Marketing Consulting

Marketing Consulting is a huge field. In this context we understand it as the umbrella of all non-electronic Marketing activities. These may vary depending on your type of business: your industry, B2B or B2C and the size & structure of your Marketing and Sales organisation, to name but a few. To make things as simple as possible, here is a typical list of  Marketing activities that we run with or for our clients. Many of them have a strong interface with Internet Marketing activities. In fact, in today's marketplace, there are less and less Marketing activities which are not affected by the Internet. In many cases the ultimate goal of most of these activities is to generate direct sales or business leads that can be converted into sales:

• Marketing Goals & Strategy: This is often not fully clear in the first place. Especially budget restrictions and sales goals need to be considered.
• Event Marketing and Business Associations: Internet Marketing can do a lot to increase the traffic on your exhibition stand. And vice versa, the leads you have gathered from the show can be followed up with a mix of Internet Marketing activities and, of course, your Sales Team following up. Also, many event organisers have lots of your target traffic on their website, and links from them to your website can increase your Search Engine results. The same applies for event organisers' industry newsletters. Business Associations often offer excellent opportunities for networking and sponsoring their websites and events.
• Public Relations (PR): Since increasingly more content channels such as magazines and forums have gone online, PR itself becomes increasingly ePR. On the other hand, PR agencies producing press releases and case studies can contribute enormously to the success of any Internet Marketing concept. What it takes is someone, who integrates their results with the Internet Marketing activities which may use the produced content to generate valuable prospect feedback and on-going communication.
• Advertising: Most of today's classic channels such as magazines, radio and TV have excellent websites and run a mix of internet and non-internet advertising packages. For instance, special interest channels and eBroadcasts on the Internet can produce invaluable prospect data of highly targeted focus groups.
  Analyst Relations: In the B2B sector, especially in the High Tech industries, but also in some B2C industries Analyst Relations are a crucial part of each Marketing programme. The influence of these opinion leaders, mainly the global Market Research companies, cannot be underestimated. They may accept that you use their general opinions about your business topic on your electronic media and in your Marketing collateral. Further, it is valuable to learn about the Market challenges from a neutral perspective in order to adapt the own product & service offering accordingly.
• For larger Corporations the concept of Corporate TV has gained more and more attention. Especially for companies with many workers in the field without internet connection (e.g. railway and construction companies) and for corporations with highly complex products (e.g. health industry).

There is a lot more to say about integrating your Internet Marketing with the rest of your Marketing activities which only makes sense to discuss one to one. However, here is a list of questions to give you some guidance for your business planning. They may sound simplistic, but our experience shows that it is often these simple questions which are not clear yet:

1. Which problems does your product/service solve? Who has got this problem? Describe the business challenge,
    the owner of this challenge and where it is coming from.

2. Which solution do you propose to meet this challenge? What are the key benefits and the costs?

3. Who did you already do this for? Describe your clients' initial challenges, the solution you provided at the time,
    the results and your clients' feedback.

4. Who else offers similar solutions as you do? Why should any client pick you instead of them? Be honest to
    yourself.

5. How will your clients hear of your existence? This refers to your Communications and Channel Marketing:

• Internet Marketing
• Telemarketing
• Mailing campaigns
• Events
• PR/ePR
• Analyst Relations
• Resellers/Distributors
• Online Business Networking
• Advertising & Sponsoring
• From your existing clients

6. What kind of material do you apply to teach your future clients about your products and services?

• Brochures (printed and electronic)
• Presentations
• Films & Trailers
• Reports & White Papers (topic related)
• Podcasts & Audio Files
• Articles & Success Stories
  
• Demos
• Websites

7. What is your lead generation process? Which steps do you go through with a prospect until (s)he will buy from
    you?

8. What are the results?

• How many leads did you generate through each channel using your material?
• How much revenue and how much profit did they bring in?
• How much revenue and/or profit had you planned for the same period?
• If you compare what you have planned and achieved - are you satisfied with the results?
• If you are not satisfied: How many more leads of which size (in revenue and profit) would you need to meet your planned goals given your Sales Team's current conversion rate. Depending on your type of business, you may calculate alternatively with direct sales you need to make.
• What would you have to do to achieve this (if so) additional number leads (or sales)?

 

Get in touch now for a free telephone consultation: info@jmoellerconsulting.com or +44 (7811) 353 996.