You’re now finding your buyers and consumers throwing caution to the wind, opening their wallets eagerly and jumping at the chance to buy your product no matter what it costs, right?

Well, probably not quite.  Even with things looking up slightly from last year, your buyers and consumers are still pulling your cost-value ratio through a fine-toothed comb. Read More »

Increased number of customer touch points, cluttered channels, more specialized media, global 24/7 buying environment…many of us will admit that the business landscape of today is calling for a very strategic approach to marketing communications, but what is the reality at the home front?

According to MLC research, top marketing organizations are challenged by product positioning getting lost somewhere between product and communications development, consumers experiencing disjointed messages due to lack of clarity in product positioning, and struggles to communicate brand positioning strategy effectively and simply across functional silos.

Sound familiar? Read More »

Do you feel like the biggest change to your 2011 marketing plan is changing the title from “Marketing Plan – 2010” to “Marketing Plan – 2011”?

While you might not exactly be “carbon copying” your previous plan, determining which elements to include in your plan, as well as how to ensure you’re planning around your customer, your products, and your partners requires huge effort and a significant amount of experience and knowledge. Each step of the process requires a comprehensive understanding of various marketing concepts and tools to ensure the strongest possible marketing plan. Read More »

If your company is like many others out there, the economic downturn resulted in you having to slash your training budgets, including most of the training efforts for your marketing organization.

The question is- can you afford not to invest in training your marketers?

These are the people that are developing your strategic marketing plans, writing messaging that meets your target market needs, choosing the initiatives that will have the best ROI while meeting your brand goals, and so much more.  It is more than a little unnerving to know that while they handle such critical tasks, 2/3rds of them actually don’t have a marketing background, as shown in a survey of 65,000 marketers by the Marketing Excellence Survey. Read More »