Our blog has moved!

TSL Marketing's "Market Now" has moved to a new location. For up to date posts, marketing trends, and B2B marketing reports, please visit our new blog location at:

http://blog.tslmarketing.com 

We hope to see you there. Happy blogging!

What social network do you prefer?

Last week we talked about Social Media and the importance of deploying a social media plan into your marketing strategy. What's more, the question of online "clutter" was also brought up. Therefore, this week, we will turn to you. In order to break through the clutter, TSL is taking a poll to understand better about what social media sites work best for our customer base:



We look forward to generating the results and helping you determine which social media site is best for you.

Jump on the social media bandwagon

Jump on the social media bandwagon, originally uploaded by Matt Hamm.

Social Media has become the highest growing mediums for marketing worldwide. Here are some of the increased benefits to integrating a social media plan to your marketing schedule:

- Increase company reach by thousands
- Generate awareness for your firm
- Save time and money by cutting back on travel and making "virtual" connections
- Drive new leads through social promoting
- Develop relationships through adding a personal touch to your blogging/tweets/updates/etc.

If you're new to the world of social media, we find that a great place to start is through linked in, twitter, or facebook. However there are an abundance of other sites that are becoming cluttered and confusing for the new social media explorer. The question of "how much is too much" is constantly being asked as companies continue to try to take a piece of the online social pie.

If you have implemented social media into your world of marketing, you probably have an opinion on what works best. Let's share in our experiences... what social media sites do you find drive the most leads, awareness, and overall reach?

Webinar - Campaign Best Practices

Join us for a Webinar on May 27

Generating success from your marketing campaign involves a number of steps. Yet even with the most successful campaign planning, campaign execution, and lead generation, some campaigns just happen to generate more results than others. But what makes these campaigns stand out so strongly from the rest?

Join us May 27th for a 30 minute lunch and learn as we explore campaign best practices that will guarantee higher return on marketing investment (ROMI).

Title: TSL Marketing - Campaign Best Practices
Date: Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Time: 12:00 PM - 12:30 PM EDT




Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/751139507


After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista
Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.4 (Tiger®) or newer

TSL Marketing is hiring

TSL Marketing is looking to build to our team. We are currently hiring for Business Development Specialists in the Boston and Maryland/DC area. Here is the job description:

TSL Marketing Business Development Specialist

Our Business Development Specialist will create Business to Business opportunities and is comfortable communicating with clients and senior executives at various companies nationwide.  This is a perfect position for someone trying to acquire experience in sales and marketing. It is also a great fit for someone looking to build a career with a growing organization. 

Experience:

-       0 to 5 years experience in lead generation/sales

-       5 to 20 years experience in lead generation/sales for Sr. Level Positions

Education:

-       Associate or Bachelor degree (Information Technology and Marketing major/minor a plus)

 Skills:

• Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written
• Comfortable on the phone
• Solid phone etiquette

Other:

-       Ambition to move up within a fast growing company

-       Excellent work ethic

-       Motivated to learn new things

Full time TSL employees have a wide range of benefits:

-       Healthcare

-       401K

-       Paid Time Off

-       Career Path through sales or management

If you are interested in applying or learning more about this position, please contact me at tdonnelly@tslmarketing.com 

Economic downturn hits IT budgets

In a recent study released by SearchCIO, 42% of enterprise IT firms indicated a cut in budgets for 2009. While the cuts are not being made across the board, the pain is not set to one specific industry (as it seems that industries everywhere are scaling back significantly). 

How do you pan out?

Read the article by clicking here 

Lead Generation - what works?

Lead Generation is one of the oldest forms of marketing yet still remains one of the most effective. The trick is to know you are investing your lead generation budget in a company that will guarantee you the best results. There are two basic ways that you can do this: Pay Per Lead (PPL) and Service Level Agreements (SLA).  

“Pay-Per-Lead” telemarketing leads are a very attractive offer, and in some case work very well for both buyer and provider of leads. However, it is also becoming clear that the pay-per-lead model does not suit every industry, and every sales situation. In TSL’s experience, and in the experience of our clients, pay-per-lead can cause more damage to a company’s sales efforts than the benefit it brings of shared risk. As there is still no "guarantee" on results. This is why TSL Marketing recommends using a “Service Level Agreement” (SLA) on leads instead of the PPL model. SLA provides you with guaranteed results along with the benefits of reducing risk. Additional benefits include:

• Offers a minimum guarantee to leads generated, thus providing higher quality
• Conductive to a partnership model than a “vendor” relationship
• Reduces the risk of low quality leads thus providing higher return on investment

Read more about SLA vs. PPL

The truth about B2B Blogs - are they worth it?

An old coworker (we'll call him Mr. X) of mine and I share a joke. He once said "I would never work at a company that has a corporate blog." In his defense, this was about 5 years ago when the world of social media was not so huge. But now I say to you Mr. X (you know who you are) and to any any other non-bloggers out there...

In all seriousness though, here are some tips I put together on ways to blog successfully:

1. Change it up - don't always blog about the same boring stuff. Have fun with your blog, throw in cartoons, change around your topics, and above all make it personable. 


2. Incorporate more than one blogger - we all have different writing styles, different experiences, and different views on business. Incorporating this into your blog is extremely beneficial as the blog will become more of a company community than a one person show. 


3. Listen to your audience - Blogging is only successful if you have an audience. This is why you want to be sure that you listen to your audience and blog about what they are interested in. When you have a comment, respond to it, and then blog about it (if it is topic worthy). The more you listen, the more your blog will be read.


4. Don't get too "business" in your blog - a blog is about personality. Don't be afraid to express yours. When you are all about business and selling, your blog will loose it's personal appeal. Too many companies are out there trying to promote themselves through sales methods. Take a step back and think about what you want to say, then say it without selling it. A blog should not be used to generate leads (that just comes as a bonus). 

Those are just some helpful tips to start you on your path to developing a successful company blog. Good luck!

Information Technology (IT) Trend Report for 2009

A number of software, hardware, and IT service companies have recently been coming to me and asking about trends for 2009; and more importantly, if the budgetary cut backs due to the recession will be lifted anytime soon. What we found were some very exciting and refreshing statistics that should take a big weight off of any one's shoulders (that work in IT of course). With all of these  statistics, we thought the best way to share our new found data was through our first ever newsletter direct to the IT community. Here are some highlights from the newsletter:

1. IT purchases are expected to grow to $616 billion in 2010 for a 7.5% increase from 2009 sales.
2. Software spending is expected to grow 3.4 percent in 2009
3. Gartner recommends the top 10 ways to save and do more with less
4. SaSS is growing at a rate of 40% annually 
5. Highlights on the top trends for IT spending (where the money is being spent)

This newsletter is NO COST and available to any interested parties.

Top 5 Marketing trends for 2009

In 2009 more people are looking for ways they can "Do more with less" by saving time and money through an effective go-to-market campaign. At TSL, we believe there are many things that can be done to enhance your lead generation efforts.Read this months article Top 5 marketing trends for 2009 and learn about:

Affordable multi-touch campaigns
Trends and statistics for 2009 marketing
How to optimize your landing pages
Market to a mass media and still save
Effective social media planning

For more information, please contact Tara Donnelly at:
Email: tdonnelly@tslmarketing.com
Phone: 617 753 9124

Marketing Operations - tracking your ROMI

Marketing Operations is a relatively new term that has been tossed around over the last couple years. According to wikipedia, Marketing Operations (or Marketing Operations Management/MOM) is a vision of end to end marketing optimization, from planning and budgeting, through marketing content management, to global marketing execution and analysis. While that is correct, we would term marketing operations as simply your foundation in which you work to improve your marketing effectiveness.

When starting your marketing operations plan, here are some basic steps to get you started in marketing more effectively. 

1. Track Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) 
Any and all marketing tactics should be tracked in order to determine it's effectiveness. You can track your ROMI by use of a marketing dashboard with marketing automation programs; however if you do not have access to these programs, a simple spreadsheet will suffice. Tracking ROMI should (in the least) contain the following: cost of tactic, time for implementation (cost of internal team), leads generated, conversion rates for leads, proposal stage, and closed/won revenue. By keeping track of these numbers, you will quickly learn which tactics generate the most leads, and more importantly, which tactics generate the most sales. 


2. Develop Dashboards
Most CRM tools have dashboards that can be created in order to track your ongoing marketing and sales activities. In these dashboards you can track lead conversions (by sales reps), marketing leads generated, sales goals, and top marketing tactics as some examples. If you do not have access to dashboards within your CRM tool, these can also be created via spreadsheets (though this can often be time consuming). For more information or ideas on how to custom create company dashboards, contact us. 


3. Marketing Lead Conversion
One of the best ways to measure campaign effectiveness is through lead conversion rates. This should be tested by assigning leads to (at minimum) 3 different sales reps from the same marketing tactic. After a few weeks/months, tracking what leads convert, which sales reps are converting them, and how long the conversion rate takes, you will have not only an idea of how successful your marketing campaign was; but also which sales reps have the highest conversion rates, and what the average lead lifecycle time should be for that particular tactic. 


4. Lead Lifecycle Management
Tracking the lifecycle of your leads is a crucial part to marketing operations. When leads are not tracked, it is easy for them to slip through the cracks and potential sales could be lost. Some successful ways in tracking leads are to create a lead lifetime with your sales team that is attainable. Based on your marketing conversion rates, you will soon be able to determine what the average lead conversion rate should be. For example, if you are able to determine that a lead should convert within 90 days, than your lead lifetime should be 90 days. If after 90 days a lead does not convert, the lead then goes back into lead nurturing for marketing or gets assigned to a different sales rep. Sales should also have an average per contact touch ratio to determine how many times a prospect gets reached out to within the 90 day time period. 


5. Campaign Management
When starting your marketing operations plan, you should always make sure you manage your campaigns from start to finish. This encompasses setting up a marketing schedule and managing tactic launch dates, close dates, and multi-touch marketing efforts. This will help assure that your marketing efforts will stay within your monthly/quarterly budget and also drive consistent leads for your sales team. 

Good luck and let us know if you have any additional questions on how to start your marketing operations plan. 

How to go-to-market as an IT firm in 2009

With the economy in it's current state, it is no question that many industries are being affected more so than others. For technology companies, the hit has not been as hard, yet companies are now being asked to scale back on new purchases and CIO's across this nation are beginning to re-organize their departments. So what does this mean for an IT company who is looking to sell their software/hardware? 

Earlier this year we asked "What impact will the current Economic Crisis have on IT Budgets" and more importantly, who you thought would benefit the most. Here are the results:

1. Software Providers 15%
2. SaaS 31%
3. ERP Services 8%
4. Outsourcing 38%
5. Offshoring 8%

Based on this pole, you believe that outsourcing will benefit most from the current economic crisis. Other research points towards similar numbers as well. The important thing to note here is that there still is a wide variety of different IT companies who can benefit during the economic crisis and while some may benefit more than others, all can benefit if they play their cards right. Because of this, there are some important factors that should be taken into account when going to market during this recession.   

• Know how you can save your customer time and money - There is a very strong renewed focus on measuring cost and how cost will affect the current IT budget within organizations. If your product does not have a strong argument for cost savings, you will most likely be pushed to the sidelines. When going into any marketing or sales pitch, be sure you know your customer and how you will help them save!

• Know your target audience - With the state of the economy, more organizations have restructured so that the CIO and CFO are more aligned. As IT is one of the largest expenses in an organization, the CFO is now looking to the CIO to find ways to cut costs and save more money. Furthermore, if the CIO is able to make a strong argument for certain solutions saving money, a purchase could potentially be made. Therefore, make sure your message speaks to both IT AND Finance. 
  

Follow these two rules and marketing for technology in 2009 can still present success!

Target Marketing - why research is essential

Target Marketing is one of the oldest but most essential ways to assure you go to market effectively. Without knowing the "who" the "why" and the "how" a marketing program can fail and your hard work can go unnoticed. Here is an example of research gone astray:

To make sure that this doesn't happen to you, be sure to 'profile' your target market and your marketing efforts will gain monumental increases in relevance.

What is Profiling - When creating a target market, profiling is the process in where you create an actual persona (or several) that you are marketing towards. This should be created based on your secondary research of geographic, demographic, and most importantly, psychographic data. Here is an example: "George Smith is a CEO of a software services company who makes approximately 200k per year. George believes that marketing is an import tool to generating business and works over 70 hours per week. George values hard work, honesty, family, and independence." When you create profiles it sometimes becomes easier to say "Would George read this" or "would George buy this."

To successfully "profile" your customer base, it is most important to understand their psychographics (or behaviors) that motivate them to buy. Here is a list of question you can ask that will put you on your way to creating profiles; thereby generating your target market:

1. Basic psychographics: What are their values, what do they like, how does the product fit into their lives, how do they go about their daily routine, how do others influence them, what are their personalities, attitudes, lifestyles.
2. What are their motivations and unmet needs? - How do they think and feel about the products they use and buy?
3. What do they think/feel/use the product/service? - To what extent are they aware of the brand - Do they know about the brand's special features, qualities - Do they understand how the product/service works - Do they understand the brand's superior qualities - What is their attitude toward the product category - What is their attitude toward the specific brand - To what extent do they like or desire the product or brand - Do they trust the brand to deliver the promised benefits - Do they have a preference for this brand - What image or personality do consumer's associate with the brand - What do consumer's feel the brand essence is
4. What are they guided by (one of the three orientations as follows)

• Principle Oriented - guided by abstracts, idealized criteria, rather than by feelings, events or desire for approval by others.
• Status Oriented - these consumers look for products and services that demonstrate their success to their peers.
• Action Oriented - these consumers are guided by a desire for social or physical activity, variety or risk taking

Answer these questions and you are well on your way to successful target marketing!

Finding a new job during a recession

I recently met up with Dave Brown, the principle consultant for Ridge Global Marketing (a premier partner of TSL's) who mentioned to me that he was writing an article regarding tips to landing a new job even with the economic downturn. As several people have been reaching out to myself and my colleagues looking for new job opportunities due to recent layoffs within their company, or upcoming "re-organizations;" I figured what better than to share this article with TSL's universe and show that their can be light at the end of the tunnel. 

David Brown; Principal Consultant for Ridge Global Marketing writes:

According to TechCrunch’s Layoff Tracker, nearly 120,000 employees in the tech sector have lost their jobs since August 27, 2008. And the number is growing. As a result of the current economic climate, many Professional Services Leaders who once considered their jobs safe are now finding themselves back in the job market. It’s an uphill slog to be sure, with few open slots and many experienced candidates dusting off their resumes and targeting the next opportunity. Not only is it a buyer’s market but competition among world-class candidates is fierce. With this in mind, I was recently asked to consider the following: In order to differentiate ourselves in the job market, can we package and sell ourselves in the same way that organizations sell a product or service? Is it possible to architect and execute a sales campaign for ourselves? Can we in effect sell “Corporate Me” into the career market?

One thing your prospects should know: Is your pipeline leaking?

Customers are better educated and more informed and require value to advance through your company's sales pipeline. We will speak about adding value to pull your prospects through the pipeline in another article, here we will discuss prospects leaking out of the sales pipeline. Pipeline management is such an important part of a sales organization and I wanted to discuss major problems I have seen with many companies processes and management. In these trying times maximizing the dollars already spent to uncover and nurture prospects should be on every sales and marketing team's mind. When those prospects leak out of the pipeline, you are throwing dollars away.

Alaska has an almost 800 mile pipeline that connects Prudhoe Bay to Valdez, AK. What if a leak formed in that pipeline? If 700,000 barrels of oil left the oil field in Prudhoe Bay and only 500,000 barrels arrived at the Gulf of Alaska, due to a leak somewhere along the pipeline, you can bet several folks in Valdez would be quite anxious. Now why is that same anxiety not felt by sales and marketing organizations with the same results coming from their "sales" pipeline?

Companies of every size are guilty of having leaks in their sales pipelines, from SMB entities through to the fortune 100 companies. In every case the problem is the same, the sales and marketing organizations are not properly aligned and the sales teams focus on immediate opportunities. This style of sales pipeline management will usually allow a company to stay afloat and enable management to meet quarterly and annual goals, but it will disallow the entity from realizing substantial revenue increases. This flawed approach throws dollars away in lost opportunities when that dropped prospect buys from a competitor, and though the wasteful processes and necessary rework in an attempt to re-qualify.

How do you fix a leaky pipeline? The wrong answer would be "with duct tape". Do you really think duct tape will keep the oil flowing properly to Valdez? The proper fix: The pipeline would need to be drained, depressurized and the leak found and the broken parts replaced. This will have costs associated, and could mean downtime in the operations, but once back up and running the repair would pay for itself within hours.

The proper fix stands true for a sales pipeline. Although sales activities need not cease, analysis of the internal processes is required to define the location of the leak. (Where are the prospects falling out?) Once this is understood, create an improvement plan. The next two steps are commonly where I have seen the biggest mistakes, execution and control. The plan is in place now it must be executed. Plenty of ideas and plans are laid on boardroom tables each day, some are chosen to commence, but very few are properly executed. And finally, any good marketing plan will have a control plan. Without this last step you are destined to be right back in the same position with a leaking pipeline. A control plan is put in place to assure that future problems are detected early. If a weakness is discovered in the pipeline, immediate action can be taken before it develops into a leak.

In conclusion, your company has spent real dollars to uncover prospects, and your team has spent real labor hours developing them. Don't let those dollars go to waste over such a fundamental flaw. Take a hard look at what enters your pipeline, what activities are happening to add value and pull them along, and what is coming out the other side. In another article we will discuss further the concepts and strategies around value adding activities that will more efficiently progress prospective customers through the pipeline.

TSL Marketing joins Twitter

With the social hype being all about Twitter and the current "tweets," TSL Marketing has decided that it is time we join the revolution and create our own twitter profile. Check us out:

Click Here to follow TSL Marketing on Twitter

So what is twitter anyway? To the untrained "follower," twitter seems like nothing more than a silly and inconsequential way to waste time online. However, the more I got involved in twitter and what it brings to the table, the more I began to realize the value add that this social network prevails.

What makes this social media site difference than the others is that it is solely based on streaming updates. You can connect to colleagues, friends, prospects, clients, and groups by simply "following" their feed. Once you decide to follow a "tweet (fancy word for update)," you will be sent updates as often as the twitter tweeter submits their feed. Some great ways to use twitter in a corporate setting:

1. Point your followers to your landing pages: If you have a live or online event, white paper, or really any marketing tactic to promote, here is another way to generate leads without spending any marketing dollars. 


2. Follow everyone who follows you: A great way to build your twitter network is to follow the people who choose to follow you. As you start tweeting on a consistent basis, your social media stream will reach higher levels and you will be able to build your network substantially. 


3. Tweet about your blog: You can submit a tweet that links back to your company blog. This will begin driving more traffic to your website and also drive more interest to your blogging network. 


4. When there is nothing to tweet about, say hello: The point of twitter is to get your name and company out in the open. When you find that you may be at a loss for what to say in your updates, go ahead and say hello. The point of twitter (from a corporate standpoint) is to promote your company, this is often done by just showing your company name and continuing to build your network. 


5. Follow follow follow: Finding the right person to follow is a great way to generate research and learn more about what is happening in the current market. Many companies that use twitter successfully don't use it just to promote their company name. If there is an article of interest or a topic of relevance that would benefit their network, it gets tweeted. This is why when you choose to follow people or companies, follow those that you think you can learn from and benefit from in the future. 

If you haven't joined already, check it out Twitter and don't forget to add @TSL_Marketing!