Marketing efficiency takes a hit!

More and More over the last month I've seen continued examples of companies striving for marketing efficiency but not really knowing where to start.

My advice - cut out all the marketing 'fluff' and concentrate on your objectives. Look at what you want to achieve (more sales, more customers, better coverage) and work back towards what you need to fix first. Then the important bit.....

Don't ignore it! It won't go away or lessen in impact if you decide to go ahead and put your money into the sexy stuff that looks fun.

Here's just one example - your database.... I know, it's a problem and seems too big to work out but is it really?? If you look for effectiveness and efficiency you might decide that it needs re-contacting, moving or simply deleting and starting again. The benefits of doing this first will pay back with real results in the long term when you do get to send out emails and telemarketing as a result.

Don't want to preach here but it's time we learned some lessons and applied some common sense to this ongoing problem. Would love to hear your thoughts on this!

Keeping the faith with your resellers

Events over the past week have shown me that being able to identify and work with the right resellers is really worth working on. But which resellers and what do you work on??

Back in the day it always used to be about relationship. Having a relationship with the right partners and you have an extension to the sales team. This gave you two important elements to your strategy - Focus and Trust - without these your channel policy becomes a hit and miss affair!

Bring back Relationships!

Today, reduced margins and more competition have resulted in many resellers looking to broaden the solutions they offer, introduce services that compete with the vendor and generally work harder to find/keep customers.

Well before the economic downturn, vendors began to look for ways to engage with resellers and re-connect with these extended sales team. With less money and more competition for business, maybe its time to bring back the role of relationships to re-ignite the focus and trust now so lacking in the current model.

Where to begin....

Planning your channel objectives and having strong values on how to encourage and support partners is a great start. Talking to partners before committment to long term investment is another - but easier said than done when a deal is on the table.

Trust is harder to find because it begins with one side sharing competitive information and unique selling points. You have to give a little to show partners the encouragement that you want them to work with you and accept that sometimes this information may get into the wrong hands - but if you are working closely with these guys (which by now you should) then this will be very obvious and costly to those who don't want to play.

Maybe this is only our view - but one which we'll keep seeing for some time to come...