It’s interesting to see how technology starts at premium but very quickly is ‘free’. Will this happen in the e-learning, LMS and Saas markets I wonder?

Do companies have a plan in place to combat the ‘free’ train when it comes knocking? If not, they will get a very nasty wake up call, as revealed in Chris’ presentation.

He states that search campaigns should measure desired actions and that those actions take place. Like any offline direct marketing campaign; specific actions are expected, either a sale or a lead.

His report is dynamite. Read it.

If not Nicole Rawski offers practical solutions how you can.

Her topic sparked a lively conversation at the end. You’ll find the comments as interesting as her report.

He suggests an entirely different approach focused on training our customers to ‘interact’ and engage with us and celebrate that rather than the ’stats’.

Hillstrom acknowledges that his ideas may be ‘garbage’ and not work, but as he concludes, with only “one in seven hundred customers buying what we have to sell today, what do we have to lose?”

Today there is something else I’d like to talk about, and that is to consider the positive reasons why conducting a SWOT analyse for lead generation campaigns is so important.

Conducting one gives smart companies real insight into their marketing situation and as the marketing ‘playing field’ changes so dramatically at times, they feel it’s good to know what their up against before they decide to invest millions on their next marketing campaign.

Anything from, a baby boom crisis causing shrinking client bases to Governmental changes due to it, are things smart companies feel is worth being prepared for, before embarking on their next marketing campaign.

Far too often, I hear of marketing managers preferring to guess, to prove their macho image before their boss or peers and further, others failing due to ignorance or silly mistakes, which could’ve been easily avoided with simple due diligence.

If you’ve never heard of a SWOT analysis before basically it breaks down like this:

Strengths: What are the positive aspects of our product?
Weaknesses: What weaknesses does our product have?
Opportunities: What marketing opportunities do we have?
Threats: What problems are looming and are we now facing, in the marketplace?

The costs of getting the facts is much cheaper than the millions down the drain due to lack of fact finding and analysis.

Because, in as little as four to six hours, by gathering the usual suspects; e.g., VP marketing, telemarketing, direct marketing manager, key distributors, chairperson and scribe; basically all those invested in the project, all in one room or on conference call, you could have all the facts you needed to know whether or not your next marketing campaign would be a success.

But the questions shouldn’t stop there, while brainstorming ideas and answering the SWOT questions it’s also important to consider what your competition is doing too.

So once you’ve answered all your SWOT questions for your product and marketing issues, use the SWOT questions on your main competitors too. In this way, you’ll quickly figure out how much you really know about your competitors. Here are a few more questions to ask:

What do they charge for their product or services?
How do they distribute their product or services?

By asking these key questions, smart companies are on their way to enjoying very successful marketing campaigns.

Why not you?

I hope you found this article useful.