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Marketing Tips

The following is an archive of marketing tips that were provided to my subscribers to the Vista Viewpoint newsletter. Some of the tips are also posted throughout the site. Taking advantage of new media marketing, new tips and useful information will now be posted via the Vista Viewpoint Marketing Blog. Make sure you visit the blog and subscribe via an RSS feed. That's the easy way to get information you need easily and timely.

Match Perception with Reality

Keeping customers coming back takes more than providing quality products and services at a good price. When customers experience favorable interactions with your company, they not only turn into repeat customers, but also are more likely to become a referral source or testimonial.

A current trend is that customers are less motivated by promises concerning products or services alone, and are showing greater interest in what they can expect after the purchase is made. Instead of marketing what your product or service does, the question you need to answer is: What kind of experience are your customers hoping to have when they buy from you?

Effective marketing sets customer expectations. Be sure your marketing promises match your company realities. If perception and the reality of your business conflict, your customers will not return. Customers must receive consistent, positive support in order to remain loyal and for your business to build repeat sales. Be sure your marketing messages and your business practices are in synch. If your marketing messages make promises that are delivered by other organizations, such as customer support or professional services, make sure your company can deliver on those promises. One failed promise within your marketing materials renders all other claims suspect. Customer experience is often the difference between repeat customers and lost customers. Honor your promises, and make sure your marketing only makes promises that your company can keep.

How to Make Sure Your Marketing Tactics Work

  • Concentrate on one marketing tactic at a time rather than bounce from idea to idea. Don't be tempted to constant follow the “marketing idea of the day.” Keep evaluating how each tactic is performing, improve it and use it consistently. With your limited marketing resources, stay focused on the plan until you get a result – whether good or bad.
  • Schedule a marketing appointment with yourself each day. Whether it is a networking event, writing a press release, developing your newsletter, or looking for places to link your web site online, make time in your calendar to work on your marketing. Marketing keeps you visible to your prospects.
  • Break your marketing into small, doable pieces. For example, rather than execute a large direct marketing campaign, simply select a list of your key prospects and stay in touch with them. Send them an article that may interest them with a personal, handwritten message attached. Invite them to lunch or coffee and find out what's keeping them up at night. Let them talk, do not sell.
  • Spend some quality time assessing how your marketing tactics are working. Have you received any new leads? Are you gaining visibility from your awareness campaigns? If you are executing Internet marketing activities, is your Web site coming up in search engine rankings. Are you watching how your activities are increasing the activity on your web site? If you don't have the capacity to do this yourself, make sure the people you have hired can provide you this information. Marketing takes time, but you can track your progress if you have the right tools.
  • Don't let marketing fade away as the year progresses. Print out your one page marketing plan summary and keep it visible. Are you doing the activities you planned? If things have changed, have you updated the marketing plan? Remember, the marketing plan is a living document and adjustments will happen throughout the year. That is not failure. Ignoring marketing is.

Marketing is not about instant gratification

If you believe that marketing will deliver high return on investment in a short period of time, you are only fooling yourself and setting your business up for failure. Marketing is about building relationships with prospects to turn them into long term customers. Regardless of the marketing activity you are implementing right now, the rewards may come any where from three to 18 months from now.

Whether you are generating leads from direct marketing, internet marketing, public relations, or referrals, you need to take time to nurture those leads and build a level of trust between you and them. Keep in mind that a new lead may be interested in what you have to offer but may not be ready to buy right now. If you develop the relationship, they will most likely call on you when they need what you have to offer.

Don't give up on your prospects. In business, everything is timing. When the time is right, those prospects will take your call, ask you for a proposal or initiate a discussion on how you can help them. If you stop marketing to them, they will forget you. Out of sight in the marketing world is truly out-of-mind.

Stock Photography is Safer

When you see those nice pictures of people working out on your local health club advertisement and you recognize them, ever wonder what the business had to do to get their approval? Seems like it wouldn't be a problem, right? Gee, would I love to have a picture taken of me on the tread mill, all sweaty with no makeup, and have that wonderful image projected across the airwaves for everyone to see for the next year ... wrong!

That business would need to get every subject that was used in the advertisement to sign a Talent Release Form. Many people do not realize that you do need permission to use a picture of someone in your marketing materials. Although it seems harmless to do, publishing a picture without their written permission could cost you, both in costs to recreate the piece and possibly in legal fees.

The reason this topic is my tip for the month is because of a recent experience I just had with one of my clients.

This client wanted to use actual subjects of his business in the new brochure we are developing. After explaining the process, he got permission and off I went to photograph the facility, including the human subjects. Little did I know that he did not get the permission in writing. Fortunately, I asked him to have the subjects review the piece prior to going to print. And guess what happened? Some of the subjects that gave permission, retracted it after the fact.

How bad would it have been if we printed 2500 brochures, only to get a cease and desist order from one of the people saying we didn't have their permission to use their picture in the brochure? That could be a $2000 (or more) mistake.

To avoid any issue, we replaced the images with stock photography. If my client wants to get written permission later for use of the photographs, that's fine with me, but right now we're going the safe route.

Just a footnote: if you do decide to use real subjects in any of your marketing materials, consult your attorney to ensure you have a Talent Release Form that covers all the points that are appropriate to your specific use. There are many examples on the Internet to use as a model, but be sure your attorney reviews the form prior to use.

Taking "Learning From Your Competition" a Bit Too Far

A few months back, I wrote an article about the value of a competitive analysis. Knowing what your competition is doing, what they offer for products and services, and how they price, package and market their wares is a valuable exercise for all businesses. You get ideas, insight, and examples of how and how not to market.

However, there is a fine line between understanding your competition and exhibiting similar behaviors and blatant plagiarism. The following is a true story and a perfect example of how not to market.

To launch a software product to a very targeted market, we pulled together an email campaign that introduced the product and provided a link to their new Web site describing the product in detail. The email was written in html and looked like a page on their recently launched Web site. The email went out on a Wednesday with very positive results.

Two days later, a competitor took the email that was sent, modified it slightly, and resent the email to the same audience proclaiming that they "continue to ship" their product and that they are the "best in the industry". Now the one small catch is that they did not modify the email enough to not be recognized as the one coming from my client. By viewing the html source of the email, you could see the original style sheet reference, image names, written copy (which had a copyright statement on it), and references to my client's product. They also left the author meta tag intact: (I should have sent them an invoice for my time writing the email copy!). And on top of that, they sent the email to my client.

This is not a joke. This was a serious attempt to undermine my client's product launch. Fortunately for us, the competitor wasn't smart enough to do so without showing their true colors.

The moral of the story is this: understand your competition but do not copy or plagiarize their work. Get ideas but come up with some way to make it your own. Seems like a common sense piece of advice, but someone forgot to tell them that it is illegal to take someone's copyrighted work.

How Important is a Good Web Site?

More and more I am a true believer that a quality Web site is the critical foundation to a company’s image and marketing strategy. However, I continue to see many firms throwing up Web sites that are poorly designed or overly complex. And, I still come across a distressing number of typo-ridden, grammatically incorrect Web sites.

Poor navigation, low quality graphics, typos and grammatical errors send a negative message. As a result, online visitors will think less of your company, which in turn, will hurt revenue in the long run.

Many think just doing a minimal job is sufficient. A Web site is just one of those silly marketing things anyway. We can put a partially complete Web site up and fix it later, right? This attitude can hurt your company's image because the Web site is often a prospects first impression. Keep in mind a bad Web site has the following implications::

  • Would you buy a product from a company whose Web site has broken links, bad grammar, lots of tacky animation, or less than useful information? Do your Web site issues imply that your technology product has more problems than you care to deal with?
  • What does your competition’s Web site look like? On the Web, any potential customer is only one click away from seeing a better Web site that is well designed and conveys a quality image and set of messages.
  • Are you throwing good money after bad? If many of your marketing campaigns drive prospects to your Web site and they get there and wish they hadn’t, are you wasting all that time and effort on campaigns that will achieve less than stellar results?

Your Web site is the backbone of all of your marketing and alliance efforts. Depending on your requirements for your Web site, you should either hire an experienced Web developer and designer full time or contract a good Web developer on an as needed basis. If you need help finding one, let me know. I have access to some very quality Web developers that are highly skilled and reasonably priced.

Stand out by showing your potential customers that you pay attention to quality and detail.

Outsourcing Is Not Always a Four Letter Word

Outsourcing is getting a bad rep lately. Not a day goes by when you don't read an article about how outsourcing jobs overseas is what is wrong with the economy. Politicians - from local government officials to governors to presidential candidates - are falling over each other trying to enact anti-outsourcing legislation. I agree that outsourcing jobs out of the country is an issue that needs serious attention, but 'local' outsourcing - augmenting your staff with local experts - proves to be beneficial to all the parties involved.

Many small businesses have short-term needs for expertise in a wide variety of areas. Whether it is to plan an event, audit the books - or even market a new product - often times you just can't justify the expense of hiring a new person. It is in these types of 'selective' outsourcing cases that turning to a local service provider is a winning proposition. You win by quickly bringing in the expertise you need. Your supplier wins by growing their business. We all win by continuing to fuel the economy one project at a time. So, when you hear the word outsourcing in the future, don't always assume the worst - rather look for ways to outsource locally.

Alice in Wonderland

My son and I are currently reading Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland", and just came across the famous dialog between Alice and the Cheshire Cat.

“Cheshire Cat,” Alice began, “would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to go to,” said the Cat.

I don’t much care where…” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you walk,” said the Cat.

“…so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.

“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

This dialogue is appropriate to this month's theme regarding focus. Whether it's your business, products and services, messages, or target audience, being able to focus and clearly differentiate yourself from the competition is key.

Businesses should focus your business – to pick a direction to walk if you will. The fear most business owners have in picking a direction is in leaving money on the table. “If I concentrate on sales training, aren’t I leaving the broader training market behind” is similar to the thought that often runs through the owners mind.

The problem with that line of thinking is that you can’t walk in two directions at once – and your prospects certainly can’t think in two directions at once. Harry Beckwith in his book "Selling the Invisible" says it this way: “To broaden your appeal, narrow your position”. Shining a very focused light on what solutions you provide is often the only way you register in the brief moment you have with most prospects.

To effectively focus your business, try looking at what you offer and determine which area of your business is the easiest to sell because:

  • Your product or service has a target market that is ready, willing, and able to buy;
  • If it is a service, it can be packaged and priced to lower the risk to your client.

Make something in your business your focal point so that you can be clear, distinct, and effectively describe your business to your prospects. Unless you focus, you’ll end like Alice – drifting through Wonderland without clear sense of direction. Learn to focus and you will get more business instead of less.

Marketing and Sales – Siblings not Twins

Although marketing and sales are complementary functions and very closely related, they are not the same.

Marketing is what you do to reach and educate your prospects about your products and services and build relationships with your intended audience. It takes time to get their attention and make them notice what you have to offer. But, by executing effective marketing programs, you can generate quality leads that can shorten the sales cycle.


Sales involves a process that consists of interpersonal interaction. It is often done by a one-on-one meeting, cold calls, and networking. It's anything that engages you with the prospect or customer on a personal level rather than at a distance.

There is definitely overlap between the two functions and good marketing and sales organizations are very tightly aligned. I personally view networking as more of a marketing tool than sales tool because you network to build awareness in your business and definitely you do not sell at a networking event. However, you are building relationships, which according to the above definition, is part of what differentiates marketing and sales. And today, with CRM (customer relationship management) systems, marketing is more about building relationships with your prospects as well.

Sales and marketing are complementary but different functions, and can be summarized by the statement “sales drives revenue and marketing drives sales”. Good marketing can shorten the sales cycle and help your sales function deliver more dollars to the top line.

Get, Hold, Keep - Make Your Point and Increase Your Return

Laura DiBenedetto, Vision Advertising

The word of the day is brevity. By definition, it is a noun meaning shortness of duration, especially shortness or conciseness of expression.

We've seen too many marketing pieces, such as advertisements and brochures, that want to tell you everything about the business crammed into a small space. That is the quickest way to lose your prospect's attention.

When you produce your marketing materials, they ought to make a point that lingers in your clients’ or prospects’ minds, quickly. When you say too much, you say nothing.

If you can isolate your key points and narrow them down to the essentials, you will be more successful in your marketing and advertising attempts. Studies show that you only have 10 to 20 seconds of someone’s time, and that’s if you’re lucky. Follow this very simple process to get your point across and make money:

  • Get attention
  • Hold attention
  • Keep attention

Sounds easy. So how do you do this?

When it comes to marketing materials, to get attention, keep two things in mind ranked by importance: visual appeal (design) and literary quality (writing). To hold attention, you have the same two attributes, but this time your literary quality is more important than the visual appeal. To keep attention, you need a quality product or service. But a quality product or service never gets noticed when the first two pieces are missing.

Therefore, to get an optimal return on your investment in marketing, when creating a particular marketing piece, keep the following rule in mind:

You must be able to read the headline out loud in less than 4 seconds, sub-header in less than 8, and effectively tell your story in a few simple words.

So try this technique the next time you need to write a sales letter, brochure or web site copy. You can do it; after all, nobody knows your business like you do.

How to Make Sure Your Print Ads Work

Advertising is one of the programs you have available to you in your marketing mix. As Laura points out in her article this month, you can afford advertising if you wisely plan for it. The following are advertising tips that will help you get the most out of your advertising budget.

  • Never be afraid to advertise. Advertising does work. Look for the types of advertising that will bring in results and give you a great return on your investment! Just get out there, find it, and if you really believe it will help your business, make room in your budget.
  • Don’t be afraid to ask for help. When doing advertising for your company, using outside help is beneficial – you get a solid strategy, better placement and more targeted publications. It’s out there for a reason.
  • The purpose of any print ad is to get the reader to act. A successful ad will cause the reader to notice the ad, read the headline, read the copy, and take action. The headline needs to compel the reader to continue reading the ad. In combination with an eye-catching visual, you are more likely to get their attention. Don’t get tricky with the headline — you have two seconds to get the reader to decide whether to read the ad or turn the page. Be as clear and concise as possible.
  • In the immortal words of Rupert Everett, “Brevity is the order of the day.”  Make your point quickly and concisely. If you can’t figure out your message, nobody else will.
  • Unless you’re catering to a very specific field that uses big, obnoxious words daily, don’t waste the ink. Make sure your advertising copy is crisp and to the point.
  • Make sure you feature your brand prominently. Don’t waste money on advertising if your audience doesn’t know it is you. Advertising is one of the primary means for building your brand in addition to driving prospects to your Web site. Make sure the brand is integrated with the visual.
  • When advertising in print, remember that the design is the MOST important thing that will attract the eye! You have two seconds to attract the reader. Use a strong visual and color to get their attention. If your ad isn’t any fun to look at, it won’t be seen.
  • BE BOLD AND DARING!  Nothing grabs attention like humor and bold advertising. Ever see any of the commercials during the super bowl?

Ready, Aim, Fire

I was recently reading Mark Stevens’ new book ’Your Marketing Sucks’. The book – which reached the BusinessWeek best selling business book list in September before sliding off again in October – preaches solid marketing practices.

Like Vista Consulting, Stevens recommends that people integrate their marketing efforts around a common set of messages and measure their results to ensure they are getting a positive return on investment for their marketing programs.

The need to ensure your marketing efforts is aligned, that you focus on your key messages and that you test these messages against your prospect base are not new concepts. What is interesting is that the block-and-tackle basics of marketing are back in vogue. As you look at your marketing efforts, you should ask yourself the following questions:

1. Do my marketing programs reinforce my key messages?

2. Do my key messages set me apart from my competition?

3. Is this program integrated with my other efforts?

4. Have I tested it with a small sample before fully rolling it out?

5. Do I have a process in place to measure the results?

If you answered ‘No’ to any of these questions, it is time to get back to basics and ensure that you are getting the most out of your marketing.

Regulation Alphabet Soup

What do SOX, HIPAA, GLB (Graham Leech Bliley), SB 1386, and PCI have in common?  If you answered regulations that only effect large corporations, you'd be wrong. The surprising thing to many small businesses is that these regulations - and others like them - can impact small companies as well as large.

Trickle Down Effort

Companies that are not singled out by any specific regulation still have to pay attention. The requirement to comply with a regulation may trickle down to business partners and suppliers who provide or use protected data. For example, a hospital or HMO that is regulated by HIPAA might require an IT consulting company that interacts with customer records to meet standards for protecting that data.

Notification Requirements

A more common regulation that will impact companies is California SB 1386 - and the slew of regulations that it has spawned. SB 1386 requires businesses that have possession of data that includes personal information on any resident of California to provide notification if that personal information was (or is believed to have been) acquired by an unauthorized person. Similar legislation is being considered in several states and at the federal level.

What may prove to be interesting interpretations of these regulations are what constitutes 'personal information'. If you market and sell your products to consumers and have information such as social security or credit card numbers you will clearly be impacted by these regulations. If you maintain information on your employees (e.g. social security number, bank account information for direct deposit) you will need to notify them if your systems are breached.

The water is murkier when it comes to an email address. While an email address is not typically considered a 'non-public' piece of identifying information, it is a piece of data that I personally want companies I do business with to guard. If their systems are hacked and their mailing list stolen, I'd want to be notified of this occurrence. While this may not (yet) fall under the letter of the current regulations, I believe it fits the spirit of them.

Regardless of whether an email address becomes a regulated piece of non-public information, the first step you should take is to inventory your data. Know what data you have collected and hold on customers, prospects and employees. Once you have accomplished that task you can move on to ensuring it is safeguarded, and finally put a contingency plan in place in the event it is compromised.

The Price of Tea

A friend of mine and I got together the other morning - I had a large coffee, she a large tea.  When I went to pay the bill it struck me that the large tea was $0.30 more than the small size.  What did that 30 cents buy? Is extra hot water really that expensive? When I casually mentioned it to the owner, she shrugged her shoulders as if to say 'That's the way everyone prices it'.

If we all ran a gas station it would be easy - you'd wake up in the morning and set your prices by looking at what the other stations on the street charge. For most of us however, it isn't that easy. Pricing is one of the most difficult tasks faced by many businesses. Setting your price may include understanding the true cost of delivering a product or service, target contribution margin, competitive price points, price elasticity, and perceived customer value. To this I'd like to add one additional consideration: the "explainability" factor.

I once worked for a high tech company that changed the way it priced an established product. The price went from a single cost to run the software on a computer system to a price based on the number of people using the product. Internally there were many reasons to make this change - more powerful computer systems meant that people needed to purchase fewer of our products to meet their needs. Unfortunately, the change didn't make any sense to an external audience.  For the same product you purchased one way last week, the company was proposing to change how you purchased the product (and often for quite a bit more money) this week. Worse yet, the way the pricing model was defined was overly complex. The end result was that instead of spending time growing the customer base, we spent endless hours trying to explain the new pricing to existing customers.

I like to use the mother test when pricing: 'Can I explain it to my mother?' If the answer is no, then I better go back to the drawing board until I can. I suspect that years ago my former company didn't try the mother test when changing the pricing model. I also suspect that my mom would have the same trouble I had in understanding why a large tea costs more than a small. While the small cost difference in this case didn't change my buying pattern, if this were a more significant purchase, an unexplainable difference in pricing very well could affect sales.

So, tomorrow when you wake up, look over your pricing and see if it can pass the mother test. If it can't, maybe it is time to spend some time reviewing your price list.

Help People Find You

I was in Home Depot the other day – which seems to be an almost daily trip when I’m fixing up a room – when I noticed a missed opportunity for Mill’s Pride. Browsing in the cabinet organizer section I saw a nice display of Mill’s Pride products, but couldn’t find their URL listed on the packaging.

ClosetMaid meanwhile had their web address prominently displayed, which in turn drove me to their web site when I returned home. The next day I was back at Home Depot with a cart full of ClosetMaid goods, and before you knew it my son’s closet was transformed. (Well, it actually took me another half dozen trips to the store and a lot of swearing – which let’s you know why I’m not a carpenter.)

While search engines and Internet advertising are important parts of the marketing mix (and ones we’ll explore in a later article), a research report from earlier this year by DoubleClick shows that the majority of people find a web site by means other than a search engine. Make this as easy as possible for people by ensuring that your URL is everywhere. By not consistently promoting their web site, Mill’s Pride lost the opportunity to direct my attention to a key piece of their marketing infrastructure.

Now is a good time to audit all of your printed and electronic messages – letterhead, business cards, invoices, email signatures, brochures and even the product packaging down at Home Depot – to get your web address in front of prospective buyers.

Forming Successful Business Alliances

Just because your company is small, do not overlook the value of forming business alliances or strategic partnerships. This area of marketing is a gold mine if you know how to find your ideal partner.

How do you go about determining who would make a good partner?

  • First, identify which areas of your business would benefit from an "expert" and make a list of those people you know who would bring this expertise to your business. Always keep your antennae tuned to people who you feel will make a great addition to your business - complementary services that add value to your offerings.
  • Research their credentials by looking at their web site or talking with clients. If you were introduced to them by one of their clients, ask them about their services. They can tell you about both their strengths and weaknesses. Don't worry too much about their weaknesses unless you have the same one! When one person's weakness is the other's strength, that is a good sign that there could be a potential partnership.
  • Talk with these people to understand their business philosophy. If their business model is dramatically different from your business model, that is a warning sign that they may not make a good partner. For example, if your unique differentiator is to offer high quality services at affordable prices, and this potential partner is priced significantly higher than your price model, this may be a hard difference to overcome. Think about how you would explain the discrepancy to your clients. If you find it difficult to explain, look for another potential partner.
  • Finally, use your "gut" about whether you are comfortable around this person and whether you could work with them in client accounts. Can they let you take the lead in an account and drive the business or do they always have to be the driver. If you both want to drive, there could be potential for conflict. Are you willing to work together to set prices, terms and conditions for agreements, and work as a team?

Partnerships are about synergy and respect. Enter them only when you see a win-win situation between the two parties. But, when you find a great one, nurture it and it will help your business grow.

Finding Balance in Your Alliance Program

For successful alliance programs, companies need to achieve balance between their Alliance strategy and tactical execution.  Failing alliance programs usually fall into one of two categories:

“Let’s Make a Deal”

This is where companies partner with any company just to sign an agreement and send out a press release. The number of logos displayed on their Web site makes them feel good. This phase is primarily execution with little to no though of who is your best partner

“The Dating Game”

This is where companies realize that more isn’t necessary better, and is being a bit cautious in their alliance building efforts. They spend a lot of strategy time, sometimes to the extent that they never move forward with any serious partnerships. As a result, they are no closer to implementing a solution for those failing relationships as before they began.

Too many companies are either not thinking about, or are getting overwhelmed by the reality of what is involved with managing Alliance Programs for success. They over strategize and under execute, or vice versa, and ultimately grow frustrated as they continue down the path to failure.

The key is to find balance between building your strategy and executing the plan. The strategy is important, for it is the unifying set of objectives that allow you to move on to tactical execution. The execution is critical for without it, you can not develop relationships. To provide balance between strategy and execution, the following simple, repeatable process will help your alliance managers achieve their goals:

  • Set your objectives
  • Determine your target and priorities
  • Engage in alliance development with a manageable set of candidates
  • Execute the alliance
  • Evaluate the performance and determine adjustments to the strategy
  • Start the cycle over and include new alliances

In my experience, this approach of moving through the process in measured steps, with the confidence that improvements will be made where necessary, comes closest to meeting the divergent demands of management. Not only is it possible to achieve return on investment results relatively soon, but the quality of the alliance (measured in trust and productivity) is bound to be higher.

And one last tip: While going through this process, a crucial aspect of balance comes from the effective use of feedback at various levels during execution of the Alliance Program. The checks and balances of partnering is being able to develop partnerships while continuously tweaking the strategy if need be. Providing information up the chain of management and adjusting direction based on risk assessment becomes the driving factor in the execution of a closed loop, repeatable process for managing alliances.

Measuring the Success of Your Alliances

An alliance is a tool to achieve a strategic result – usually getting to customers that you cannot reach on your own to increase revenue. Just like any other marketing program, you need to regularly evaluate the success of your Alliance Program.

But how you measure your alliances must be based on the original criteria you used to select them. You need to start with the same question you would ask when you are planning any marketing program:

  • What are our corporate objectives?
  • Which objectives do we try to achieve through Alliances?

The answers to these questions will vary based on what you are trying to accomplish. If you are a new entry into a competitive market, your primary objective for a partnership may be to gain credibility. If so, then your prospective partners need to be well-established consulting firms that already have expertise in that market segment. If your primary objective is to increase the number of new customers to establish a solid installed base, then you might choose alliance partners that are easy to work with, are agile enough to move quickly into the relationship and help you build a pipeline of prospects.

Other criteria for partnerships and the resultant measures of performance may include the following:

  • Increase gross revenue
  • Establish presence in a new industry vertical or geographic area
  • Acquire new customers
  • Improve customer service
  • Enhance customer retention or satisfaction

No matter which objective you use to establish the relationship, when you review your partner’s progress, remember to measure them based on the established objectives. Many times companies go through this exercise, only to measure all relationships purely on revenue or ROI. They forget the original reason for developing this relationship, and their disappointment results in damage to the relationship either through overt actions or apathy.

To avoid this happening in your environment, document the criteria used to establish the relationship from both parties’ perspectives, and ensure that everyone involved with the relationship, including your senior management, the partner, and all other interested parties, understands what you wish to gain from this alliance. That way, when it comes time to measure its value, there is no question as to why you elected to partner in the first place.

Alliance Marketing - Mistakes to Avoid

Business relationships develop for a reason – a mutual interest in a particular market, complementary technology, or a skill set that the other party needs. Successful relationships begin with a solid business strategy, a sound financial structure, and an agreement that encourages a winning alliance.

However, once the “deal” is consummated with a signed agreement, the relationship work is just beginning. The first deal sets the framework for the ongoing relationship that will evolve as the relationship evolves. In order to develop long-term, successful alliance relationships, ensure you have considered the following for your company:

  • The organization is aligned with and supportive of the alliance goals and objectives - Encourage the relationship between partners to grow at many levels of the organization to build strength for the alliance. The congruent organizations need to learn from each other, understanding the issues and culture that make them what they are. In addition, the companies’ senior management needs to support the alliance strategy and organizational structure – both conceptually and financially.
  • The relationship manager is measured on how the relationship evolves and succeeds, not solely on how many sales the relationship brings in - Although revenue is the ultimate goal of the relationship, relationship managers are responsible for the care and feeding of the alliance, and should have goals commensurate with their key responsibilities. Relationship managers need to proactively manage the long-term relationship to anticipate change, manage conflict, and assess and adjust how the partners are working together. How your people handle the challenges of working with an outside firm has a major impact on how successful the relationship becomes.
  • Embrace a formal mechanism to monitor the health of the relationship - By having a formal process for monitoring your alliance relationships enables you to identify issues and potential conflicts before their go from simmer to full boil. Issues that can cause conflict usually stem from lack of communication, organizational obstructions, or mismatched goals. Not resolving these issues quickly and effectively can at best, lead to lack of enthusiasm in the relationship, to at worst, a severing of the relationship before you give it a chance to succeed.

Remember, it's not all about the "deal" - it's about the mutually beneficial relationship and the long-term value both companies gain from the relationship.