How to use Market Research as a Digital Sales & Marketing Tool

Most businesses will not necessarily be creating new product categories. As a result, they will be entering into a market place that already exists. This is true if you are a re-seller or distributor of products and services. Once you decide that there is a market for your products and services; you need to study your competitors.

Image via smartdraw.com

You will need to perform a SWOT analysis by assessing your strengths and weaknesses compared to your competitors on the products you offer, the price, quality, the service, reliability, stability, expertise, company reputation, location and appearance of your business along with how important it is to the customer.

Traditional Uses of Market Research

Most companies use Market Research for internal purposes IE education of Marketing and Sales teams on features, position in the marketplace and product descriptions.

Examples of Market Research as an Online Sales & Marketing Tool

What if companies could use Market research as an online sales and marketing tool, putting the analysis on their website? Justworks is doing just that. Justworks offers seamless payroll, tax filings, HR support, and access to affordable benefits in an all-in-one solution.

Visitors to the Justworks site are able to access the information quickly without providing their information. Also, the company presents the Market Research in a quick and visually appealing format.

Justworks invites users to compare them to the competition; showing that they believe in their product and service.

The company allows visitors to compare fees and pricing along with each of the services they offer. When visitors click, they get to see a drop down menu of how Justworks compares to the competition.

At the bottom of each menu, Justworks supports its claims with customer testimonials in the form of user case studies. Users are invited to Read more in a call to action.

This is an innovate way to use Market Research as an Online Sales and Marketing tool because it helps build trust with prospects. Sharing Market Research as seen above helps position a company as an industry resource. Prospects have access to more choices and information than ever before; making it essential for companies to provide information in a quick and easy to understand format.

Have you used Market Research as an Online Sales and Marketing tool. Comment and share below.

About the Author

Dan is passionate about using Marketing to help businesses drive sales. Certified in Inbound Marketing, Dan has worked on various marketing assignments including: Start Ups, a Political Campaign and a Digital Marketing Conference.

Prior to serving as a Classroom teacher, Dan served customers as an Outside Sales & Marketing Rep in NYC. In this role, he taught and trained Dentists on the company’s products and services using a consultative selling approach combined with direct marketing. He also supported the company’s marketing efforts at industry trade shows.

He writes and publishes a business blog on the topics of Sales, Marketing and Social Media entitled Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today; which has grown to over 18,000 followers on LinkedIn and over 17,000 on WordPress.

Dan’s articles and insights on Sales, Marketing and Social Media have been featured, mentioned and referenced in major Business Publications such as:

The Arizona Republic

http://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/handle-top-10-sme-sales-objections-24845.html

Twitter Ads Blog

https://blog.twitter.com/2014/how-smartphone-users-engage-on-twitter-three-key-findings

Yahoo! Finance Blog

https://es.finance.yahoo.com/blogs/fintechnologiayredeses/cueva-arma-secreta-obama-110427857.html

Paper.li’s Wall Of Fame via Scoop.it

http://www.scoop.it/t/all-things-paper-li/?tag=Dan+Galante

Dan has been honored for his Social Profiles & Content

•Recognized by Klout for having a Score putting him in the Top 10 % of Social Media Users

•LinkedIn Social Selling Index Score in the Top 1%

•Honored by SlideShare for being in the top 5% of profiles viewed in 2014

•Honored by LinkedIn in 2012 for being in the top 1% of profiles viewed out of 200 million members

Dan is seeking a full-time marketing role in Direct, Inbound, Digital, Content ans Social Media Marketing. He is willing to be a CMO to create and build out the Marketing function of your organization if it does not exist. Contact him to set up interviews. dan@dangalante.com

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EdTech’s Growthhacking Guide

Image via schooldata.com

Trends in Education are changing. This will provide a great Opportunity for EdTech Companies to improve Education while increasing Sales and Revenue. If you are in EdTech, looking to get into this $13,190,456, 456,848 K-12 Market not to mention the opportunities in Higher Education; read my LinkedIn post to find out more.

 

2017 Media Preview of The New York Auto Show

There are countless exhibits at the New York Auto Show that showcased many innovations and technological advances in the automotive industry. An example of the industry innovation is Hyundai’s Blue Link a collaboration with Google to integrate Google Assistant into its 2018 vehicles.

After two days of coverage on the press preview days, I am going to share my favorite product unveils and displays.

Mercedes unveil

North America Premiere Porsche 911 GT3 Premiere and Panamera Sport Turismo at 2017 NYIAS

Honda Clarity unveil 2017 NYIAS

Hyundai Sonata Design Experience at 2017 NYIAS

Toyota FT-4X Unveil at 2017

To see more pictures and videos, go to my Facebook/Twitter pages @DanGalante.

If you are in the New York area, checkout the New York Auto Show. The New York International Auto Show is open to the public from Friday, April 14th to Sunday, April 23rd, 2017. Tickets cost $17 for Adults, $7 for Children, pricing for groups and tours can be found on the website. For more information go to http://www.autoshowny.com.

What cars and trucks do you want to see at the show? If you have attended the show, what was your favorite exhibit?

Comment below.

How Tech Can Gain Market Share with the Teacher of Tomorrow

During my time in field sales, I wanted to obtain the business of Dental Schools and Hospitals. After obtaining meetings and making presentations to prominent Dentists, I was informed that they could not buy from me. After handling objections, showing how my offerings were better than the competition; I got to the heart of the matter. The decision makers explained to me that they were under contract with large manufacturers and distributors.

In fact, these competitors were offering deep discounts to dental schools so their students would get comfortable using their products. When these students would become licensed Dentists, they would use the products they trained on instead of the competitors. These competitors build life-long customer loyalty.

When I called on certain Dentists in their offices, they said they liked a particular company’s product. I asked them why they liked the product and would they consider switching for something comparable with faster service. The Dentists said no saying that they learned on particular equipment in Dental School and it was the only thing they felt comfortable using.

Image via http://www.matthewsonmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/chap-1-fig-2-geoffrey-moore-tech-adopt-curve1.png?w=580

Geoffrey Moore discusses the Technology life cycle in Crossing the Chasm.

Dental manufactures and large distributors used pricing to target the Innovators/Early adopters/which in this case was the dental students and hospitals. To increase market share, they offered discounted pricing in exchange for purchase and long service contracts. These manufacturers and distributors succeeded in targeting dental students right before they would become customers; earning them years of customer loyalty.

How this applies to EdTech & E-Learning

This strategy can be applied to the EdTech/E-Learning market because there are many companies that serve this space but only a few companies that dominate the market. The opportunity to target Innovators/Early adopters like I described above presents itself as the United States Department of Education is asking for Education Technology to be embedded into K-12 teacher preparation programs.

 

image via http://elearninginfographics.com/wp-content/uploads/21st_century_classroom.jpg

EdTech/E-Learning companies have the chance to improve the Teaching profession and generate life-long customer loyalty. This opportunity can be seized by offering discounted pricing and free trials to Innovators/Early Adopters which in this case are the teacher preparation programs.

Here is how this marketing program could be executed on the Technology Life cycle curve.

Innovators Teacher Preparation programs

Offer teacher preparation programs discounted pricing and free trials to try the product.

Have pre-service Teachers/Admins get comfortable using the product

Early Adopters Rookie Teachers/Admins

Offer them free trials and a lower discount.

Early/Late Majority Seasoned Teachers/Admins

Offer Trials and discounts to targeted staff and Administrators, Lead Teachers and Instructional Coaches.

Laggards Senior Staff Members

Continue to innovate the product and messaging to show how the product is being used.

Obtain Testimonials from satisfied Teachers and Administrators.

Show how the product exceeds competitors.

This is how EdTech/E-Learning companies can improve the Teaching profession and generate life-long customer loyalty.

What EdTech/E-Learning product do you want to try?

Comment and share below.

About the Author

Dan is passionate about using Marketing to help businesses drive sales. Certified in Inbound Marketing, Dan has worked on various marketing assignments including: Start Ups, a Political Campaign & a Digital Marketing Conference.

Prior to serving as a Classroom teacher, Dan served customers as an Outside Sales & Marketing Rep in NYC. In this role, he taught & trained Dentists on the company’s products & services using a consultative selling approach combined with direct marketing. He also supported the company’s marketing efforts at industry trade shows.

He writes & publishes a business blog on the topics of Sales, Marketing & Social Media entitled Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today; which has grown to over 17,000 followers on LinkedIn & over 13,000 on WordPress.

Dan’s articles & insights on Sales, Marketing & Social Media have been featured, mentioned & referenced in major Business Publications such as:

The Arizona Republic

http://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/handle-top-10-sme-sales-objections-24845.html

Twitter Ads Blog

https://blog.twitter.com/2014/how-smartphone-users-engage-on-twitter-three-key-findings

Yahoo! Finance Blog

https://es.finance.yahoo.com/blogs/fintechnologiayredeses/cueva-arma-secreta-obama-110427857.html

Paper.li’s Wall Of Fame via Scoop.it

http://www.scoop.it/t/all-things-paper-li/?tag=Dan+Galante

Dan has been honored for his Social Profiles & Content

•Recognized by Klout for having a Score putting him in the Top 10 % of Social Media Users

•LinkedIn Social Selling Index Score in the Top 1%

•Honored by SlideShare for being in the top 5% of profiles viewed in 2014

•Honored by LinkedIn in 2012 for being in the top 1% of profiles viewed out of 200 million members

Dan is seeking a full-time marketing role in Direct, Inbound, Digital, Content & Social Media Marketing. He is willing to be a CMO to create and build out the Marketing function of your organization if it does not exist. Contact him to set up interviews. dan@dangalante.com

Marketing a Start Up to Prospects & Customers

For a start up to have any success in generating sales, you have to know four things:

1 Who can buy your product or service?

2 Who are the decision makers?

3 Where are these decision makers going to make buying decisions?

4 How do these people make buying decisions?

I covered the first two questions in a previous post. Let’s focus on questions three and four. To find out where the decision makers go to make buying decisions you need to do following:

Ask them, how did you decide on buying product XYZ? This will be easier to with your existing customers but prospects will respect you for asking questions that other people don’t. Another place to see where decision makers go to buy your products is trade shows. You could attend as either an exhibitor or an attendee. Try to get a booth at the show. Exhibitors are provided with demographics of who attends the show and have a chance to interact with buyers directly. Does your customer base have a specific incentive to make purchases at a certain time period? For example, when I was a sales rep in the Dental industry, the IRS allowed dentists to write off capital equipment purchases they made up to a certain amount. If you cannot afford to go as an exhibitor then go as an attendee. This way you can see what goes on first hand.

Now on how these people make buying decisions. This information could be obtained by asking them or it could be obtained by looking for published research. If none exists, conduct a survey and offer a free gift to fill it out. You could even include questions on how they came to a decision to make a purchase. SurveyMonkey is a good way to do this.

Social Media Marketing

Marketing your business using social media is a great way to build your business and reach potential buyers. Before I discuss more about this, I want to ask you some questions?

Do you have a website? If not, why not? Websites are easy to put together. I put mine together rather quickly. Having a site helps your business come up in searches. When I Google you and your business what comes up? Go ahead and try it now. If nothing comes up, that’s not good!

Now you’re asking what do I put on my website? I would put basic information that sells who you are and what you do. I would also upload information on your products and services. You should include a resume, testimonials and a blog. A website is like fashion, it is never finished. You can look at my site as an example. I also write a blog and publish online newspapers. I use my blog to give my followers a value massage. This blog is published on WordPress and Tumblr. I share the content throughout my social networks. I will cover how to build a website and a blog in future posts.

The Social Networks that I would have a presence on are the following: LinkedIn,Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. I also have social sharing buttons on my site and blog. Pinterest is also a good network; however I have focused on the first four.

I would try to build a following on each these networks. Your best bet on how to do this is to share good content with people. When I started, I shared other people’s articles, and then I wrote my own. However, I still share others content that I find interesting. You can market your business with these updates. Search for people who are have an interest to what you have to offer. I have provided links to articles I have written on how to do this on these networks.

These are the basics on how to market a start up to prospects and customers.

Additional Resources

http://www.slideshare.net/Dgalantenyc/small-business-marketing-101-56503388

About the Author

Dan is passionate about using Marketing to help businesses drive sales. HubSpot Certified in Inbound Marketing, Dan has worked on various marketing assignments including Start Ups, a Political Campaign & a Digital Marketing Conference.

Prior to teaching, Dan served customers as an Outside Sales & Marketing Rep in NYC. In this role, he taught & trained Dentists on the company’s products & services using a consultative selling approach combined with direct marketing. He also supported the company’s marketing efforts at industry trade shows.

He writes & publishes a business blog on the topics of Sales, Marketing & Social Media entitled Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today; which has grown to over 17,000 followers on LinkedIn & over 13,000 on WordPress.

Dan is seeking a full-time marketing role in Direct, Inbound, Digital, Content & Social Media Marketing. He is willing to be a CMO to create and build out the Marketing function of your organization if it does not exist. If your company is hiring for roles in these areas, contact him directly via a free LinkedIn Message or email him at Dan@DanGalante.com to set up interviews.

100 Days to Increase Brand Awareness and Sales Enablement

image via image via https://marketingtechblog.com/infographic-closing-the-gap-between-sales-marketing-through-sales-enablement/

When Brand awareness and Sales are low for brands, it is tempting to start using social media and blogging to solve the issue. At first this sounds like a great idea, but without a well thought out plan, Brands will fail and damage the credibility they have built.

Prior to using social media and blogs, Brands have to examine what they want their Brand to mean. Market Research and Buyer Personas need to examined and updated.

image via smartdraw.com

Everything from digital assets, Sales/Marketing collateral effectiveness, product messaging and the logo needs to be examined. It is important to have a clear consensus and consistency on your brand voice. Brands need to ask their customers what the brand means to them as well. Once this analysis is completed, the brand vision needs to be compared to the way customers see it. Brands should make changes to align the customer vision to the Brand vision.

Previously, I have written two articles 10 Ways to Grow your Audience and Build a Customer base and Social Media 101. This serves a time line to executing that plan.

Within 30 days

Create a handle that matches the company name

Start sharing articles they create and from outside industry sources to engage the followers and start to build reciprocal relationships

Share related follower content

Within 60 days

Host Twitter chats on industry related topics

Within 90 days

Use Periscope to shoot live videos

  1. LinkedIn

Within 30 days

Start using the LinkedIn publishing platform to publish content

Use this content to connect with and identify with prospects and customers

Share LinkedIn content on company page

Promote company page to gain more followers

Provide product offerings on the company page

Create a user group and invite current and prospective customers to join

Within 90 days

Use this group to take the discussion offline and have events

2. Facebook

Promote company page to gain more followers

Provide the types of software integrates with on the company page

Create a user group and invite current and prospective customers to join

Within 90 days

Use this group to take the discussion offline and have events

Use Facebook live to host chats

3. Pinterest/Instagram

Within 60 days

Use Visuals to engage with potential customers

4. Blog Content Creation

Within 30 days

Search Google trends for key terms around industry to build a niche audience

Create content around these terms to build up authority in the search engines

5. Website suggestions

Take ownership of the brand Handle the creation and updates of websites internally

Place a menu for the blog at the top of the site menu so it is easier to find

Have an in the news section visible on the navigation

Do not include company name in the title of articles

Make content easy to share by placing share buttons on each of content

Create calls to action on social channels encouraging email sign up for blog

6. YouTube

        Within 30 days

Place share button for YouTube on website, upload webinar content to YouTube

Within 90+ days

Have a video podcast with guest speakers on industry topics to build up subscribers on YouTube

7. Improving a Talent Brand

image via https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/2012/10/new-employer-brand-research

Build a Presence on other Social Media channels many overlook

  1. SlideShare

Content Curation

Within 30 days

Repurpose blog posts into presentations on SlideShare to cater to different types of learners

Write blog posts and LinkedIn articles using SlideShare embed the information

Use SEO tags to get found in the right places

2. Share content to Google+

Within 30 days

Build out a company page share tips and insights around customer

Blogging

   1. Tumblr/WordPress/Medium

WithIn 30 days

Publish content on Tumblr/WordPress/Medium

Obtain domain name for each

Email Marketing

Ongoing

Use blog to build up a subscriber list

Share links to blog content, webinars, offers etc… in email

Get opt in during purchase of product and during demos

Make sure blog has a place for people to subscribe along with social followers

6. Analytics

Ongoing

Use analytics data from, website and social networks and email campaign to measure engagement, examine traffic sources and make decisions on strategy going forward

7. Event Marketing

90+ days

Use Social Media to organize and promote events to the get product in front of industry

Attend industry tradeshows

After all organic Marketing is maximized

Paid Options

  1. LinkedIn

Use content we create and advertise using the sponsored story feature targeting prospects and customers.

KPI: For Brand Awareness choose the Impressions option

KPI: For Conversions choose the PPC option

Create a display ad driving people to the site

2. SlideShare

Create a lead generation form to capture the email addresses of people viewing content

3. Twitter

Create display ad that drives people to the site

KPI: For Brand Awareness choose the Impressions option

KPI: For Conversions choose the PPC option

4. Google/YouTube

Create visual display ads to drive traffic to website

ie Google Display network, Adwords, Bing Ads

Sponsor webinar and YouTube video content

How have you increased Brand Awareness and Sales Enablement? Comment and share below.

Additional presentations can be found here.

About the Author

Dan is passionate about using Marketing to help businesses drive sales. HubSpot Certified in Inbound Marketing, Dan has worked on various marketing assignments including Start Ups, a Political Campaign & a Digital Marketing Conference.

Prior to teaching, Dan served customers as an Outside Sales & Marketing Rep in NYC. In this role, he taught & trained Dentists on the company’s products & services using a consultative selling approach combined with direct marketing. He also supported the company’s marketing efforts at industry trade shows.

He writes & publishes a business blog on the topics of Sales, Marketing & Social Media entitled Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today; which has grown to over 17,000 followers on LinkedIn & over 13,000 on WordPress.

Dan is seeking a full-time marketing role in Direct, Inbound, Digital, Content & Social Media Marketing. He is willing to be a CMO to create and build out the Marketing function of your organization if it does not exist. If your company is hiring for roles in these areas, contact him directly via a free LinkedIn Message or email him at Dan@DanGalante.com to set up interviews.

How to use Marketing to Build a Great Talent Brand

https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/2012/10/new-employer-brand-research

Brands use Marketing to increase Sales, Revenue and to beat the competition. While this is a great strategy, a brand is only as good as its talent. Yes brands are in competition to get and keep customers, but they are also competing to get and keep great talent. In order for brands to grow, they need great talent in every function of the business.

http://ceoworld.biz/2015/06/08/infographic-2015-global-recruiting-trends/

For Brands to be able to attract top talent, they need to be a desired place to work. To be a desired place to work, they need to understand what motivates their employees. While this will vary by industry and company size there are similar things that many employees seek. These include:

  1. Feeling valued for their contributions
  2. Freedom to do interesting work and solve intriguing problems
  3. Fair and competitive compensation including incentive and performance pay
  4. A fun place to work with activities to bond with co-workers
  5. Training and advancement opportunities

If these things listed above are in place, Brands are on the right track to building a great talent brand provided their product offerings are solid.

Getting employees excited about coming to work each day will increase the talent pool by generating word of mouth. When people have something good they tell their friends.

http://ibmempbranding.com/what-is-employment-branding-3/

Beyond the offline word of mouth, Brands need to own their identity online by in-sourcing their online and offline assets. This starts with their own websites, digital properties and collateral used to sell their offerings. With talent branding, Brands are selling prospective employees on the idea of applying and wanting to work for their company in a particular role. This is similar to marketing their commercial offerings to potential customers.

Brands will need to conduct Market Research to understand who their competitors are and where they stack up in the talent market. Compensation, Company Culture, intelligence from applicants.

Information from this research can be used to develop a positioning strategy that can be applied to the talent brand.

Every Brand should have a career page on their website as this will drastically reduce recruiting costs. This page should include the following:

  1. Pictures of employees from each function with a short bio and why they chose to work at the Brand
  2. Perks offered with story on company culture
  3. An application that is easy to fill out i.e greenhouse.io or a form with a file for a cover letter and resume Greenhouse can be linked with LinkedIn
  4. Social Sharing buttons for job postings

Creating Engaging Job descriptions

The function head, Marketing, and HR need to collaborate to write job descriptions that convince applicants to apply, similar to copy-writing for commercial offerings.

Providing candidates with a great recruiting experience is key; without this, a Talent Brand will suffer.

Empowering and providing incentives to employees

Encourage employees to share company content and jobs on LinkedIn.  Also, encourage employees to make referrals with incentives for referrals that are hired.

Brands that are not happy with the amounts of applications can post the jobs on LinkedIn and Indeed to widen the applicant pools. Niche site may work as well.

This is how to use Marketing to build a great Talent Brand.

About the Author

Dan is passionate about using Marketing to help businesses drive sales. HubSpot Certified in Inbound Marketing, Dan has worked on various marketing assignments including Start Ups, a Political Campaign & a Digital Marketing Conference.

Prior to teaching, Dan served customers as an Outside Sales & Marketing Rep in NYC. In this role, he taught & trained Dentists on the company’s products & services using a consultative selling approach combined with direct marketing. He also supported the company’s marketing efforts at industry trade shows.

He writes & publishes a business blog on the topics of Sales, Marketing & Social Media entitled Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today; which has grown to over 17,000 followers on LinkedIn & over 13,000 on WordPress.

Dan is seeking a full-time marketing role in Direct, Inbound, Digital, Content & Social Media Marketing. He is willing to be a CMO to create and build out the Marketing function of your organization if it does not exist. If your company is hiring for roles in these areas, contact him directly via a free LinkedIn Message or email him at Dan@DanGalante.com to set up interviews.

How to be a CMO & Create the Marketing Function of an Organization

EY-the-average-cmo.JPG

image via http://www.ey.com/gl/en/services/advisory/ey-dna-of-sales-and-marketing-leaders-reinvention-of-the-cmo#.WCsll-YrLIU

The role of CMO needs to focus on more than just marketing to increase sales as seen in this chart.

Image via http://blog.marketo.com/2007/04/are_you_a_cmo_o.html

To have success in the CMO role, you need to: get executive buy in on authority and the ability to make changes, otherwise you are doomed to fail.

Brand Message and Content Marketing

From a brand stand point, the brand messaging need to be in alignment. It should not take a genius to understand what your product does and how it will help the customer. To achieve this goal, you need to do the following: Audit, understand and improve Brand message, voice, sales, marketing collateral, print and digital properties.

Do the above before starting a content marketing program if the organization sells products because you will need to build and create a content tilt to be found by customers in search.

Developing Sales Processes and Shortening the Sales Cycle

Sales Managers hired; should train sales staff properly and hold Reps accountable to hit Revenue Goals. If you are tasked with creating/building out the marketing function of the organization, make sure that support staff are trained by the Sales Manager to handle inbound leads. Sales staff should be trained on objection handling, prospecting, product knowledge, making Sales, post Sales follow up and obtaining repeat business.

SMarketing

Have marketing partner with Sales. Go on Sales calls to understand customer objections /pain points to improve messaging and product. The goal of any Sales and Marketing program is to shorten sales cycles and increase Revenue.

Defining Your Target Market and Sales Channels

Audit, understand, and improve the sales structure of the organization, sales operations and sales processes. Define Sales Rep territories, compensations and commission structure using analysis that includes data from customer acquisition costs and ROI.

Decide if you will sell your product directly to customers or through re-sellers. Some companies do both.

Sales Management/Sales Reps

Hopefully if there is Sales Leadership at the company when you arrive, this will be handled. If no Sales people are present, start this process yourself and hire a seasoned rep or Manager from a larger competitor. If Sales leadership is there but has not done the above, give them a Sales Leadership improvement plan, look for a seasoned replacement and fire them. This applies to Sales Reps as well.

Market Research

Understand customers and buyer behaviors.

Share buyer personas and research with the sales staff.

image via smartdraw.com

Have sales staff complete a competitive analysis on how your company stacks up against your competition in the marketplace.

Product Development

Use Market Research to collaborate with product to come up with ideas for new products, features, promotions and pricing strategy.

Crossing the Chasm and Selling into New Markets

image via http://4.bp.blogspot.com/

Identify new markets to sell into. If Sales are stagnant, find a way to get in front of your customers before they become customers by using pricing in a crossing the chasm style analysis.

Proving you’re a CMO

Position marketing a source of revenue rather than a cost by putting marketing at the center of the organization. Showing how marketing can make an impact on the income statement beyond increasing sales. Show how marketing makes the organization run better.

Talent Branding

Improve the talent brand by creating a job site with employee stories. This job site will increase the amount of applicants and reduce recruitment advertising costs. Write more appealing job descriptions.

Attempt to make the organization the company of tomorrow by making it cross functional.

Company Revenue and Financials

Ask about the financial health of the company i.e. Churn rate, burn rate, Profitably, funding etc…

image via pinterest.com/explore/churn-rate

Ask the CEO about cash flow and if they can commit large amounts of cash to developing/executing marketing programs.

image via http://www.accountingcoach.com/financial-ratios/explanation/4

Data Driven Decisions

Above all, CMO’s need to use Data from Financials, Sales, Revenue and Analytics to make marketing decisions. The Data needs to be used continuously to justify marketing decisions and to pivot when marketing programs are not working.

The duties of the CMO will vary by industry and company size but these are the basics that a CMO must do to be successful.

What do you think makes a successful CMO? Comment and Share.

About the Author

Dan is passionate about using Marketing to help businesses drive sales. HubSpot Certified in Inbound Marketing, Dan has worked on various marketing assignments including Start Ups, a Political Campaign & a Digital Marketing Conference.

Prior to teaching, Dan served customers as an Outside Sales & Marketing Rep in NYC. In this role, he taught & trained Dentists on the company’s products & services using a consultative selling approach combined with direct marketing. He also supported the company’s marketing efforts at industry trade shows.

He writes & publishes a business blog on the topics of Sales, Marketing & Social Media entitled Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today; which has grown to over 16,000 followers on LinkedIn & over 11,000 on WordPress.

Dan is seeking a full-time marketing role in Direct, Inbound, Digital, Content & Social Media Marketing. He is willing to be a CMO to create and build out the Marketing function of your organization if it does not exist. If your company is hiring for roles in these areas, contact him directly via a free LinkedIn Message or email him at Dan@DanGalante.com to set up interviews.

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