A marketing expert has given companies crucial tips for maintaining customer loyalty during a downturn.

Customer acquisition and retention specialist Chintan Bharwada said effective marketing is primarily about building trust and developing relationships, so firms need to focus on this essential objective.

Writing on Marketing Profs, he revealed that one of the most important ways to cultivate brand loyalty is by identifying and building a strong corporate brand identity.

"We're not talking about your logo, marketing look or tagline," Mr Bharwada commented.

"Branding that builds genuine customer loyalty goes beyond what the eye can see. It's branding at the emotional, sensory and gut-feeling level."

He also urged direct marketing professionals to tap into what customers want and stay in tune with their evolving needs.

Marketers were also advised to build on their corporate integrity by maintaining business honesty, providing a consistent level of service and always being reliable, as firms with high levels of integrity will be viewed positively by potential sales leads.

Commenting on BBC News, George Derbyshire, chief executive of the National Federation of Enterprise Agencies, recently highlighted the importance of maintaining excellent relationships with current clients, as it much easier to sell to existing customers than to try and win over new ones.

Posted by Julie Knight, Managing Director – General Marketing, Industry News

 

B2B direct marketing firms have been advised that direct mail campaigns do not have to be "flashy" to be effective.

According to marketing resource Blogcritics.org, marketers do not need to employ the most cutting-edge technology in their marketing campaigns - all they need to do is to make sure that content is well presented.

"That does not mean it has to be full colour and flashy, but it should be wisely packaged to get it opened and the content must flow right to be conducive to having prospects call you," the web portal commented.

Marketers were also encouraged to use accurate and well targeted B2B mailing lists to ensure that their communications reach the correct destinations.

The website pointed out that open rates for well-put-together direct mail pieces can reach as high as seven per cent to nine per cent.

Direct mail can also be used in conjunction with other platforms such as email and telemarketing as part of an effective multichannel campaign.

Posted by Daryl Jay, Business Development Director – Sales, Industry News, General Marketing

 

Ever stood in a crowded marketplace trying to catch a glimpse of something you wanted to buy amid the distracting hustle and bustle?

That same sensation is also experienced by prospects when they open their email inboxes and find scores of junk mail and correspondence competing for their attention.

This obviously poses serious problems for B2B marketing firms that rely on email to lure sales leads to their websites. If your email does not send all the right signals, rest assured, it will go unnoticed or worse still, head straight to the junk mail folder never to see the light of day again.

So how do you make sure that your content is not among those poor unfortunate rejects? Easy. Research what works and apply these rules to your own marketing mix.

As Alan Smith of web design firm Sphinx points out, why not look into your own inbox and take a notice of the emails that pique your interest and the ones that are so unremarkable you didn't even realise you missed them in the first place.

"Pay attention to the emails which you prefer to open and the reasons behind it," he comments.

"See which type of wordings and presentations attract you and serve the purpose for which they are created."

Posted by Suzanne Stock – Communications Director, HR, Online Advertising, General Marketing

 

The last few years have witnessed an explosion in the number and variety of technological solutions open to B2B marketing professionals who are looking to manage their cross-channel marketing strategies.

One such solution is Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) cloud-based systems, which have emerged as an effective alternative to more traditional methods of business data management.

Although there are some unavoidable risks involved in managing your sales and marketing technology without the expert guidance of a seasoned and dedicated team of IT specialists, SaaS is an excellent way to manage your marketing communications, improve sales and capture prospects.

According to Marketing Profs, SaaS gives you a certain level of freedom from the constraints of traditional IT systems, allowing you to streamline your business and divert some of your attention to other areas that need seeing to.

"IT slows down production [and] deployment," Marketing Profs commented. "Cloud-based solutions decrease your reliance on IT so you can get better results, faster."

Moreover, Saas is easy to scale up or down as your company's budget needs require.

Posted by Suzanne Stock – Communications Director, HR, Online Advertising, General Marketing

 

The impact of the emergence of real-time search on the marketing industry is not yet fully clear, E-consultancy has said.
Jake Hird, senior research analyst at the company, explained that with real-time search, the stream is now almost instantaneous, but nobody knows how it is being indexed or what firms need to do to be indexed.

He went on to say that although the technology is still in a grey area at the moment, it will continue to develop and become much clearer over the course of this year.

B2B marketing firms keen on exploiting the benefits of search marketing were urged to make sure they continue to monitor their online brand profile.

"Even before they start putting in real-time results, companies should be looking at how to manage their search visibility and they need to be taking everything into consideration," Mr Hird said.

A report published earlier this year by the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organisation found that 71 per cent of client-side B2B marketing professionals questioned pay to advertise on the Google search network.

Posted by Daryl Jay, Business Development Director – Sales, Industry News, General Marketing
 

 

Many marketers are fully aware that marketing lists are an excellent way to reach a wide and extensive range of clients and consumers.

But some tend to forget that there are varying types of lists out there - and not all marketing lists are created equal.

According to B2B marketing copywriter and consultant Susan Fantle, the very best and most effective B2B email lists available today typically consist of subscribers to specific industry publications.

These types of lists enable you to be sure that you are obtaining full opt-in; however, email lists tend to average only 30 per cent of the target available from direct mail lists.

"B2B marketing only using email is, therefore, missing two-thirds of available prospects," Ms Fantle comments on the B2B marketing smarts blog.

"With the delivery loss from spam filters, the missing number is likely to be even larger."

Armed with this information, the next step you need to take is to make sure that you are implementing a fully integrated multi-channel marketing strategy in order to achieve the best chances of marketing success.

Posted by Suzanne Stock – Communications Director, HR, Online Advertising, General Marketing