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I Advice - The 7 Areas of Marketing Waste - Are You Committing These Marketing Sins?
Job seekers outside of the creative fields are now seeing the value of utilizing portfolios in their job search. Traditionally, only artists and writers have used portfolios when seeking freelance work. With job security less certain, workers need to continually update and enhance their skills, while keeping a record of what they’ve accomplished. Employers like to hire someone whose work they’ve seen. A portfolio can support a resume with concrete evidence of an applicant’s work.Showcase your accomplishments with a portfolio that contains a sample collection of past work and achievements. The following list contains items to consider including in your portfolio.- Resume - Transcripts - Professional organization involvement - Community service involvement - Certificates of completion - Awards - Documentation of leadership experience - Memos - Charts and graphs - Thank you letters - Positive work performance evaluations - Agendas from committees you’ve served on - Flyers, brochures, or newsletters you’ve designed - Photos of you at workStudents or those with little work experience can include in thei
To understand your present state you need to map the processes of communication, customer acquisition, customer processing and customer relationships. Then you need to make sure that there are no non-value adding activities. This will enable you to eliminate steps in the process that have literally become bad habits. We have a module called Moments Of Truth in our Toolbooks series, that deals thoroughly with th
Is your marketing in your company affective? Does your marketing deliver the message to the customer that you want to deliver? Is the message that you send to your customer simple? Do you find multiple ways to deliver this message in its simple form to your potential customers? Is your marketing efficient; that is to say are you able to deliver your marketing for a low price and achieve maximum results? Good marketing delivers an affective message to the customer; does your marketing stands up to that test?Any campaign can spend a million dollars in a small market and to get an x-con elected to the mayors seat. Any company can spend $1 million in a small market and achieve synergy with their brand in that market. Any company can spend $1 million in a small market and get customers to buy their products or services. But that is not good marketing and that does not require delivering an affective message to the customer efficiently. Now then, can your company's marketing deliver the same results with $1000 in the same small town? If not perhaps your marketing is not good enough?You must deliver an affective message to your customer and it needs to be simple and you need to do it ef
1. Activity (over production)
2. People (over capacity)
3. Processes (over complication)
4. Waiting (poor communication)
5. Excessive Communication Costs
6. Trial and Error
7. Excessive Lead Costs
1. Activity (over production)
Too many people doing too many different things. Thousands of brochures produced with no clear plan how to get them in the right hands. Twenty different networking meetings on the horizon, with no time to follow up.
Over production and too much activity is usually a symptom of poor planning. You're not quite sure what you aim to achieve, but there is budget (or time) to spend and any marketing activity is seen as good activity.
Performing lots of different marketing activities without first having a clear vision and strategy in place is a massive area of waste. Your business may perform well as a result of so much effort (and cost), but how do you know what is working and what isn't?
Measuring ROI on activity is essential. This will enable you to focus more effectively on the successful activity and completely remove the need for unsuccessful or wasteful marketing approaches to free up capital as profit or to fund other business improvement initiatives.
2. People (over / under capacity)
Too many people involved in the marketing process can also be a big area of waste. In particular, full time marketing managers can waste a lot of time choosing where to spend your money on promotion.
The marketing director or CEO needs to be able to enlist good marketing advice and planning as it is needed and then allow experts outside the company to implement the necessary action. There is no need for an internal marketing manager to oversee this if you use the right marketing consultants. By carefully retaining the services of a marketing consultancy you can gain access to a range of experience that no single individual can ever hope to possess. You can then recruit a more junior but bright person from within your company to liaise with your consultants and yourself.
You can never truly know if your marketing manager is working at full steam and I'm certain that they won't tell you unless they want more budget to spend on the next CV enhancing fad.
If you are a marketing manager reading this, be honest, maybe you should talk to your boss about a more flexible retained position. This way you can look for other contracts and build your exposure to more businesses which will enhance your ability to perform well.
If you're a solo or very small business, then the "people" doing your marketing may be just you and you may be suffering from a serious lack of capacity. There comes a time when your lack of time causes waste for your business and holds you back. You must seriously look at the skills gap and address the needs of your business (and your sanity!).
3. Processes (over complication)
Lean Manufacturing (where we learned our trade) deals with the process of moving an order through your supply chain and to your customer. In this instance we're talking about the marketing process - this deals with acquiring the customer in the first place and how you handle your customers once you have them. For this we use the Lean Marketing Pipeline - would you like a copy? Just send an email to: leanpipeline@aweber.com with "Send Me The Pipeline - I'm Missing Out!" in the subject line and we'll send you a picture.
To understand your present state you need to map the processes of communication, customer acquisition, customer processing and customer relationships. Then you need to make sure that there are no non-value adding activities. This will enable you to eliminate steps in the process that have literally become bad habits. We have a module called Moments Of Truth in our Toolbooks series, that deals thoroughly with thi
Searching job is a sophisticated project that requires knowing the latest techniques and browsing for jobs is not an easy thing to do. Finding a suitable job among the many jobs available in Hong Kong and on the market can be a difficult experience.In your search through the posted jobs, you should use the Internet to the fullest. Also, try to make contact with potential employers in your area and you can even try volunteering. It may help you learn more about the desired job and gain work experience.When searching for jobs in Hong Kong, you should start with an open mind. Jobs in Hong Kong are split in many categories and using the Internet yields a wealth of information. Remember that there are quite a few contacts to be made on the Internet if you want to land the one of the available Hong Kong jobs.Applying to employment opportunities for jobs in Hong Kong has become a true race these days. You have to be quick and work what you have. Available Hong Kong jobs are not there to wait for you, so you must use every tool, avenue, resource, relationship and asset in order to find the ideal job.While you're looking for jobs in Hong Kong use traditional methods and also non-t
Performing lots of different marketing activities without first having a clear vision and strategy in place is a massive area of waste. Your business may perform well as a result of so much effort (and cost), but how do you know what is working and what isn't?
Measuring ROI on activity is essential. This will enable you to focus more effectively on the successful activity and completely remove the need for unsuccessful or wasteful marketing approaches to free up capital as profit or to fund other business improvement initiatives.
2. People (over / under capacity)
Too many people involved in the marketing process can also be a big area of waste. In particular, full time marketing managers can waste a lot of time choosing where to spend your money on promotion.
The marketing director or CEO needs to be able to enlist good marketing advice and planning as it is needed and then allow experts outside the company to implement the necessary action. There is no need for an internal marketing manager to oversee this if you use the right marketing consultants. By carefully retaining the services of a marketing consultancy you can gain access to a range of experience that no single individual can ever hope to possess. You can then recruit a more junior but bright person from within your company to liaise with your consultants and yourself.
You can never truly know if your marketing manager is working at full steam and I'm certain that they won't tell you unless they want more budget to spend on the next CV enhancing fad.
If you are a marketing manager reading this, be honest, maybe you should talk to your boss about a more flexible retained position. This way you can look for other contracts and build your exposure to more businesses which will enhance your ability to perform well.
If you're a solo or very small business, then the "people" doing your marketing may be just you and you may be suffering from a serious lack of capacity. There comes a time when your lack of time causes waste for your business and holds you back. You must seriously look at the skills gap and address the needs of your business (and your sanity!).
3. Processes (over complication)
Lean Manufacturing (where we learned our trade) deals with the process of moving an order through your supply chain and to your customer. In this instance we're talking about the marketing process - this deals with acquiring the customer in the first place and how you handle your customers once you have them. For this we use the Lean Marketing Pipeline - would you like a copy? Just send an email to: leanpipeline@aweber.com with "Send Me The Pipeline - I'm Missing Out!" in the subject line and we'll send you a picture.
To understand your present state you need to map the processes of communication, customer acquisition, customer processing and customer relationships. Then you need to make sure that there are no non-value adding activities. This will enable you to eliminate steps in the process that have literally become bad habits. We have a module called Moments Of Truth in our Toolbooks series, that deals thoroughly with th
Several years ago I was sitting in the office of a very successful businessman. He was the CEO of the company. He had finished interviewing me for a sales managers position.As we approached the end of the interview he turned to me and told me that he was very impressed with me ...so far. He then paused dramatically and said,"Show me that you know how to sell....SELL ME THIS PENCIL."The next ten seconds seemed like an eternity to me. I had been selling for many years. However, this really put me on the spot."SELL YOU A PENCIL?" I thought. "I don't know a thing about PENCILS!"It became evident that the entire interview was a mere formality to this exercise.If I passed this test I would get the job. If I flubbed this, I wouldn't.However in my panic there was a still small voice which relaxed me entirely and told me that I could easily do this.Do you want to take a guess as to what I did?Before I tell you what I did, let me tell you what I did not do. The majority of salespeople are talkers. The public wrongfully believes that to be a great salesperson you need to talk, talk, talk. We have all been in situations where a sales person would go
The marketing director or CEO needs to be able to enlist good marketing advice and planning as it is needed and then allow experts outside the company to implement the necessary action. There is no need for an internal marketing manager to oversee this if you use the right marketing consultants. By carefully retaining the services of a marketing consultancy you can gain access to a range of experience that no single individual can ever hope to possess. You can then recruit a more junior but bright person from within your company to liaise with your consultants and yourself.
You can never truly know if your marketing manager is working at full steam and I'm certain that they won't tell you unless they want more budget to spend on the next CV enhancing fad.
If you are a marketing manager reading this, be honest, maybe you should talk to your boss about a more flexible retained position. This way you can look for other contracts and build your exposure to more businesses which will enhance your ability to perform well.
If you're a solo or very small business, then the "people" doing your marketing may be just you and you may be suffering from a serious lack of capacity. There comes a time when your lack of time causes waste for your business and holds you back. You must seriously look at the skills gap and address the needs of your business (and your sanity!).
3. Processes (over complication)
Lean Manufacturing (where we learned our trade) deals with the process of moving an order through your supply chain and to your customer. In this instance we're talking about the marketing process - this deals with acquiring the customer in the first place and how you handle your customers once you have them. For this we use the Lean Marketing Pipeline - would you like a copy? Just send an email to: leanpipeline@aweber.com with "Send Me The Pipeline - I'm Missing Out!" in the subject line and we'll send you a picture.
To understand your present state you need to map the processes of communication, customer acquisition, customer processing and customer relationships. Then you need to make sure that there are no non-value adding activities. This will enable you to eliminate steps in the process that have literally become bad habits. We have a module called Moments Of Truth in our Toolbooks series, that deals thoroughly with th
Cross selling involves five fundamentals:You have to know your products very well.You have to know your clients. To get the best results identify which customers are your best target.Ask questions and listen for clues.Pay attention to clients’ needs and only suggest relevant products.Suggest, don’t impose. This way clients will feel comfortable and more likely to accept your offer. Most of the time, cross selling is a natural process, involving a simple operation: telling customers about your products. In software marketing, the publisher needs to establish which software product can be correlated with another one and be sold together as a package deal. Both the selection and the price can be based on several customer and product criteria, which should be set up before deciding on using the cross selling technique. These bundles may be added to the online shopping cart or advertised as a special software promotion on the site.Successful cross selling can be achieved by applying several rules:Right timing. Don’t push sales if it seems the client doesn’t have the financial resources at that moment. Try to find out what t
If you are a marketing manager reading this, be honest, maybe you should talk to your boss about a more flexible retained position. This way you can look for other contracts and build your exposure to more businesses which will enhance your ability to perform well.
If you're a solo or very small business, then the "people" doing your marketing may be just you and you may be suffering from a serious lack of capacity. There comes a time when your lack of time causes waste for your business and holds you back. You must seriously look at the skills gap and address the needs of your business (and your sanity!).
3. Processes (over complication)
Lean Manufacturing (where we learned our trade) deals with the process of moving an order through your supply chain and to your customer. In this instance we're talking about the marketing process - this deals with acquiring the customer in the first place and how you handle your customers once you have them. For this we use the Lean Marketing Pipeline - would you like a copy? Just send an email to: leanpipeline@aweber.com with "Send Me The Pipeline - I'm Missing Out!" in the subject line and we'll send you a picture.
To understand your present state you need to map the processes of communication, customer acquisition, customer processing and customer relationships. Then you need to make sure that there are no non-value adding activities. This will enable you to eliminate steps in the process that have literally become bad habits. We have a module called Moments Of Truth in our Toolbooks series, that deals thoroughly with th
If you are in management there are huge amounts of information to process and there is also the gut instinct, you have that you know what I am talking about. In football it is knowing instinctively when to weave and dodge when you have the ball and the entire rest of the time want to pummel your butt. All you care about it the goal line and the touch down.Well good for you, but has your team set it self up properly to achieve that goal? Hopefully so and you will need some power players to run block and crush those defenders who try to take your destiny away from you. You need to know which defenders you need to look at for, as these are your targets.How do you know who they are? Well, you should have studied everything about your competition before the game. You must know your competition, as well as you know your customers; that is to say as much as you know the goal line. You must also know their methods and offers to the customer, as you are competing now on the scoreboard of business and the stakes can get pretty high.Not only must you achieve that goal, but you must do it again and again and as efficiently as possible. Victory in business is yours if you have the balls to mak
To understand your present state you need to map the processes of communication, customer acquisition, customer processing and customer relationships. Then you need to make sure that there are no non-value adding activities. This will enable you to eliminate steps in the process that have literally become bad habits. We have a module called Moments Of Truth in our Toolbooks series, that deals thoroughly with this issue.
Getting your sales and marketing process right will enable you to reduce the cost of gaining new business, dealing with your customers and upselling new services and products.
Other important things to include when refining your processes are measurement tools. Once you begin to measure success against strategic key performance indicators you will have the information to continuously improve and reduce waste even further. If your customer facing processes work well you will also find that customer satisfaction will improve.
4. Waiting (poor communication)
An over hierarchical communication structure can make it very difficult to take action quickly. This lack of flexibility can cause waste in the form of missed opportunities and unnecessary inaction. If the people responsible for implementing marketing for your business are inactive then you are wasting money. We're not just talking about the hierarchy in your business (you may not have one) - we're talking about the hierarchies in your marketing consultancy, web developers or ad agency.
If you see marketing as a fundamental part of your business then waiting is rarely a problem. If the CEO or board view marketing as separate from the business, then lower priority will be given to spending and decision making in this area.
Changing communication policy or empowering people closer to your marketing activity with limited (and accountable) financial independence will help to overcome this problem.
5. Excessive Communication Costs
Traditional methods of communication - mail / fax / phone / in-person are relatively expensive, and though still essential, need to be mixed with other more cost effective methods. The Internet is a powerful way to reduce communication costs, but still far too few businesses embrace it as such.
Let's say that you produce a monthly printed newsletter for your customers. This will involve cost at the following stages: design; copywriting; editing; printing; packing; distribution. Now imagine the same idea using email. The cost areas are: design; copywriting; editing; distribution. Firstly, there are fewer steps (less time) in the email process, but when you look at the steps that are omitted you'll also find that they are the costs that escalate (stamps, envelopes, printing) as you communicate to a growing audience.
How many times do your people get asked the same questions? Every time they answer a frequently asked question they are performing a duty that does not add value but can't be ignored. Simply using your website to provide general advice and FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) could reduce your costs (Freephone support line) and free up your people's time to perform more productive, value added duties.
I'm wondering if... You Know Other People who should be reading this too? So do us all a favour (they get 2 free books - we get a new subscriber - you get to look good) when you Pass On This link... http://www.leanmarketing.co.uk
6. Trial and Error
Trial and error is the inherent waste involved in all marketing. But simply accepting this fact is not good enough. There are ways to reduce the guesswork as well as reducing the cos
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