New York, NY -- (SBWire) -- 08/20/2010 -- Early in our marketing careers, we learned about the 4 P's of Marketing: Price, Product, Place and Promotion. Marketing Managers learned these were the four components in their control. Therefore, our marketing decisions should always be funneled through the 4 P's.
In our Internet driven, Sales 2.0 world, many claim the 4 P's, as a marketing strategy, are dead. Is this true?
Price, product, placement and promotion are now and will always be critical to your marketing mix. It is an excellent foundation for making marketing decisions. But the shift in buyer behavior, particularly in the B2B pace, requires us to reevaluate and reinvent our approaches.
The hard truth is prospects are engaging with us without our knowledge. Using the Internet they are visiting our website, checking out the competition, referencing LinkedIn for connections and doing Google searches completely hidden from our view. Then, only after they have done their research, become educated, and developed their short list of solution providers, will they come out of the shadows and identify themselves as a prospect. And hopefully, you will be one of the vendors on their short list.
It is a different game today. Prospect engagement is now critical to sustainable sales and marketing success. In our Sales 2.0 World you need to know the 3 C's of Prospect Engagement along with corporate sales automation.
What are the 3 C's of Prospect Engagement? Conspicuous, Compelling, and Consistent in Execution. Let's take a look at each.
The first "C" is conspicuous. You must get noticed. Prior to the Internet we did things like knocked on doors, dialed for dollars, attended trade shows and placed print ads to get noticed. Not anymore. The Sales Rep no longer creates awareness, trade show attendance has plummeted, and the print advertising model is a dinosaur.
So you must be conspicuous to your prospects. The first place they are going is the Internet. Will they find you? How?
First, you must know your buying personas. Who are they? Where do they congregate on the Internet? How do they search? How do they use social media? Who are the influencers they follow?
The answers to these and other questions will drive your strategy from keyword selection through campaign execution and corporate sales automation.
The second "C" is compelling. You have 3 - 5 seconds to capture a prospect's attention. If you fail to do so you will lose them - probably forever.
Think about your own behavior. How much time do you spend on an email before you hit delete. How much patience do you have with a website if you don't quickly find what you are looking for? What tolerance do you have for product feature dumps or tutorials?
It is critical to articulate your sales message in a way that is relevant, interesting and compelling to your buying personas. Your choice of media - such as video, FLASH, pod cast or written - is as important as your content / message and is critical in determining whether your message is ultimately heard.
The final "C" is consistent execution. We all know a great plan and strategy is worthless if you cannot execute. Unfortunately this is where we see the greatest gap. Most organizations can lay out a marketing campaign calendar and manage to it. The outbound campaigns go out on time, ads get placed and other milestones reached.
About Sales Engine International
Sales Engine International is a Sales 2.0 Prospect Engagement and Marketing Campaign Execution Company. Clients come to us for inbound and outbound marketing strategies, tools and services that engage and move your prospect through the funnel, result in more qualified leads,corporate sales automation and offer complete marketing spend transparency.
SEI's unique Sales 2.0 prospect engagement and demand creation platform integrates advanced Social Media Marketing strategies with outbound campaigns. SEI clients enjoy more effective and accountable lead generation and faster sales cycles.
Contact:
Michael Shawn
Sales Engine International
New York, NY
USA
800-913-0857
support@kjprnews.com
http://www.salesengineintl.com/
Corporate Sales Automation Brought to You by Sales Engine Intl
Sales Engine International is a Sales 2.0 Prospect Engagement and Marketing Campaign Execution Company. Clients come to us for inbound and outbound marketing strategies, tools and services, result in more qualified leads, and offer complete marketing spend transparency.