I had a conversation with a business owner who wanted advice on building his company’s brand. Brand is an elusive concept that can have many meanings. Maybe that’s because each brand has its own unique meaning in the market. If your goal is brand building, you are after three things:

You want your company to be [...]

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The buy cycle is the process that B2B sector buyers engage in when purchasing products and services, and one that marketers must pay attention to when planning marketing strategies and crafting messaging.
The buy cycle consists of a methodical and deliberate series of four stages: Needs Awareness, Research, Consideration & Comparison, and Procurement. In each [...]

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What is your company doing to prepare for the economic recovery? Klein Marketing recently worked with GlobalSpec, an engineering search engine and media company, to develop a white paper encouraging its customers and prospects to take action now. Waiting too long can put you behind competitors.
From the white paper …

The important question during a downturn [...]

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You should be well underway with developing a marketing budget and plan for 2010. If you wait much longer, your marketing efforts will be delayed and you could miss out on a strong start to a new year.
Consider what typically goes into a marketing cycle:

Establish marketing strategy
Identify marketing objectives
Define target audience
Research media options
Conceive campaigns
Calculate costs
Craft [...]

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I sound like a broken record (not that anyone still has records) when I endlessly implore companies to focus their marketing on a few core initiatives where they have the greatest chance of success.
For any manager having trouble focusing, I recommend this recent article in Harvard Business Publishing: “The Key to Effectiveness? Focus” — and [...]

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A client recently asked for help developing a marketing strategy to help grow their business to the next level. I started by asking my client to articulate their business strategy. By business strategy, I mean a broader, directional view of business goals and how to achieve them. These may include:

A definition of what business you are [...]

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Why is it that marketing is sometimes considered a secondary or discretionary discipline in some companies? It’s the first departmental budget to get cut when times get tough. Everyone has an opinion, often critical, about the latest creative for a marketing campaign.
Part of this is the fault of marketer’s themselves. If they want their business [...]

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Dear Dave:
An executive at our company came into my office and dropped a magazine on my desk and said, “I want you to place an ad in here,” then turned and walked out the door. The magazine covers our industry and target market, but will running a single ad in a single issue of a [...]

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I’ve been invited to present at a meeting of a business referral networking group tomorrow. Topic: How to create a business referral marketing program.
Most of the group’s members work for small businesses or have their own businesses. A few work for banks or insurance companies, but must build their own customer base through marketing. What [...]

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Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) have a notoriously short lifespan. But some allegedly good news was just reported by John Quelch in Harvard Business Publishing:
Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) are holding on to their jobs longer. Spencer Stuart’s annual survey of CMO tenure at the 100 most advertised brands in the USA reveals average time on the [...]

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