Every company needs some kudos, even if they have to ask for them. Knowing that customers are satisfied is important, especially for those of seeking repeating sales.
Lately though, I have noticed more and more retailers and restaurants are spewing out prizes (dare I say bribes) for completing their “short” survey… in some cases garnering you the chance to win $5000 or maybe 10% off your next visit all in search of gathering customer opinions and measuring customer satisfaction.
When ever a new product is launched, great pains are taken to measure success of the new product (you are measuring, right?). Do you know what are you measuring against? If you created a business case prior to developing the product, you should already have a first year sales forecast ready, available and communicated to all involved. (more…)
(This article is cross-posted as a guest post at onproductmanagement.net)
Aren’t the marketing automation tools great?
They help you develop target lead campaigns that automatically respond to a “visitor’s” action depending on what they do. This is done without human interference or effort, moving the potential buyer through the elements that have been pre-determined to be the right marketing piece of collateral or action at the time. How did business ever do this before, given how time and labor consuming these efforts can be?
But there is a flaw. And it can ruin your efforts.
(This article is cross-posted as a guest post at onproductmanagement.net)
As product marketing professionals, we are tasked by senior leadership with understanding the buyer persona and directing the creation of marketing materials that tout the benefits of our product to those specific personas, benefits that solve the buying problems of the market. We are tasked with understanding the voice of the customer. We are tasked with win/loss analysis, competitor analysis, branding and sales psychology. Strategic stuff. Big picture stuff. Important stuff that makes sales more efficient and ultimately brings revenue in the door.
It’s easier to focus on the activities that justify the existence of product marketing in your organization. In the post “Justifing product marketing in your organization” I explain that it comes down to a simplistic role of “injecting the market voice in a balanced way in a method where the buyer can understand, relate and be motivated to take action.” Yet, we then proceed to do things that discount our own value. So why do we shoot ourselves in the foot so often?
