Sundays Super Bowl was packed full of entertainment, excitement, and wouldn’t you know it Marketing and Sales lessons. The Cardinals down and out, late into the fourth quarter, with their backs against the wall, had to do something quick or the game was lost. So they went to the No Huddle Hurry up Offense. Immediately things changed and they snatched back the lead, racing toward certain victory.

I asked myself; why all of the sudden did the Cardinals begin to dominate the number one ranked defense in the league…

New company branding: $12,300, new website to match brand: $8,650, new commercial campaign for brand: $16,900, not knowing if these efforts will pay off for your business, priceless…… for your competition!

Knowing if your marketing will pay off is all about understanding the relationship between expected returns and cost, or in other words knowing your expected ROI (return on investment). Knowing this relationship saves you tons on money on wasted marketing gimicks and has the added benefit of breeding optimism within a company. This is why the savvy company takes time to evaluate return on investment scenarios. The benefits include:

When it’s 4th and goal with no time on the clock, I want to know what my strengths…

You’ve done your work, spent the time, and cranked out a great strategic marketing plan, well done. Pat yourself on the back and take a deep breath, because only half the work is done. Implementation can be just as daunting as putting together the strategic marketing plan itself. Without successful implementation the best plan becomes useless. This short article will outline 5 key steps to successfully implementing a strategic marketing plan.
First Things First
Let’s clearly get a hold of what implementation entails. In a most technical sense it involves managing change.

One of the biggest headaches in marketing is caused by not knowing. Not knowing if your marketing investment will pay off; not knowing if your campaign will reach the intended audience; not knowing if you have wisely spent your marketing dollar. Let’s face it, not knowing is what stops businesses from trying new things, engaging new strategies, and putting forth continual marketing effort.
If we could eliminate or control the unknown factor in our marketing, we could alleviate this big headache. This is easier said than done, because marketing is complex,

You’re a strategic marketer right? So you know your USP (unique selling point), and how your customers value it. But did you know digging a little deeper into your product and service values can yield new revenue streams?
The premise for new revenue is simple:

Find the Added Value Play (values that your customers have not thought about)
Develop complimentary services tied to these added values
Get busy presenting newly packaged services
Continue, continue, continue to push the Added Value Play

The Added Value Play
The Added Value Play is all about finding values (wants, needs, likes,

Effective marketing and salesmanship are a lot like a running a political campaign …

The first thing I ask a client is to describe their marketing and sales programs. Most times the answer shows the company is either heavily marketing oriented without a sales balance, or heavily sales oriented without a marketing balance. This is stunning, because when you focus on one (i.e. marketing or sales) without the other, the cup is always half empty. Let’s fill up the cup and see how Marketing supports sales, and sales supports marketing.
Marketing
Finding an agreeable definition of Marketing is not an easy thing. We all have our