Solving The Value Equation

Marketing Excellence Luncheon Well Attended (part 1)

The Greater Houston Partnership’s 4^th Annual Marketing Excellence Luncheon titled “SPEAK LOUD: Small Budget Marketing Secrets You Can Afford.” was a success with more than 300 attendees (a 150% increase over last year)!

The luncheon included a presentation on effective marketing tactics for reaching buyers and highlighted wealth creating strategies from keynote speakers Charles Bedard and Garry Meier of Ephor Group.

Ephor Group would especially like to thank Lauren Garcia Coordinator, Partnership Councils with the Greater Houston Partnership, Katie Demarest the MC, and Susan Asimakis Senior Vice President, Member Services for putting on the event and making it a success!

The full presentation “Moving Beyond Referrals: Secrets for Marketing Effectiveness” can be downloaded here http://www.ephorgroup.com/sitemap.asp

The following blog posts recap the presentation.

Marketing Excellence Presentation: Moving Beyond Referrals: Secrets for Marketing Effectiveness (part 2)

“Moving Beyond Referrals: Secrets for Marketing Effectiveness” is based on the following three components:

1. Garry Meier’s experiences having been a CEO/Operator, Investment Banker, and Chairman of numerous fast growth businesses, as well as an advisor and chairman to several prominent private equity boards which has given him the ability to know a) what marketing if effective, b) how marketing leads to wealth for founders and most importantly how to treat the two most precious SMB resources, executive time and capital, appropriately.
2. Ephor Group’s operating methodology the Perform Business Process™, which has been deployed to fifty fast-growth companies.
3. Quarterly research studies which are compiled from face-to-face, phone, and online surveys conducted on a quarterly basis since 2005. Specifically, the data shown in this presentation is taken from B2B technology and service companies Ephor has advised with annual revenues between $1-20M as well as numerous B2B professional and business services, technology, outsourcing, and labor intensive businesses.

Our research and experiences have taught us that 80% of all new business comes from referrals and networking for companies with less than $5M in revenues.

While we are management consultants, and not marketing professionals, we understand the value marketing has on fast-growth businesses. The most difficult area to create operating leverage is predictable revenue generation because of small business over reliance on founder sales, referrals, and networking. To create scalable revenue processes companies must learn how to market effectively.

Marketing Excellence Presentation: Moving Beyond Referrals: Profiling Increases the Probability and Predictability of Results (part 3)

Marketing, like anything in life, is about minimizing the “Risk and Spend” of any opportunity. The keys to marketing effectively for fast-growth B2B enterprises are:

1. Profiling – create a highly profiled market asset (database) which Ephor calls the “Prospective Business Pool”;
   
2. Increase the Probability of sales using a “Portfolio” approach by not relying on one sales person or one sales tactic;
   
3. And increase the Predictability of Results with technology, refined processes, and a continuous improvement metrics based process.

Marketing Excellence Presentation: Moving Beyond Referrals: The Magic Bullet is a 5 Pronged Approach! (part 4)

If you came here for a “Magic Bullet”, it is doing 5 of the activities highlighted in the chart.

What the chart really says is that if you are not closing greater than 10% of the people you are in front of then you need to do something different. From our experience for any fast-growth business to be effective they must be doing 5 of these marketing activities under a “Portfolio” approach which should raise the close rate to 15% to 30%. And the better the job you do of profiling the higher your close rate will be! This is why market segmentation, targeting and profiling are so important.

An integrated approach to multiple marketing programs optimizes “Risk and Spend”. A typical email campaign will generate a 2% response rate. Direct mail perhaps 5%. But if you combine direct mail with email and phone calls 10% to 20% response rate is easily attainable.

Marketing Excellence Presentation: 1-to1 versus 1-to-Many! (part 5)

Partners and Alternative Distribution Channels add Credence and Credibility because it creates formal sponsorships.

How do you know if your organization has Credibility? If your sales personnel are meeting lots of people but NOT hearing YES or NO then you do NOT have credibility.

Team up with businesses you trust that also target your profiled buyer. One of the most common mistake sales makes is to spend time on meetings and partners that do not a) have the same target market and b) are simply not big enough to matter. If a potential partner cannot introduce you to 10 leads a year then they are not worth the investment of your time.

Technorati Tags: distribution channels,marketing distribution,partner marketing,marketing effectiveness,portfolio marketing,revenue generation

Marketing Excellence Presentation: Technology is a Key Fast-Growth Enabler (part 6)

Technology is required to optimize the “Risk and Spend” of your marketing dollars; i.e. to fine tune and redirect portfolio activities as efficiently as possible. A few key stats:

• Only 1 in 5 small businesses measure their return on marketing and sales dollars
  
• 50% do not use budgets or forecasts or metrics to manage their business
  
• Less than 12% use employee and client satisfaction measures
  

Technorati Tags: CRM,marketing effectiveness,portfolio marketing,revenue generation

Marketing Excellence Presentation: Promoting ‘Raving Fans’ Shrinks the Sales Cycle (part 7)

No matter how great your credentials or how much experience you've had, people pay more attention to what others have to say about you.

Firms that create thirty ‘Raving Fans’ not only create an array of strategic alternatives and capital options for themselves, they also establish their credibility with influencers, partners, and prospects which will reduce your sales cycle time.

One of the best firms we have worked with is HRmarketer; which promotes their several hundred ‘Raving Fans’ via testimonials, case studies, at events, and on their blog.

Pick up the phone and call your customers to ask what they thought of your product or service, what they liked about it and how it was helpful. Edit their comments, get their permission to use the comments and then pervasively feature those testimonials in your business’ marketing materials.

Technorati Tags: marketing effectiveness,portfolio marketing,revenue generation,raving fans

Marketing Excellence Presentation: Brand Your Methodology and Yourself as a Thought-Leader (part 8)

 

An important credibility influencer is the concept of you and your company becoming branded as a “thought-leader.” Brand your methodology and executives to create Buzz and Stand Out from the Crowd with these Tactics:

• Viral effect from videos, campaigns, etc.
• Speaking events
• Brand your methodology and promote it in industry journals and trade shows
• Blogging

Marketing Excellence Presentation: Only Use Direct Sales With a 40% Close Probability (part 9)

At Ephor Group, we treat capital and time as precious resources and therefore only put direct sales personnel in front of prospects that have a 40% or higher probability of buying.

Why?

Because marketing is cheaper than sales!

Technorati Tags: marketing effectiveness,portfolio marketing,revenue generation

Marketing Excellence Presentation: Marketing Effectiveness Summary (part 10)

Ephor Group’s keys to reducing risk and optimizing spend for small, fast-growth businesses :

1. Use a “Portfolio Approach” to create your qualified “Prospective Buyer’s Pool”;
   
2. Use a “Portfolio” method of distribution including online and direct sales, partners and other channels;
   
3. Become “Branded” as a “thought-leader” and Create “Raving Fans” to ensure Maximum Client Referrals; and
   
4. Utilize technology, processes, and outsourced skill versus over reliance on people.

All of the above increases the probability of you getting a new client.

Success is defined as “The right people, in front of the right profile at the right place, at the right probability, at the right productivity, creates predictable results for all stakeholders.”