival.

B2B Marketing 100

B2B Marketing B2B Paper Work Management 100

Marketing Craftmanship

MAY 22, 2017

Founders looking to jump-start an initiative to build an enterprise-based brand should consider going cold turkey, simply by disengaging themselves from the marketing & sales process altogether. This can be accomplished in a discrete manner, or in a more dramatic fashion.

Enterprise Management 100

Enterprise Management Work Management Marketing Management B2B Thought Leadership 100

Marketing Craftmanship

DECEMBER 22, 2015

The Marketing Department will manage the content creation process, suggesting topics and prompting individuals to contribute their posts according to a schedule. Content creation will be an internal group effort, with people / departments taking turns contributing blog posts on a regular basis.

Allocation 100

Allocation Terms and Conditions Paid Search Agency Enterprise Management 100

Marketing Craftmanship

FEBRUARY 5, 2015

Here are 10 tangible and intangible factors that, on an individual and combined basis, can drive marketplace opinion on brand integrity: Transparency: Is information regarding your firm’s philosophy, products / services, processes and people available and easily accessible?

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Enterprise Management Brand Identity Branding 100

Marketing Craftmanship

FEBRUARY 7, 2017

The central, unspoken issue embedded within the selection process for any type of B2B firm is easy to understand. And firms that understand this market dynamic, and work to build a marketing strategy to address the underlying human issues, can gain market acceptance and compete effectively against larger and better-known competitors.

Paid Search Agency 100

Paid Search Agency Companies B2B Thought Leadership Thought Leadership 100

Marketing Craftmanship

JUNE 11, 2015

This second diagnostic question, regarding the practical benefit of marketing activity, is actually an integral part of the marketing plan development process. Every tactic that’s included in your marketing plan requires its own response to “How will we measure results?”

Planning 100

Planning Trade Show Paper Marketing & Strategy 100

Marketing Craftmanship

DECEMBER 29, 2014

How an investment firm manages its enterprise brand alpha should be part of the due diligence process for investors.

Enterprise Management 100

Enterprise Management Work Management Brand Identity Branding 100

Marketing Craftmanship

NOVEMBER 29, 2013

What was once a painstaking research process now involves a few keystrokes. Standard PR procedure at most firms and agencies is based on “shotgun” tactics designed to reach as many media sources as possible, relevance or interest notwithstanding. Conversely, more schools are pumping out graduates with PR degrees.

Public Relations 100

Public Relations PR Blast Campaigns Press 100

Marketing Craftmanship

JULY 1, 2013

In fact, the acid test of effective Thought Leadership should not be based on your CEO’s level of satisfaction in seeing her byline in print.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership Merchandising B2B Thought Leadership Wikipedia 100

Marketing Craftmanship

APRIL 8, 2016

It’s a rationalization of why (most often bad) things happened, and provides no real perspective on the manager’s thought process. Too often, investor communication consists of boiler-plate, generic language that regurgitates news media headlines on the macro-economic factors that influenced portfolio performance.

Allocation 100

Allocation Cross-Selling Marketing Management Validation 100

Marketing Craftmanship

NOVEMBER 30, 2014

Over time, as more practitioners gain seats, including PR in the corporate decision-making process is likely to become standard practice, rather than the exception.

PR 100

PR Enterprise Management Work Management Marketing Management 100

Marketing Craftmanship

MARCH 16, 2013

LinkedIn has become an essential part of the business world’s due diligence process, and your company is conspicuous by its absence. Build Your LinkedIn Presence. LinkedIn is 3x more effective for demand generation than either Facebook or Twitter. Unfortunately, few companies take full advantage of LinkedIn’s social media potential.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Merchandising B2B 100

Marketing Craftmanship

AUGUST 14, 2015

Here are some ways to make this process simpler and more effective: Create a repeatable format, such as an interview series, a partner letter, or hypothetical (or real) case studies. For many firms, the database creation is relatively easy; but content development can be extremely difficult because it takes time and planning.

Paid Search Agency 100

Paid Search Agency Advertising Agencies Planning B2B Thought Leadership 100

Marketing Craftmanship

FEBRUARY 13, 2015

Ideally, your website should express institutional values, explain investment processes, showcase human capital, provide examples of thought leadership and include inherent 3 rd party endorsements. It’s not a sales pitch or report card.

Transparency 100

Transparency Thought Leadership Planning Enterprise Management 100

Marketing Craftmanship

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

For example, to quantify the tangible value of PR, it could be beneficial for the profession to conduct research that compares the long-term stock price volatility (or beta ) of public companies that include PR in its senior level decision-making process against those companies that do not.

Public Relations 100

Public Relations Work Management PR Ethics 100

Marketing Craftmanship

JANUARY 13, 2017

Unsolicited pitch letters, when they succeed, can also be an extremely effective way for your firm to avoid the RFP process…by anticipating their needs, you enable the targeted company to skip the beauty contest altogether. Think of your program simply as a long-term seed-sewing process, and shoot to send out 3-5 pitch letters every week.

RFP 100

RFP Lead Scoring Lead Ranking Tactics 100

Marketing Craftmanship

NOVEMBER 27, 2018

Unsolicited pitch letters, when they succeed, can also be an extremely effective way for your firm to avoid the RFP process…by anticipating their needs, you enable the targeted company to skip the beauty contest altogether. Over time, you’ll see tangible results. to cover in a single blog post.

Effectiveness 124

Effectiveness Business RFP Lead Scoring 124

Marketing Craftmanship

APRIL 12, 2011

It’s a single, albeit important step in a multi-step process that BEGINS with defining a very specific business outcome the media placement will help to achieve, if the 3 rd party endorsement is properly merchandised. Media placement is “credibility tool” generation.

Merchandising 100

Merchandising Verticals Press Marketing Prospects 100

Marketing Craftmanship

AUGUST 21, 2012

But Augusta National’s bullying isn’t limited to their admission process. And they should make a lot of noise in the process. As punishment, Augusta forced Gates to eat crow for several years before he was allowed to wear a member’s green jacket.

Class 100

Class Validation Transparency Profiling 100

Marketing Craftmanship

MARCH 27, 2013

Increasingly, prospective customers do not believe white papers will be helpful or credible, and as a result, they no longer play a critical role in their decision-making process for purchasing products or services.

Paper 100

Paper Paid Search Agency Advertorials Allocation 100

Marketing Craftmanship

MARCH 7, 2016

Sales Process: If you think this means endlessly sending out emails and making phone calls, you’ve flunked this part of the quiz as well. Lots of funds have websites, but very few of those sites provide meaningful insights into the firm, or deliver compelling reasons for investors to learn more about them.

Social Media 100

Social Media Work Management Marketing Management Media 100

Marketing Craftmanship

FEBRUARY 10, 2012

He works ON his business, not AT his business – Dalio understands that intellectual capital, enterprise experience and operational systems & processes must be captured, documented and integrated into the day-to-day decision-making of a firm. Institutional and personal transparency is the cornerstone of Bridgewater’s corporate culture.

Enterprise Management 100

Enterprise Management Work Management Transparency Marketing Management 100

Marketing Craftmanship

JULY 5, 2013

This enduring one-sided focus on the aversion of legal risk not only has precluded many organizations from opportunities to manage their brand reputation effectively, but has also emasculated the Public Relations profession in the process.

Public Relations 100

Public Relations Advertorials Mobile Advertising PR 100

Marketing Craftmanship

JULY 6, 2011

I can tell you that my colleagues coast to coast and border to border have condemned this whole process of lawyers getting on television to talk about cases they don’t know a damn thing about,” Mr. Mason said. Mason’s rant aside, no one denies that loudmouth Nancy Grace, pop shrink Dr.

Television marketing 100

Television marketing Aggregators Fulfillment Opinions 100

Marketing Craftmanship

NOVEMBER 9, 2017

Because a restructuring strategy’s success will rely, in some measure, on their cooperation and support, a communication plan should be heavily weighted in tactics designed to keep them informed and to give them a voice in the process. Anticipate Unpleasant Surprises.

Brand Identity 100

Brand Identity Branding Urgency Marketing Enterprise Management 100