Business Insights

When you’re a multinational corporation, the marketing world is your oyster. Want to generate brand awareness? Invest in a few peak time TV ads on ITV for £30k a pop. Or take out a colour double-page spread in The Times for £42,000. If you’re thinking bigger, why not shell out $5.25 million on a 30-second Superbowl advert? How about all of the above? However, very few of these “big business” marketing tactics work for smaller companies with tighter budgets. Account-based marketing (ABM) is different. The approach of aligning sales and marketing to focus energies on a few accounts rather than a broad segment is one that medium-sized businesses can easily adopt. And according to specialist services marketing association ITSMA, 85% of marketers have found that account-based marketing delivers higher ROI than any other marketing approach. It’s probably why you’ve heard more and more of your peers talking about it of late.

“How do I know your solution is what my business needs?” “I’ve already got a reliable supplier in your sector. Why should I switch to you?” “How are you going to solve my business problem?” Questions like these can make even practised business owners break a sweat. If you start hearing yourself waffling on about the ’synergistic benefits’ of your ‘integrated solution’ it’s not because you don’t know your stuff, it’s generally because you haven’t developed your value proposition.

Brand is essentially the perception someone holds in their head about a product, a service, or an organisation; a person, a cause, or an idea. It acts as a mental shortcut for consumers so that when they need what you’re selling, they think of you first.

Introduction Many businesses think new leads mean more business, and are constantly on the hunt for the new. It’s a natural impulse: but a lot of the time, it’s wrong.

Running a business is a bit like surfing; you have to ride the waves as they hit or risk going under. This is especially true when it comes to navigating market forces. Flexible, dynamic and unpredictable markets have the power to swiftly impact your business. Remember record stores? There was a time when it was hard to imagine a town centre without an HMV or Virgin Megastore, but now they’re a rare sight. For both businesses, the market changed to a degree which meant they simply couldn’t survive in their previous form.