I wanted to do a series on different approaches to marketing, and on different skill sets and perspectives that marketers bring to the table: a designer, a copywriter, and a marketer focusing on small business. Today’s guest post comes from David Murphy. David is the founder of Bewater Marketing Concepts. Bewater Marketing Concepts specializes in working with small businesses.
Prior to Bewater Marketing Concepts, David was part of the Sage and Intuit teams working with resellers on creating a customized marketing plan, then helping with the launching, tracking, and optimization of each individual campaign.
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marketing and sales on the same page…yeah right!
If your company has a “Marketing” person and a separate “Sales” person, does this sound familiar?
Sales says: “What’s going on over in Marketing?! These leads are terrible!!
Marketing says: “What’s going on over in Sales?! They’re trained salespeople, not order takers – sell something!!”
To clarify, I define marketing as anything to do with branding and lead generation. Sales on the other hand is lead conversion.
Both sales and marketing have their own goals and accomplishments however most of the time the two don’t work as a cohesive unit for one combined goal - Growing the business. Marketing is often focused on response rates and the folks in sales are focused on their own immediate quota.
Imagine the possibilities if these two groups of vitally important functions of business worked in concert with one goal of increasing revenue?
How about this…Rather than focus on marketing for marketing’s sake, take a step back from your business with more of an objective and strategic perspective. We all know that sales is what drives any organization. Knowing that, we also need to be clear that marketing is what drives the sales. If you keep this mind, you’ll already be a lot further along than your competitors.
Where do you begin getting marketing and sales on the same page? As a start, we recommend:
• The Marketing department must become involved in the selling process.
Let them walk a mile in a salespersons shoes.
• Marketing and Sales must share information throughout the marketing and
selling process. Communication between the two really is that important.
First things first. Great results start with a great strategy. Your marketing strategy is simply the process that allows you to concentrate your limited resources on the greatest opportunities to increase sales and achieve a sustainable growth and competitive advantage. I realize that’s a mouthful so in a nutshell, you must have a roadmap to get to where you want to go. Your company’s road map is a documented marketing plan.
Because marketing supports sales, start your marketing plan by having a sales goal in mind. From there, determine how many new clients, units sold, etc. you need to reach your sales goal. Next determine how many leads you need to close “X” amount of new deals. Your marketing plan should map out how your going to generate those needed leads.
Does your business have a roadmap for 2011? If not, the new year starts right now. Please contact us for a free marketing strategy template. If you need more assistance getting your sales and marketing on the same path, let’s talk.
David Murphy
Bewater Marketing Concepts
707-321-1183
dmurphy@bewatermarketing.com
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Saturday, December 4, 2010
on copywriting by @JWWrites
I'm excited to have my first guest blogger.
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Copywriting
By Jesse Wells, @JWWrites
What is copywriting? I get this question a lot. I like to call it “Words that Sell” and that phrase is going to be on my new business cards . Similar to graphic artists, copywriters are invisible to most people, even though they usually interact with the creations of copywriters every day. “Do the Dew,” or “Five for five,” both are examples of copy. Many people just assume it is the same as advertising, but this is an oversimplification. It would be better to view copywriting as a foundational stone that holds up advertising, alongside graphic artists, sound effects people and commercial musicians. Advertising is the processed product, copywriting is one of the raw ingredients.
I know that many copywriters just put “marketing” down on their cards instead of “copywriting” but I cannot. To me, the writing is the point, the raison d'etre of this peculiar profession. While I sometimes wish understanding of the term was more widespread, I also enjoy the chance to explain what it is and elaborate on my own unique take on the field. Distillation is the name of the game, to me. My job as a copywriter is to take the full picture of the product or service and reduce that picture, that message down to its most essential components. How do I build a picture in the viewer’s mind? A picture that gives them all of the information they need to make a purchasing decision.
It is never easy, but one of the reasons I am working for myself now is that I choose who I am going to work for, rather than being assigned. The fact that I am able to choose products and services that I believe in makes quite a difference. This is not to say that the copy I wrote when I was working for an agency was not as good as the copy I write now, aside from the increase in my experience between now and then, it is more of a peaceful mind issue. I think, no matter what one’s job is, when they are doing a task they have chosen, they feel more centered. For me, working for myself is a matter of greater freedom and less micro-managing, both of which can be big pluses in my book, because trying to write with the feel of someone’s eyes burrowing into the back of my neck has never been pleasant. In the end though, I do it because I love to write.
Sure, I have creative projects that I am trying to put some real effort into, but that is a whole different slice of pie. That requires discipline with no outside re-enforcement. Ambition, I think they call it. I have had my share of ambitions moments, but most of the time, that ambition crashes into a wall of troubles. With copywriting, what I am writing about is already present and accounted for. My task becomes a matter of refinement, not creation. The best words to sell a product or service are usually already present, I just figure out how best to use them. My life has brought me into contact with many interesting places and even more interesting people and this has given me the ability to see most things in several different lights and understand how the different layers interact. This is a key skill for a copywriter to develop, the ability to think in terms of complexity and depth, not just surface analysis. It is only when one can see every side of a tree within one’s mind, including the ground beneath its trunk, the hollows between the bark and how its shade is both balm and death that one can truly create a description of it that resonates.
So goes copy.
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Copywriting
By Jesse Wells, @JWWrites
What is copywriting? I get this question a lot. I like to call it “Words that Sell” and that phrase is going to be on my new business cards . Similar to graphic artists, copywriters are invisible to most people, even though they usually interact with the creations of copywriters every day. “Do the Dew,” or “Five for five,” both are examples of copy. Many people just assume it is the same as advertising, but this is an oversimplification. It would be better to view copywriting as a foundational stone that holds up advertising, alongside graphic artists, sound effects people and commercial musicians. Advertising is the processed product, copywriting is one of the raw ingredients.
I know that many copywriters just put “marketing” down on their cards instead of “copywriting” but I cannot. To me, the writing is the point, the raison d'etre of this peculiar profession. While I sometimes wish understanding of the term was more widespread, I also enjoy the chance to explain what it is and elaborate on my own unique take on the field. Distillation is the name of the game, to me. My job as a copywriter is to take the full picture of the product or service and reduce that picture, that message down to its most essential components. How do I build a picture in the viewer’s mind? A picture that gives them all of the information they need to make a purchasing decision.
It is never easy, but one of the reasons I am working for myself now is that I choose who I am going to work for, rather than being assigned. The fact that I am able to choose products and services that I believe in makes quite a difference. This is not to say that the copy I wrote when I was working for an agency was not as good as the copy I write now, aside from the increase in my experience between now and then, it is more of a peaceful mind issue. I think, no matter what one’s job is, when they are doing a task they have chosen, they feel more centered. For me, working for myself is a matter of greater freedom and less micro-managing, both of which can be big pluses in my book, because trying to write with the feel of someone’s eyes burrowing into the back of my neck has never been pleasant. In the end though, I do it because I love to write.
Sure, I have creative projects that I am trying to put some real effort into, but that is a whole different slice of pie. That requires discipline with no outside re-enforcement. Ambition, I think they call it. I have had my share of ambitions moments, but most of the time, that ambition crashes into a wall of troubles. With copywriting, what I am writing about is already present and accounted for. My task becomes a matter of refinement, not creation. The best words to sell a product or service are usually already present, I just figure out how best to use them. My life has brought me into contact with many interesting places and even more interesting people and this has given me the ability to see most things in several different lights and understand how the different layers interact. This is a key skill for a copywriter to develop, the ability to think in terms of complexity and depth, not just surface analysis. It is only when one can see every side of a tree within one’s mind, including the ground beneath its trunk, the hollows between the bark and how its shade is both balm and death that one can truly create a description of it that resonates.
So goes copy.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
website for Insight Agency
Website for Insight Insurance Agency Services is now live and collecting leads. JacobG.net has now completed brand, identity set, mailers and now a website with social media integration (blog, twitter and facebook) for Insight Insurance Agency Services.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
assorted mailers for Insight Agency
JacobG.net produced two mailers targeting workers comp insurance in the state of California for Insight Insurance Agency Services.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
videos for chutneyman
Added a welcome video to the chutneyman main page,
As well as videos for; cranberry walnut dressing, pear ginger vanilla jam, unsweetened hot mango cilantro chutney, leon's tonic, green chili sauce, hot red pepper jelly, mango mint chutney, steak sauce surprise and red pepper jelly
As well as videos for; cranberry walnut dressing, pear ginger vanilla jam, unsweetened hot mango cilantro chutney, leon's tonic, green chili sauce, hot red pepper jelly, mango mint chutney, steak sauce surprise and red pepper jelly
Monday, May 24, 2010
the high cost of free
by jacob G
www.jacobG.net
web. print and marketing services
On any given day many of the people reading this article will use facebook, youtube, linkedin, twitter and a host of google products for personal or business use. The advantages are legion. Gmail is better than any paid email service I've ever used, youtube is fast, easy and feature rich. Facebook, twitter and linkedin allow for networking that would have been cumbersome or impossible before their advent. But their are some downsides to nearly all of these products.
privacy
Every service has a different policy, and as a rule of thumb you give some of it up, in exchange for the service you sign-up for. These articles and videos give practical and satirical insight on the trade of privacy for service: facebook quizzes, facebook's privacy policy: a timeline, how to rip off facebook for little money down, trust me, can we get some privacy?, facebook glitch brings new privacy worries, facebook’s byzantine privacy controls , south park on facebook, Mark Zuckerberg op-ed and the google village.
the unpaid investor
You are very likely an unpaid investor in any social media site where you spend your time generating content. That content is often resold in the form of ads, freemium or pay models. When you tweet, blog, share or post your latest video, you are increasing the monetary value of their company and they in turn are likely not paying you, with money; for your efforts.
in who's interest?
If you post something that someone with a lawyer does not like, one take down notice later it's most likely coming down with or without your say so. If it's hosted on your server, running your software you have a greater opportunity to fight it.
For example, how do you think this Ralph Lauren take down notice would have been received if it went to a free blogging service and not boingboing.net, when they were pointing out how freakish this ad was? In fact the original post from photoshop disasters, hosted by a free blogging service offered by google, is not longer up; I don't know the underlying reason why.
a few tips
Check your privacy settings on all your accounts. Here is a video for configuring the defaults on your facebook settings, their are many, they are confusing; Larry's video can help.
Avoid a single point of failure. Their are many different free services, offering many different kinds of services, some will suit your needs others will not; try more than one.
If you use social media for your business, own some of your digital presence; owning your domain name is a good place to start. For example my blog is hosted by google, but it can easily be accessed via my site at jacobG.net/blog. I can switch over to a wordpress blog, and many readers might not ever notice, because I own my domain. The same is true for anyone who placed a "find us on myspace" button on their site who might want to swap it out for a "follow me on twitter" badge. Make the thing you own, the hub of your social media.
Are the free services discussed in this article worth their price? The answer, at least for me is a qualified yes. Yes, so long as I realize that:
www.jacobG.net
web. print and marketing services
On any given day many of the people reading this article will use facebook, youtube, linkedin, twitter and a host of google products for personal or business use. The advantages are legion. Gmail is better than any paid email service I've ever used, youtube is fast, easy and feature rich. Facebook, twitter and linkedin allow for networking that would have been cumbersome or impossible before their advent. But their are some downsides to nearly all of these products.
privacy
Every service has a different policy, and as a rule of thumb you give some of it up, in exchange for the service you sign-up for. These articles and videos give practical and satirical insight on the trade of privacy for service: facebook quizzes, facebook's privacy policy: a timeline, how to rip off facebook for little money down, trust me, can we get some privacy?, facebook glitch brings new privacy worries, facebook’s byzantine privacy controls , south park on facebook, Mark Zuckerberg op-ed and the google village.
the unpaid investor
You are very likely an unpaid investor in any social media site where you spend your time generating content. That content is often resold in the form of ads, freemium or pay models. When you tweet, blog, share or post your latest video, you are increasing the monetary value of their company and they in turn are likely not paying you, with money; for your efforts.
in who's interest?
If you post something that someone with a lawyer does not like, one take down notice later it's most likely coming down with or without your say so. If it's hosted on your server, running your software you have a greater opportunity to fight it.
For example, how do you think this Ralph Lauren take down notice would have been received if it went to a free blogging service and not boingboing.net, when they were pointing out how freakish this ad was? In fact the original post from photoshop disasters, hosted by a free blogging service offered by google, is not longer up; I don't know the underlying reason why.
a few tips
Check your privacy settings on all your accounts. Here is a video for configuring the defaults on your facebook settings, their are many, they are confusing; Larry's video can help.
Avoid a single point of failure. Their are many different free services, offering many different kinds of services, some will suit your needs others will not; try more than one.
If you use social media for your business, own some of your digital presence; owning your domain name is a good place to start. For example my blog is hosted by google, but it can easily be accessed via my site at jacobG.net/blog. I can switch over to a wordpress blog, and many readers might not ever notice, because I own my domain. The same is true for anyone who placed a "find us on myspace" button on their site who might want to swap it out for a "follow me on twitter" badge. Make the thing you own, the hub of your social media.
Are the free services discussed in this article worth their price? The answer, at least for me is a qualified yes. Yes, so long as I realize that:
- my privacy may not be respected
- that my efforts may end up enriching someone else
- If things go badly with the content I post, the host of the content is going to likely act in their own best interests; not necessarily in mine
Saturday, May 8, 2010
identity set for Insight Agency
Identity set for Insight Agency; logo, letterhead, envelope and business cards. What we hope is the first of many web, print and marketing projects with Insight Agency Insurance Services.
@ConanOBrien talks about selling out tour with one tweet
About 3.5 minutes in to this youtube video shot at Google, Conan talks about selling out his entire tour with one tweet and not having to spend his money to promote his shows.
In fairness he was famous before he started, and he invested sweated equity in his twitter account before asking people to buy.
full video, 48 minutes
In fairness he was famous before he started, and he invested sweated equity in his twitter account before asking people to buy.
full video, 48 minutes
136 page workbook
This 136 page resilience dynamics workbook was an intensive two month project, that was both fun and challenging.
interactive payment form
This interactive payment form for ALI allows it's clients to quickly, and with a high level of security, make payments.
jacobG.net launches NBcleaners.com
JacobG.net is proud to have just launched NBcleaners.com, for Natures Best of Petaluma. Natures Best cleans with water as a base solvent, without any toxic chemicals.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
video for chutneyman's jalapeño jelly
Just shot, edited and posted a number of product video for chutneyman's jalapeño jelly;
as well as videos for; ginger sauce, sweet mango pickle chutney, red bell pepper sauce, guava coconut lime jelly, guava coconut cherry jelly and guava vanilla jelly
as well as videos for; ginger sauce, sweet mango pickle chutney, red bell pepper sauce, guava coconut lime jelly, guava coconut cherry jelly and guava vanilla jelly
Sunday, April 4, 2010
brain shaped stress ball
Recently completed brain shaped stress ball for ALI; promotional item for upcoming event.
Monday, March 29, 2010
what is social media?
What is social media? Tim O'reilly has some interesting thoughts on it, and other aspects on the latest and greatest technology; as does TechCrunch. That said, it's sometimes easy to lose the forest for the trees. Perhaps social media, at it's core does something simpler.
I was reviewing the google analytics of one of my clients and noticed inbound traffic from this band's blog. They had spoken to my client, in person and carried the conversation online, linking not just to pages in the website, but embedding a video jacobG.net had produced and posted. This is all very standard fair, something that you've seen and perhaps even done. It all led me to the thought, perhaps what's makes social media special is, it makes it easy for other people to tell your stories.
I was reviewing the google analytics of one of my clients and noticed inbound traffic from this band's blog. They had spoken to my client, in person and carried the conversation online, linking not just to pages in the website, but embedding a video jacobG.net had produced and posted. This is all very standard fair, something that you've seen and perhaps even done. It all led me to the thought, perhaps what's makes social media special is, it makes it easy for other people to tell your stories.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
splash page for WoodTheHood.com
Launched a redesign of a splash page for a friend's website. As much as I enjoy the challenge of large scale projects, spending six months on projects such as AtoZtheUSA; for example. It's a refreshing change of pace to start and complete a simple project in a few short hours.
Friday, March 12, 2010
website redesign for bewater marketing concepts
Last year jacobG.net designed a logo and full idenity set for bewater. Today we are excited to have launched a newly redesigned website for them.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Website for AtoZtheUSA.com
AtoZtheUSA.com is a premium database with thousands of pages of interesting and in-depth data on all fifty states and territories. JacobG.net provided code, graphics, photo editing, assembled hundred of pages and under took the creation of thousands of individual graphics over a period of six months. It is sold primarily, but not exclusively to academic markets, such as libraries.
Friday, February 26, 2010
10 Tips for Marketing in the Digital Age
Print and TV as a form of getting your message out have clearly seen better days. JacobG.net has a few thoughts on what is next, and some suggestions and thoughts on how to make Marketing in the Digital Age, work for you.
Monday, February 22, 2010
identity set for JWwrites
Recent project: create a full identity set for JWwrites, a copywriter based out of Oregon state. JacobG.net is please to have this start-up enter the market with a title treatment, letterhead, envelope and business cards.
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