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Defining Market Opportunity—You Be the Judge by Kevin Horne
At its core, market opportunity is your sizing forecast for a specific product or service, now and over the next several years. At a minimum, you should know that information in terms of sales dollars. A solid understanding of opportunity ...
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Recruiting Executives and Industry Experts for Qualitative Research by Scott Swigart, Sean Campbell
Your studies are not appropriate for participants found on purchased lists, and the participants will take part in a series of in-depth interviews. So how do you find your interviewees?
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Start Smart: A 10-Step Social Media Guide for B2B Marketers
by Christina "CK" KerleyThere's no escaping it, marketers: Amid a flurry of headlines, bestsellers, and reports documenting social media's meteoric rise... the future has arrived. But for a B2B executive tasked with making sense of it all, wouldn't it be nice if the ...
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Top 5 Elements of an Annual Business Plan by Donna Bletzinger
It's that time again: the end of another fiscal year. Time to assess this year's successes and start planning for next year. What does that mean? It means it's time to write your business plan.
A business plan can be hundreds ...
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Live Together, Suffer Alone: Understanding the Cross-Channel Mix (and Why Yours May Not Be Working) by Keith Kochberg
Today's marketers are challenged to implement multiple techniques—from search to affiliate to media advertising and more—to achieve different results. Each channel has its own set of rules, its own potential results, even its own manager (whether outsourced or in-house) to ...
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Rethinking the Focus Group by Gavin Johnston
The focus group has lost favor in recent years as marketers seek a more experiential process for gathering customer insights. Although it has lost some luster, the focus group still holds the potential for providing powerful, usable insights.
The trick to ...
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Talk to Me: 10 Tips for Translating PR Results Into the Language of Business by Diane Thieke
As communications experts, we should find it easy to convey the value of our services to the business managers in our organizations. Yet many public relations professionals struggle with expressing results in a way that allows senior executives to easily ...
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Three Essential Market-Research Methods in an Online Community by John Kembel
How much do you know about your customers right now, at this moment?
A lot of companies can show you composite profiles that describe their target customers, including job titles, needs, obligations, and goals. No doubt about it: It's important to ...
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Marketing in a Recession: What Do the Studies Really Tell Us? by Christian Shea
Have you heard this one? "All the research shows that companies that spend on marketing during a recession come out ahead of the competition as the economy rebounds."
It's a catchy buzz phrase—and if people believe it, even better. But here's ...
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Boost Your Business With Seven Easy Digital Marketing Techniques for Lead Generation
by Yael K. PennGrowing your in-house database should be at the top of every marketers list. Why? When done correctly, it will house your most-qualified and responsive prospects. Though organic list growth may take time and effort, you will love the rewards. Consider ...
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How to Become 'Their Brand': Engaging Today's Fickle Customers by Manila Austin
Marketers today understand that consumers think, feel, and react in ways different from June Cleaver some 50 years ago. We use descriptors like fickle, indecisive, and disloyal to describe the modern consumer.
Just what do these terms mean? Mainly, they mean ...
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Whether and How to Build a Branded Customer Community
by Kimberly SmithFirst, there were blogs. Next came mass-market social-networking sites. Now some companies are bringing it all under one roof and hosting their own interactive online customer communities. Should yours be doing the same?
Well, to quote an oft-quoted answer, "it depends."
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Four Parts to Valuable Personas by Angela Quail
Recent buzz about personas has created some confusion. If you've tried to develop and deploy personas, you may have experienced resistance from other departments because they don't grasp the value that personas purportedly provide. The reason may be that personas ...
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Podcast: Keynote Dan Ariely Reveals the Hidden Forces That Shape Irrational Behavior by Paul Dunay
We design our marketing campaigns for "rational" buyers. But do buyers ever act rationally? In a preview of his keynote at the MarketingProfs event next month, NY Times bestselling author and MIT Prof Dan Ariely talks about the irrational factors ...
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MarketingProfs 'Classic Truths': Top Five Do's and Don'ts of Opt-In Email List Building by Teri Dahlbeck
We all know some tried-and-true tips and tricks for building an email list. But there are five key points to consider and five glaring points to avoid when creating opt-in lists from the very start.
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Making Market Research Useful... Not Just Interesting by Reg Price, Neil Stewart, Katie Shaw
A wise but anonymous marketer once said that a market research report that gets described as "interesting" has failed. It's only when it's "useful" that it gets the pass mark. After all, what's the point of interesting research if it ...
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Four Questions for Choosing the Right Research Firm by Ed Erickson
There are many market research firms out there, from tiny consulting firms to huge multinational corporations. With all those choices, how do you find one that will best fit your company's needs?
Don't be intimidated. Be inquisitive. Ask these four questions ...
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Business Intelligence Is Not an Algorithm by Ron Halverson
Marketers can no longer rely on only quantitative data to address an issue. Qualitative tools, such as advanced video analytics and "day-in-the-life" sketches, are needed to unearth the deeper insights—the where, when, and how much—to make decisions that stick.
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The 10 Biggest Mistakes Marketers Make—No. 9: Failing to Market Marketing Inside Your Organization
by Roy YoungAs a marketer, you regularly cultivate your company's brand so customers know what the firm and its products stand for. As the following story reveals, you must draw on these same skills to let others within your organization know that ...
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Ten Steps to Starting a Company Blog
by Mack Collier