Small Business B2B Marketing

Small Business Marketing

One Hour Marketing

Small Business Extra

New sales presentation tool makes getting new clients easier

If you're like most business-to-business service providers, getting the attention of new client prospects is always a challenge. 

We discovered I Present To You! -- a unique, next-generation tool that will help you pique your prospect's interest with a personalized and customized web presentation (even if you may have just met on the phone seconds earlier).

Instead of having "canned" presentations to show prospects or e-mailing a presentation after your phone call,  the I Present to You! software allows  you to create and deliver your presentations instantly over the Internet while talking with your prospects on the phone.  The software also allows you to customize screens on the fly, giving you the ability to react  immediately to questions and concerns your prospect might have, quickening the pace of the sales cycle.

A great advantage of this web presentation tool is that your prospects will never have to install software or a plug-in on their computer to view your presentation.

Some of the software's features include:

• The Web Presentation Designer - Create presentation screens 
• The Site Controller - Click a button on the Site Controller and choose
  what your viewer will see next.
• The Presenter's Portal - Create and control  your own web portal that you can
  use to take prospects to your live and static presentations. 
• My Script - Create scripts and access them easily with this program. 
• The Sales Browser - Collect information about your prospects before your call and then access the information with just a click of your mouse during your presentation.
• Multimedia - Complete multimedia instructions guide you through each step of setting up your own interactive web presentation.

We found the software to be quite affordable for small businesses -- less than $50.

You can schedule a free, 5-minute live demo of this web presentation tool from The Grabow-Hill Company, by clicking here .

Trade show marketing cost woes often due to poor objectives

Trade show marketing can be expensive.  Particularly for small businesses, where the investment, as a percentage of the total marketing budget, can be greater than for larger companies with deeper pockets.   

Even to send just one person to an event and to "man the booth", a B2B show can cost several thousand dollars in exhibit space fees, shipping marketing materials, and travel costs.

What's notable in my experience is that the decision of whether to exhibit at a trade show is often made on four (often faulty) criteria:

1. Because "we go there every year."  Don't exhibit just out of habit.  Make your decision each year for an event is based on results.
2. Because "our competitors always go there."   This trade show may be as equally ineffective for them, too! 
3. "It's a fun location" or "there is always cool, interesting stuff on the exhibit floor."  Trade shows are an expensive way to entertain yourself.
4. When a different marketing tactic might be more suitable to achieve the same or better results (such as direct mail, telemarketing, etc.)

This criteria can really rip through a small biz marketing budget quickly, with little results in lead generation or actual sales.  And once that's done, a broader (perhaps even more faulty) decision can be made that "trade shows don't work."

To keep off this slippery slope, I've listed 15 better objectives to consider when deciding on exhibiting at a trade show here.

B2B marketers most concerned with marketing automation in 2007

BtoBOnline cited a new survey revealing that close to two-thirds (63%) of b-to-b companies said the marketing solutions they will seek in 2007 will revolve around marketing automation technology.

I couldn't find a link to the report, but I would imagine most of those survey were large companies -- where the coordination of sales and marketing functions is greatly challenging.

And small b2b businesses have a similar challenge, whether it's a solo-entreprenuer or a company with 5, 10 or 25 employees.   Time, money, fear.

But what I have found, handsdown, is that small companies can see realize a far more dramatic short-term improvement in their sales if they do make automated marketing a priority (that is, using databases and other technology to coordinate their lead generation, nurturing and client follow-up activities).  And often in small companies there is far less politics or conflicting agendas to work around to set this up.

So if you're still managing things on paper, or some low-level electronic version of a calendar -- consider making marketing automation your top concern in 2007. 

Technology is often a small business's best way to compete with larger, more pokey competitors.

And you've got to start somewhere, and the first place to start is taking a on a new mindset that this is the year you're going to do it.

Email marketing benchmarks for small business

How are you open rates, bounce rates, or "spam/junk" complaints comparing to other email marketers?

While there's data on this out there from big business, here's one email benchmark report that focuses on small businesses that's worth a look.

The report, from email marketing service provider MailChimp, states it's from a scan of more than 30 million emails done by their client base (which they estimate is about 70% companies of 1-10 employees, and mostly do-it-yourselfer email marketers).