If so, what marketing strategies and tactics work most effectively?

What results can a business expect from marketing and how can those results be measured?

• Marketing must be Customer-focused
  • Talk about the benefits the customer will receive
  • Use language the customer is familiar with
  • Position your product as the tool you'll use to solve their problem, not the focus
  • Help the customer envision themselves using your product and enjoying the benefit 
• Marketing must be Measurable
  • Quantitative measurements
  • Qualitative measurements
  • Strategic measurements
  • Financial measurements
• Marketing must be Targeted and Segmented
  • Profile your existing base of successful customers
  • Determine the makeup of an ideal customer for your business
  • Use media that can be specifically targeted to a precise audience
  • Disqualify non-customers as quickly as possible
• Marketing must be Repeated
  • Average customer needs to hear a message 8 times before it registers
  • Average solution provider must contact a prospect 5 times before getting initial response
  • The more complex and expensive the solution, the more repetition it takes to persuade
  • Leverage multiple tactics to accelerate the repetition
• Marketing must be Integrated
  • Tell one version of your story to each customer, every time
  • Every outbound message to each audience must reinforce a consistent theme
  • Every touch point in your business needs to reinforce your central message
  • Multiple tactics accelerate the rate of retention for your customer messages

• Specific Knowledge of the Customer's Business Yields More Effective Marketing Opportunities
• Knowledge about the processes and functions the customer uses to run the business
• Knowledge about the customer's industry segment and competition
• Knowledge about the customer's customer and points of leverage
• Knowledge about the financial structure of the customer's business
• Focus on High Priority Solutions Yields More Urgent Alignment with Customer Decision Makers
• Understand the solutions with the most significant financial possibility for the customer
• Determine what solutions are highest on the customer's priority list
• Track the solutions being deployed by your customer's competitors
• Pay attention to the political structure of the customer's organization

• Build Partnerships for Improved Credibility and Accelerated Market Awareness
• Team up with more established partners whose brand will add credibility to yours
• Share the cost of marketing to a common audience
• Work with companies that sell complementary technologies
• Market Total Integrated Solutions instead of Single Point Products
• Multiple products to address more than one dimension of tactical requirement
• Address the business process to be affected rather than the tools you'll use
• Focus on the benefit outcomes rather than the tactical inputs
• Effective Marketing Campaigns and Tactics Make an Offer and Ask for a Direct Response
• Every contact should communicate a specific call-to-action for the customer
• Each call to action should be consistently executed across integrated marketing tactics
• Use convenient response mechanisms
• Customize response devices to improve measurability
• No brand advertising, but brand all advertising
• Successful Marketing Campaigns Use Attractive Incentives and Promotions
• Appropriate gifts and enticements to use before the transaction
• The danger of giving away what you hope to sell later
• The role of contests and participation events
• Determine what the customer really wants
• The Most Successful Marketing Companies Actively Manufacture Customer Referrals
• Referrals cited as the single most effective marketing technique … but few companies actively seek referrals or know how to create them
• Ask for referrals from every customer
• When to ask … how to ask
• How to get referrals without asking