20 HABITS OF LOUSY MARKETERS, THE

Customer Inter@ction Solutions, Nov 2006 by Tehrani, Nadji

20. Lousy marketers have either no relationship with the media or they have broken the relationship with the leading media! Warren Buffet, arguably the world's #1 financial wizard with a net worth of $42 billion, introduced five secrets of his success in a recent interview.

One of the keys to his success is, "Make friends with the media." It is mind-boggling that so many companies either have no relationship with the leading media in their field and, even worse, at least one company went out of its way to break relations with the leading media in our industry and that company, based on very reliable information, has lost considerable market share and is about to go out of business!

The Billionaires And Multimillionaires In The Contact Center, CRM And Teleservices Industries Have One Thing In Common...

Gary and Mary West were MASTER MARKETERS and did not make the above mistakes! In fact, in the October 9, 2006 issue of FORBES magazine, with the cover story titled, "The 400 Richest People in America" on page 180, we were happy to find Gary and Mary West, each with $1.1 billion net worth!

Gary and Mary were the founders and owners of the world-famous West Corporation, a symbol of quality and integrity in the contact center, CRM and teleservices industries. They were my mentors, and they have been the loyal advertisers of this publication (on cover two and page one) for the last 19 consecutive years.

In Summary

Many years of marketing experience have taught me a great lesson: that market share leaders in any industry are those who have an outstanding marketing strategy first and then a good product behind it. In today's marketplace, to become THE global market leader in any industry, you must follow what I call the golden triangle (see Figure 1).

1. You must dominate the Web. Not only do you need to be on the first page of the leading search engines, but you need to be #1 on the first page and use a powerful SEO technology to make sure that you will remain #1 forever on the first page. Anything less than that will not convey the message that you are the industry leader and that you deserve maximum market share.

2. You must dominate your trade show participation. Once again, in any given trade show, you will be competing for attendee or delegate attention with nearly 200, 300 or 500 other exhibitors. The only way to get the maximum qualified sales leads is to stand above the crowd and think out of the box. In plain English, you must own the trade show through sponsorships, banners and other unusual marketing techniques so that anyone who attends the show knows that your company is a major player in your industry. There is no shortcut for that.

3. Equally, you must dominate print media. Not only do you need to prepare outstanding, benefit-driven brochures and marketing collaterals and advertising but, once again, you need to think out of the box. For example, you must consider a unique methodology by which you will be marketing through education. In today's marketplace, high technology products are sold in one and only one powerful way and that is marketing through education.