Most Americans know Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, Viagra, and the Apple iPod. They probably also know the manufacturers of these products -- Kellogg’s, Pfizer, and Apple – and the name of their local supermarket, drug store chain, and big box store where they can buy them. Most of them, however, probably have never heard of the McLane Company, McKesson, or TechData. These three firms are multi-billion dollar companies that distribute Corn Flakes, Viagra, and the iPod, respectively. Distributors are … [Read more...]
Chapter 17 – Sales Enablement
Recall from Chapter 1 that Peter Drucker defined a successful marketing strategy as one that sells the product without the involvement of the sales force. Drucker’s thoughts notwithstanding, in reality very few products are so wonderful that they sell themselves. As a general rule, selling products and services requires a sales force that is well prepared to answer questions and lead a prospective buyer to a sale. In most organizations, the marketing department’s role is to arm the sales … [Read more...]
Chapter 16 – Presentations
Presentations are used in every marketing program. Your CEO may burnish your brand at an industry conference as part of your reputation programs. Webcasts may be a critical part of your demand generation, and your field sales force may need to learn the company pitch as part of sales enablement. Presentations are used all the time by analyst relations teams as part of market intelligence programs. But for as important as they are, why are there so many bad ones? Think about it –How often … [Read more...]
Chapter 15 – Collateral and Other Assets
Marketing devotes a great deal of its time and money is spent to creating collateral. Also known as sales collateral and marketing collateral, the term refers to the collection of documents that a company produces in support of a sale. The name derives from the “in support of” or “accompanying” definition of the word “collateral.” When applied specifically to marketing, collateral most commonly consists of product data sheets, brochures, white papers, and similar documents. Marketers also … [Read more...]
Chapter 14 – The Website
It’s funny to think that the Web, which hundreds of millions of people use every day for shopping, dating, gaming, news, and socializing, began as a technology to help improve, of all things, physics research – a topic of interest to only a fraction of the world’s population. Yet today the Web is huge. According to What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly, himself a chronicler of the early days of the Web, it holds more than a trillion pages. Twenty years plus since the first website was created … [Read more...]
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