Sean Parnell
Innovaxis Excerpt from Bank of America Article
Here’s an excerpt from the Erin McDermott article Handling a Surprise Niche: Can you stay true to your vision? that appeared on the Bank of America Small Business Community blog:
Sean Parnell started out in marketing consulting after stints in document imaging and selling pro audio equipment. Most early clients for his Chicago-based firm were for B-to-B campaigns within those two industries, along with other technical products. But he then started drawing more and more work through his partner’s experience in the medical spa and wellness markets. It seemed a bit out of his comfort zone. “There are certain things where you are proactive, and then some things just come your way,” he says. And they managed to make it work.
... Continue Reading >>3 Critical Website Measures
Every company knows they need a compelling website to stay competitive in the marketplace, but far too many spend little or no time tracking and evaluating the effectiveness of their website and online marketing campaigns. Over the last decade, our experience has taught us that having the answers to 3 basic questions—and knowing what to do with that information—can lay the foundation for higher conversion rates, increased sales and greater ROI on marketing budgets. These answers can be the difference between success and failure.
- How many unique visitors does your site get per month?
- What are the top 5 pages on your site?
- What are the top 5 sources of traffic to your site?
Is The Customer Always Right?
In Marketing 101, we are all taught to believe that customers and clients are always right. But what if they cannot articulate what they want, especially when it comes to new products and services?
Faster Horses
This often happens when they have a problem and there is no current technology or solution that addresses their need. To illustrate this point, Henry Ford famously said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said, ‘faster horses’.”
Pro Audio Example
For example, we worked with a professional audio equipment manufacturer whose customers said they needed a cover for their sound system equipment to prevent mischievous audience members from meddling with the well thought-out parameters set up by an audio professional.
... Continue Reading >>Impressions vs. Leads
When it comes to online advertising, marketing people all ask the same thing: how many impressions does our ad get? Innovaxis asks, how many leads were generated by all of our online marketing activities and how many of those leads generated sales?
In the spirit of any publicity is good publicity, impressions do measure the theoretical number of times your ad was seen, though what happens if someone leaves their browser tuned to the page with your rotating ad and then they walk away? How many “impressions” were really seen by search engine “crawlers” from Google, Yahoo and Bing? And how many impressions resulted from your employees, the ad site’s employees, your competitors, and other non-customers?
... Continue Reading >>No Market is Homogeneous
Time and time again, we’ve found that any given market has at least 3-4 main segments. Many of their requirements overlap, but there are always key differences. Are you marketing to these market segments and, if so, do you know which are the most profitable?
For example, in the commercial document scanner market, we found three main types of resellers through market research: System Integrators (SI), Hardware Resellers and Services Firms. The SIs offered hardware installation as just one of their services, so they sold many scanners at a fat margin because they are a smaller part of the sale and can be marked up nicely. Hardware Resellers sell only hardware, sell in high volume and at the lowest price (and margin),
... Continue Reading >>Top 10 Reasons Not to Hire a Web Design Agency
They think in terms of web design instead of website development- They understand design, not your business
- They know consumer marketing, not B2B—this explains all the “branding” talk
- They expect you to do the heavy lifting by supplying written content
- You’re the one paying for their foosball table and designer eyewear
- The partner you meet will hand off your project to an intern
- They will develop your site in Flash
- They will give you a website that looks nice but doesn’t generate leads
- They sell web design to everyone,
Why Market Research?
If the market is large and growing, we can become millionaires if we just show up and only get 5% market share, right? Wrong.
One of our clients (who shall remain nameless) exhibited this “Show Up and Win” mentality and launched a series of new products without once asking their customers what they wanted or their distribution channel partners if they would sell these new products over the existing products they had sold for years. The result: even in an exponentially growing market, they could only win <1% of the overall market. Why?
Even if the product were in tune with the customer requirements that would generate the most sales (it wasn’t because they didn’t talk to any customers or channel partners before launch),
... Continue Reading >>My New Favorite Ad
I despise most ads that I see because their messages are weak, they aren’t interesting and they’re visual pollution. This one is perfect for any dog owner and I think is amusing – so much so that I and posted to my blog. Now that’s effective advertising…
... Continue Reading >>New Book: Battling the “Business Tsunami”
Have you ever noticed that most business books talk about what other companies did to succeed and not about how to do it?
In his new book, “Front Line Heroes: How to Battle the Business Tsunami by Developing Performance Oriented Cultures,” teambuilding champion and strategic business planning guru Bruce Hodes gives companies like mine insights into how to grow despite the economic turbulence surrounding us.
From Bruce: “I grew my business in the world of, ‘A rising tide floats all boats.’ If you positioned your company or organization correctly, it would grow. While technological advancements, globalization, and competition presented real challenges, they do not compare to the business headwinds blowing today.
... Continue Reading >>Caveat Emptor: WMPU DEV & Their “Money Back” Guarantee
Here’s a nice happy new year from WPMU DEV.
Don’t you like it when someone claims you were “dealt with” even though your question wasn’t answered? Dealt with = they dealt with you so that you are no longer a problem for them, and so much for their “Guaranteed!” claims… At the end of the day: a charge of $158 for a question that still hasn’t been answered. Not even a partial refund? We shall not be troubling them with our business any longer.
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From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Thank you for your WPMU DEV subscription!
Date: January 2, 2012 8:38:45 AM CST
To: ***@innovaxisinc.com
Hiya,
... Continue Reading >>