Constant Cogitation » Marketing

10 Ways to Extend your Brand with Industrial Customers

Greg — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:25:24 +0000

Disney has mastered the art of extending the brand experience for its customers. Here are 10 ways you can replicate the magic in your more industrial [...]

Cogitation across the Nation

Greg — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 02:39:27 +0000

Links to recent guest posts on marketing in small businesses and startups, trade show planning, using Outlook for task management, and planning your work/life [...]

7 Steps to Prepare an Engineer for a Sales Call

Greg — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:10:37 +0000

While many engineers have a natural capability to work with customers, some need help in this process. Here's seven steps to help an engineer contribute to a successful sales [...]

Market Segmentation for Electric Vehicles

Greg — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 02:42:05 +0000

Understanding the segmentation of the automotive market by customer behavior and vehicle usage patterns is going to be critical in designing electric vehicles with the appropriate price and performance (in terms of battery range) for success. Nick Hodson and John Newman of McKinsey recently published an article with a first-pass segmentation that points out some opportunities for differentiation by automotive [...]

A Market Segmentation Example

Greg — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 13:31:32 +0000

After laying out the differences between market segmentation and classification in a previous blog post, this follow-up post provides an example of how segmentation was used to target growth for a new product by selecting customers for whom it had the greatest value proposition, allowing it to be priced at a significant premium to existing [...]

Market Segmentation for Industrial Marketers – Why You’re Probably Doing it Wrong

Greg — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:48:13 +0000

As a marketer, you are undoubtedly familiar with the concept of market segmentation, where you divide your market into identifiable customer groups to improve your targeting. A key concept for proper market segmentation is that customers should be grouped by values (needs and wants) and the behaviors these values drive. It is important not to confuse segmentation with classification, where customers are grouped by characteristics which are not necessarily predictive of how they will respond to a specific value [...]

Application Success Profiles – A Powerful and Flexible Marketing Tool

Greg — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:32:14 +0000

This is a marketing tool I have developed to quickly convey successful applications to help build credibility at new accounts. The tool focuses on the value the solution brought to a customer, and it is quick and easy to create. They are a great tool to populate an application-focused section of a website or industry-specific presentations, as well as creating opportunities for published [...]

The 10 Natural Laws of Blogging: Observations from a Novice

Greg — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:00:45 +0000

A full 5 posts into my blogging career (OK, maybe "hobby" is a better word), here are the 10 lessons I have learned. Therefore, they must be "natural laws", unbreakable no matter what the effort. I am sure at least 3 of them are wrong, and I've missed another 5 or more. Please feel free to add or challenge as you see [...]

Trade Show Strategies for Industrial Marketers – Go Niche, Go Big, or Stay Home

Greg — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:57:17 +0000

Far from being relics of a bygone area, trade shows are still an important part of the marketing mix for most industrial companies. Most companies do a poor job of planning and preparing for shows, and thus see a poor ROI. Here are five tips, from selecting shows to promoting your presence, that can help you maximize your [...]

Are Starbucks’ Big Gambles Paying Off? Too Early to Tell, but Reasons to be Encouraged

Greg — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 02:45:05 +0000

Starbucks' actions on opening 15th Ave. Coffee and Tea and introducing Via instant coffee may have looked like gambles, but early signs are encouraging, and there is a lot that was done right with the experiments. The threat of cannibalization to their in-store experience is pretty minimal, and the margins on the Via brand are worth the slight [...]