Success through Strategy Discover how our services advance your business goals.

Making Sure Your Marketing Investments Add up to More

Thinking of ramping up your marketing efforts? You're not alone. A recent survey of CMOs projects a 9.1% increase in marketing budgets over the next 12 months. Here's how to market more effectively than the rest – by being more strategic about your advertising and public relations investments.

From online ads to social media initiatives, from email campaigns to SEO/SEM programs, all too often, we see companies operating in a disjointed manner:

• Disconnected product/service promotions
• Flashy tactics with no real tie to overarching goals
• Product launches without follow-through

Those are just a few examples of what we might call "marketing for marketing's sake." Companies that fall into this trap always end up investing enough in marketing to be dissatisfied with it. In the current economic climate, that's unacceptable.

For better results, you need to be strategic. It's about investing appropriately for your situation, your marketplace, your customers and your goals.

• Execute at the intersection of sales objectives and customer needs. Solve problems and offer value.
• Zero in on key markets, instead of trying to be all things to all people.
• Be consistent across sales and PR efforts. An integrated program is a more cost-efficient one.
• Demand a return. Design and implement a strategic program with measurable results.
• Don't just generate leads, but nurture them as well. Driving traffic is the easy part.
• Impact your industries/communities in significant ways. Get involved in what matters most to you and your target audiences.
• Maximize value by reusing content to stay engaged with customers and prospects. Perpetuate news coverage, video, images and more about your company through social media, direct marketing and newsletters, etc.

Try these strategic approaches as you develop new marketing initiatives. You'll quickly find that your messages are more coherent, consistent and compelling.

Top of Page »

Ready to Break Through?
We’re proud to help
companies lead, and
we’re eager to help
you do just that.
Contact us today.

10 Tips for a Successful Product Launch

Eager to leave the recession behind, many companies are ready now to push out new products. There is growing demand and opportunity for new solutions in new markets and segments. But with millions of dollars spent developing and launching competing products and services each year, how will your new product succeed?

The name of the game is giving customers a product or service they need and demonstrating that value in every way you can. Here are 10 tips for a successful product launch.

1. Be strategic. Tie marketing/PR to your vision, goals and strategies. Who's your target customer and what do they want/need? What are your sales objectives? Where do your answers to those two questions align?
2. Use your research. Your launch plan should carefully consider what customers value, what they need, when they might be primed to buy and more.
3. Craft messaging based on target audience concerns. Reinforce messages consistently across both PR and sales efforts.
4. Be prepared to answer naysayers. Anticipate customers' objections and competitors' responses to your new offer and make sure you have a story of value that overcomes those objections.
5. Let marketing and PR augment sales. A strong and ongoing presence in targeted media opens relations, keeps prospects warm and frees sales to focus on selling.
6. Get creative. There are innumerable new opportunities to reach and engage with target audiences, even for the smallest companies.
7. Secure sales team support. First, launch the product internally by equipping and motivating sales staff to apply consistent, brand-based messages related to the new product in their everyday activities. Be clear about why the launch matters to your long-term strategy.
8. Launch via multiple channels (traditional and emerging media). Be wherever your target customers are – from tradeshows and direct mail to social media, mobile and online video – and engage them with targeted messages of value.
9. Make it easy for the press. Meet deadlines, offer photos, respond quickly.
10. Don't be out-marketed. Be aware of inferior products that are marketed more heavily and adeptly.

 
Top of Page »

Want a uniquely powerful web presence for your company? Contact SH today to get started.

The New B2B Customer, Marketing 2.0 and Lead Nurturing

It's a buyer's world out there. Today's B2B customer now has unprecedented access to information and choices around the clock. Your sales team is no longer calling all the shots: when, where or how to contact prospects. To help sales adapt to this reality, you're going to need to do more than just generate leads. You're going to need to nurture them through Marketing 2.0.

Marketing 2.0 is a way of reaching an audience that doesn't want to be found. The new B2B customer wants to guide the sales process themselves; they want to find you and make the first move. We, as marketers, can turn these preferences into our advantage in two key ways:

1. Create a robust online presence. Customers have hundreds of ways to search for and learn about you – their social networks, search engines, product/company reviews, news venues, industry bloggers, etc. Make sure they not only find you, but also find a clear, consistent, compelling brand, throughout all these channels.
• Create profiles and become active in the social networks that make sense for you.
• Develop landing pages to increase the amount of quality content for search engines to index.
• Provide contact forms to streamline database building.
• Optimize your site for easy search engine discovery.
2. Nurture prospects once they've found you. Provide customers and leads with compelling content, engage and entertain them, and demonstrate your unique value proposition. All with them driving.
• Start a company blog and provide current insights and information.
• Reach prospects through an e-communications vehicle.
• Write and distribute white papers and primary research.
• Develop video content to further engage them.
• Integrate a CRM system, e.g. Salesforce.com, to manage this lead nurturing process.

This second part, what we call "Lead Nurturing," is especially important for those B2B companies with long, complex sales cycles. Lead nurturing through content marketing and strategic communications can help keep you in close contact with propsects who aren't quite ready to buy, ensuring that your front-end lead generation efforts aren't wasted.

Then, when they are ready to buy, you can turn them over (or in many cases, back over) to the sales team, making their job a little easier.

Top of Page »

Client Spotlight

Top of Page »
 

SH Happenings

Events, Appearances and Updates

Meet 4 new hires at SH
Scheibel Halaska is pleased to welcome the following four professionals who have joined the SH team recently.

• Nick Abadie, senior art director
  

  With nearly 10 years of experience, Nick is responsible for designing brand identities, sales collateral, websites, online advertising, email campaigns, promotional artwork and advertisements.

• Lindsey Dillon, account coordinator
  

  Lindsey supports Scheibel Halaska's new business development, sales and marketing initiatives.

• Brittany Dorfner, account coordinator
  

  Brittany is assisting with the planning, development and execution of public relations and other strategic marketing communications initiatives.

• Alyssa Hintzen, account coordinator
  

  Alyssa is helping us execute marketing communications plans, create client presentations, manage projects, complete research projects and more.

Scheibel Halaska joins the Creative Alliance
It's an exciting new effort to strengthen and advance our region's creative sector.
Read More »

IPREX adds 3 regional directors
Scheibel Halaska welcomes new geographically-focused officials at IPREX, our worldwide network of independent public relations and communications firms.
Read More »

Endorsing a new code of ethics
Scheibel Halaska signs on to the Principles and Practices for Advertising Ethics recently set forth by the Institute for Advertising Ethics, a group administered by the American Advertising Federation (AAF).
Read More»

UPAF earns 100% employee support from SH
Our annual employee campaign for the United Performing Arts Fund started strong and finished stronger.
Read More»

Top of Page »