Business Mentor Weekly #30 – Develop Product Strategy

A product development strategy provides the framework to orient a company’s development projects as well as its development process. The strategy takes into account the company’s capabilities (strengths, weaknesses and core competencies), the competition’s capabilities (strengths, weaknesses, core competencies and strategy), market needs and opportunities, goals, and financial resources. ~ Kenneth Crow

Implement This Principle: Having a well thought out product development strategy keeps your product mix in line with your company strategy, it assures your development staff is working on things your company is well prepared to sell and support.

To Get These Results: Products developed are better received by customers resulting in better customer retention and higher sales.

Thoughts to Ponder: Product development strategies must create a “process context” for understanding and implementing several critical factors:

• Value, what the end customer considers value, not what you think he considers value
• Time to market
• Innovation, the type of innovation employed will effect product development success
• Costs, development and production
• Performance
• Quality
• Serviceability

Take Action: Develop your product development strategy taking into account the strategy development process outlined in Business Mentor Weekly #29, see

http://emeraldv3.com/PHPList/lt.php?id=YhgIAFJUAxoCCkkFV1Q%3D

Assure the strategy defines how the new product manifests the CEO’s passion. Develop litmus tests to validate your premise, for example; is our assumption about what our customers value correct; will our estimated time to market meet market needs; do we understand what type of innovation, if any, is being employed (see BMW #19 at www.emeraldv3.com/blog ); are the costs for development and production in line with our budget; can we substantiate performance per our requirements; can we maintain quality and serviceability.

Next Week’s Topic: Branding Strategy

Business Mentor Weekly #31 – Branding Strategy

“The proposition your brand strategy makes must be very compelling,
attractive and unique among competitive offerings. The proposition
must also be consistently reinforced throughout all phases of an
organization, from senior executives to customer service, research and
development, business development and even your business partners.” ~
Scott White

Implement This Principle: A branding strategy will guide you in the
branding process to assure your message stays consistent, that it
conveys what you need to communicate quickly and to the point.

To Get These Results: More effective branding means better name
recognition providing for increased market share, lower pricing
pressure and higher sales.

Thoughts to Ponder: Your branding strategy should take into account
color, shape and form, packaging, your logo, and unless your company
is a nationally recognized brand, it should include your value
proposition in the form of a tag line, whether seen or heard. When
people see anything you have in print, one the air, or on the web, the
message needs to be consistent and it needs to be uniquely you.

Take Action: Create a branding strategy using the techniques outlined
in Business Mentor Weekly #29. Ask yourself these questions; does my
customer see my company in a consistent manner; does my brand identify
what I do; does all my print literature and online content have the
same form with the same logo and the same message? If not, take steps
to bring them in to compliance with your branding strategy.

Next Week’s Topic: Develop Promotion Strategy

Business Mentor Weekly #32 – Sixty one Promotions & Strategies

Your promotion strategy should cover every communication mode that
would appeal to your target market and help drive them to not only be
aware of, but also to act on your offer. ~ Lee Ann Obringer

Implement This Principle: A well thought out promotion strategy
assures your company is spending money on promotions that matter to
your overall marketing plan.

To Get These Results: Lower costs of promotion and a targeted message
means increased market penetration and greater sales per dollar spent
on promotion.

Thoughts to Ponder: There are two basic types of promotions which
create consumer demand:

A push strategy; Sales force and trade promotion activities.
A pull strategy; Advertising and consumer promotion

Two other types of promotions are gravity and organic promotions,
which are a subset of a pull strategy.

1- Gravity marketing ties all elements of your marketing campaign
together through a consistent “linking” strategy where all
promotions point to one another and utilize consumer education through
news paper and magazine articles.
2 – Organic marketing makes use of your existing customer base and sales
process to induce new sales, in other words, word of mouth, coupons
that go out with each product etc.

Your promotion strategy should consider the following seven
categories:

• Advertising campaigns
• Public relations
• Direct marketing campaigns
• Promotions and events such as trade shows
• Marketing materials
• Premium items and sales
• Sales force and marketing channel distribution

Take Action: Pick the promotional activities which make since for
your company’s products and services from the following list of
suggestions. If you would like a spreadsheet which will assist you in
creating a forecast utilizing these techniques request them at
mike@emeraldv3.com.

Sixty one ways to promote your company’s products and services:

1. Ad exchanging with related businesses, on and off the web
2. Articles in magazines/Newspapers
3. Articles in Trade rags
4. Association Committees
5. Association Events
6. Blogging
7. Calendar Of Monthly Events
8. Coupons
9. Customer Appreciation Events
10. Direct Mail Campaigns
11. Direct Mail Catalog to Distribution
12. Direct mailing of catalog to consumers
13. Distributor Account Sales
14. Email Blast Campaigns
15. Email mailing of catalog
16. eNewsletter
17. Frequent user/loyalty incentives
18. Gift with purchase offers
19. Group promotions
20. Having online contests
21. Lunch and Learns
22. Luncheons
23. Mail in offers and rebates
24. Manufacturers Representatives
25. Networking Local
26. Newsletter
27. Online Networking sites – Linkedin
28. Paid Advertising (very effective)
29. Physical Introduction Letters
30. Place articles on news sites
31. Planning marketing techniques
32. Point-of-sale displays
33. Press promotional Activities
34. Press Releases – Do own press releases
35. Price discounting
36. Private Label Sales
37. Product listings on Auction and Shopping Sites
38. Public Relations Firm
39. Purchasing Ad space in Newsletters
40. Radio Programs
41. Radio Programs – Web
42. Refund and premium offers
43. Related website text Ads
44. Requesting visitors to Bookmark your website
45. Resellers
46. Sampling
47. SEO/RPL/SEM
48. Site Promotion on Forums and Blogs
49. Sponsorship Sales
50. Starting an Affiliate Program
51. Sweepstakes
52. Tabletop Shows
53. Television
54. Thank You Cards / Email
55. Trade Shows
56. Vehicle Wraps
57. Video
58. Web Resellers
59. Webinars
60. Website
61. Website Google PPC Ads

Next Week’s Topic: Promotional Planning

Business Mentor Weekly #33 – Promotional Planning

Depending upon the type of business you run, between ten to thirty
percent of your revenues should be pumped back into your business in
the form of advertising. A wise man once said, “The person who saves
money by not advertising, is like the man who stops the clock to save
time.~ Patsula Media

Implement This Principle: A well thought out promotional plan will
allow you to pick the lowest cost promotions for the greatest impact.
It will also guide your promotional efforts through the development of
a dated plan.

To Get These Results: A systematic way to plan your promotional
activities which provides the biggest return on investment over a well
planned time frame.

Thoughts to Ponder: A promotional plan consists of three modes of
marketing communication; promotion, advertising and public relations.
Successful promotion plans follow the following framework:

Vision – The big picture of what should be the outcome
Planning – How promotions will be done
Preparation – Success is in the details, create schedules, analyze
the market etct.
Execution – Execute the plan you have prepared for, adjust the
plan as required
Measurement – Measure each promotions impact, if the promotion
meets expectation, continue execution, if preparation was not
sufficient, return to the preparation phase and implement what you
have leaned, if the planning missed the mark, go back to planning and
make adjustments where necessary.

The “who, what, where, when and why” of promotion planning:

• What are you promoting?
• When do you promote?
• At what price are you promoting?
• What is your target market?
• Where and how do you advertise the promotion?
• How much advertising and promotional items do you need for the promotion?
• How do you tie the positive effects of the promotion to other products?
• What is your forecast for sales?
• Who else needs to be involved?
• Status of how well the promotion is going?
• How did the promotion perform?

Take Action: If you do not have a promotion plan make time in your
calendar to put one together. See last week’s newsletter for a list
of over sixty different types of possible promotions. At the very
least every company needs a list of the promotions they are either
committed to, or have plans to implement. Here are some important tips
on developing a promotion plan:

1. Create and stick to an advertising budget
2. Do not publish one time ads and expect returns
3. Advertise only where you know your customers are. For example, do not attend trade shows primarily attended by industry suppliers
4. Use an annual promotions calendar, preferably on a wall which is highly visible so as to attract lots of attention, especially the attention of those who will hold marketing accountable; keep itupdated and refer to it to determine lead time, publishing deadlines etc.
5. Do not place the same ad over long periods of time, alter the content
6. Never publish an ad without your Unique Selling Proposition
7. Avoid random advertising that has no purpose
8. Avoid advertising in mass media unless it uniquely specificallytargets your prospects
9. Find out where your biggest competitors have been spending moneyover a long period of time; note where they place ads and what theysay
10. Assure all your promotional activities promote your brand and your product
11. Assure all ads meet guerilla marketing tactics
12. Every promotion should point to every other promotion; your web site
13. should point to your newsletter, your blog to your magazine articles etc.
14. Use technology to automatically push your message to the web
15. Consider using offshore help for your web based advertising;
16. Use the web, it is the new yellow pages; make sure you have a website, a blog and a newsletter

Next Week’s Topic: Sales Strategy

Business Mentor Weekly #34 – Sales Strategy

The insight gained for a competitive advantage comes from the marketplace not from your mind. ~ Darrell Zahorsky

Implement This Principle: A well thought out sales strategy provides a framework, which brings both efficiency and effectively to the sale process.

To Get These Results: Consistent and higher close rates with better margins, lower cost of selling and higher yield on sales efforts.

Thoughts to Ponder: A Sales Strategy is a planned approach to account-management policy formation, prospect identification and qualification, sales presentation, and order generation aimed at achieving a firm’s sales quotas or targets. ~ BusinessDictionary.com

Knowing what your customer values and needs, coupled with knowledge of competitive offerings equips you to position your company’s sales strategy for greatest effectiveness.

Sales people need a structure within which to operate effectively. Sales tactics help with efficiency but a good sales strategy improves effectivity, the former cuts costs and the latter increases the right kinds of sales to the right customers.

Take Action: Identify the key decision makers, Know what influences
them, and Tailor your strategy to the buyer. ~ BRS

Design you sales strategy by identifying the following three
elements:

1. Identify what it is about your product offerings that give you a
sustainable passion for selling them, the results of your query will
be the foundation of your sales strategy.

2. Find out what it is about your product offerings that meet your
prospects needs and addresses what it is they see as value. This will
help you understand how your products manifest themselves in the
market place as valuable.

3. Determine the best way to communicate how your products bring
value and fulfill the needs of your prospects.

Now create a one or two sentence statement utilizing the results from the exercise above to establish your sales strategy. Its purpose is to guide your sales efforts toward what you have a sustainable passion
for as a company, to sell products in a way that fulfills needs and highlights value as seen from the prospects eyes, and provides a context in which sales people can effectively communicate with prospects.

Remember, “The insight gained for a competitive advantage comes from the marketplace not from your mind.”

Next Week’s Topic: Pricing Strategy