Blog posts
Differentiation is the key to selling in a tough economy
Great products always have a market. The question is this: What’s the value proposition that makes sense in difficult times? If your product is all about quality, you have two advantages over lesser products:
1. Your product can enhance your customer’s brand
2. You can offer risk-reduction purchasing strategies to your customers.
Both of these differentiators depend on ...
More >Segmentation and the power of focus
The more companies I talk to, the more convinced I become that thinking clearly about the segments you serve is the key to effective marketing.
The value of segmentation is really that it causes you to be objective about the kinds of people who will find your products and services interesting. Objectivity includes understanding the positive and negative aspects of ...
More >Customer relationship innovation
There are many ways to innovate, but one of the most reliable is in the customer relationship. It’s reliable because you can quickly measure the impact of changes in the way you manage the relationship with your customers. You don’t even have to have a brilliant idea—your customers will often provide it for you (if you ask ...
More >Innovation is not optional
Most people would agree that innovation is important. But not every company takes it seriously. Innovation is what keeps your business relevant as the needs of your customer change, and as your competition evolves.
It’s tempting to believe that in a cost-driven, mature market, efficiency is the key – that close management of costs and efficient and predictable processes are ...
More >Strategy: Making your recommendation
Once your strategy hypothesis has been presented and validated, it’s time to get on to implementation. But implementation in any organization requires buy-in and understanding from a lot of people.
The recommendation phase is the process of establishing common understanding and buy-in, so that implementation can proceed.
The good news is that you have gone through a thorough process ...
More >Strategy: Validation completes the picture
A strategic hypothesis lays out your view of the market, the opportunity, the risks, and a prioritized set of options. Once subjected to internal review and discussion, there are bound to be a number of additional questions raised, and perhaps some preferences expressed.
The purpose of validation is to test the preferred options with friendly customers and internal stake-holders, and ...
More >The Hypothesis - where analysis meets action
In Seven Steps to a Sound Strategy we outlined the phases of strategy development. This is the point at which the rubber meets the road. You’ve developed a problem statement, collected information, developed a research plan, carried out the research, and now you have to decide what it all means.
The goal of this phase is simply to build ...
More >Web 2.0 and technology
I wrote a while ago about Web 2.0, and the connections between people that it enables. I still think that’s perhaps the most important social impact of Web 2.0, and the real difference from a user standpoint. But there’s another angle, which is the development side.
When I moved beyond static web pages I learned about ...
More >Strategy: Effective Market Research execution
Market research is the foundation of great strategy. Knowing more about your market and your customers than your competitors gives you an advantage when it comes to identifying new opportunities and capitalizing upon them.
There are many kinds of market research, and a wide range of expert services to help you apply them. In this article I will therefore focus ...
More >Research planning drives new insights
Having defined your strategy problem and completed an environmental scan, you’re ready to plan the research. One of the key outputs from the environmental scan was a set of questions. It’s worth documenting the unanswered questions carefully, because they are the primary input to your research plan.
Questions represent gaps in your knowledge that you’d like to ...
More >How business model innovation drives business success
Business models are the way you offer your products or services to the market. They include elements like pricing and packaging, terms and conditions, and added-value elements that increase differentiation.
In most markets, having the right products is not enough. Selling books against Amazon is really tough. Selling consumer electronics against Best Buy is too hard for most of us ...
More >Strategy: the Environmental Scan gets you oriented
Strategy is about making good decisions. The best decisions are made on the basis of a combination of experience, intuition, and fact-based analysis.
The first step is to get oriented.
The environmental scan is a process I’ve found of great value in a complex strategy project. It follows the problem definition phase. The purpose is to gather and organize ...
More >Strategy: defining the problem
In Seven Steps to a sound strategy, I outlined the elements of an effective strategy process. The first step is defining the problem.
It’s not as easy as it may seem, because early in strategy development there’s a lot that isn’t known. Here are some tests for a good problem definition:
- If you solve it, will it ...
Seven steps to a sound strategy
Strategy is about making informed choices with limited resources, in ways that strengthen your business. There’s no easy way to be sure that you have the right strategy, but there is a process that yields consistent results. In this post I’ll summarize a proven process for strategy development. Then I’ll describe each step in turn.
The seven ...
More >What is Web 2.0 really?
60% of online news is now published by individuals, rather than by organizations, networks and commercial portals.
That’s a huge change.
I think the most useful aspect of Web 2.0 is the way these technologies connect individuals and enable individual voices to be heard on the web.
Web 2.0 is based on the realization that even if ...
More >Computing's new frontier
The world of computing is undergoing a massive change, and it’s going to affect every one of us. It’s called cloud computing, and it’s a really different way of thinking about the use of computers and networks.
In the past, we’ve seen the rise of personal computers on the one hand, and its offshoots like mobile ...
More >Articles
Pragmatic steps to strategy development
Strategy is about making informed choices with limited resources, in ways that strengthen your business. There’s no easy way to be sure that you have the right strategy, but there is a process that yields consistent results. In this post I’ll summarize a proven process for strategy development. Then I’ll describe each step in turn.
The seven ...
More >Brand Magic
I have never been branded in the physical sense; however millions of farm animals over the centuries would attest to its effectiveness. The original of the word “brand” is in old Norse—the language of ancient Scandinavia. It means “to burn.” It was a good idea in Scandinavia to burn an identifying mark into the rump of your livestock, because ...
More >Services
Marketing Communications Planning
It’s easy to imagine that the primary task of marketing is the creation and deployment of communications tools. Certainly this is an important activity, but it comes almost at the end of the workflow for marketing.
- Begin with a clear strategy;
- Identify key segments and their needs;
- Develop positioning and messages;
- Understand your delivery channels,
…and then design the ...
More >Vision and Values
Behind all the technology and product and business activity in a company is a group of people. Increasingly, that group is diverse in culture, language and experience. It has never been more important to clearly define the basic beliefs and intentions of the company in a way that the team can understand. This is the purpose of establishing values within ...
More >Business Strategy
Strategy is really just another word for intelligent planning of your business in order to maximize value creation and delivery. It can involve re-vitalization of brand; new product plans; expansion into new geographies; and much more.
There are some basic issues that turn up time and again.
- Core competencies – What is my company really good at?
- Sustained advantage – What must ...
Brand Strategy
A brand is first and foremost a promise to the customer. It is intended to cause the appropriate customer to prefer the products and services associated with that brand.
Over the years, marketers have become more and more creative about how they build those perceptions. It’s no longer just about product value – it includes lifestyle issues, fashion, links to ...
More >Links
- Wikipedia on Marketing Strategy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_strategy
- Indeed - Career Site http://www.indeed.com/ - A really easy-to-use site with a wide range of jobs and great search and filtering tools.
- Harvard Business Review: Working Knowledge http://hbswk.hbs.edu/ - The Harvard Business Review publishes a lot of very well-thought out materials. Some of it is available in blog-like forms from the Working Knowledge site. There are articles on marketing, strategy, and a wide range of business topics.
- Marketing with Integrity http://www.squidoo.com/marketingwithintegrity - Squidoo provides a platform for the discussion of a wide range of issues. This topic focuses on the relationship between business and ethics from a pragmatic perspective
- Interlink Partners http://www.interlink-partners.com/ - Interlink Partners is a boutique consultancy with a track record of results in semiconductors and software. Their focus is on a high-intensity examination of business issues and opportunities resulting in rapid results. The partners bring deep experience in marketing, operations, venture funding, and international business.
