Traditional marketing is still very much with us in K-12 publishing. Because of the institutional nature of our market, we still operate in “push” mode with direct mail, outbound sales, either in person or by phone, conferences, etc. For most K-12 publishers, sending occasional customer emails and offering online webinars and demos is as Web 2.0 as it gets. For educational publishers, it is still very much about filling the sales funnel moving prospects to customers through a multi-step process.

But even in educational publishing, this traditional model is giving way to something new. In traditional sales, the company was in charge of moving the process forward, and in the Web 2.0 world, the new driver is the customer. Read the rest of this entry »

Share This

Posted in: Marketing | Comments(2)

Taking the temperature of your customers or involving your customers in product development has never been easier. Large, expensive research surveys have their place but many research goals can be achieved by quick and easy online surveys.

There are a number of companies that provide this service and most give you an opportunity to test drive the software before making a commitment. Even if you decide to subscribe to their service, the cost is nominal. Survey Monkey, Zoomerang, QuestionPro, and Constant Contact are a few of the better known survey programs. Read the rest of this entry »

Share This

Posted in: Marketing | Comments(2)

 
photo credit: zentolos

How long do we have to convey our key messages to prospective customers as they cruise through our websites? Not long at all judging from some of the analytics results I’ve seen on various websites. So what are the industry norms for this metric? It’s logical that different industries would have different metrics, don’t you agree?In the magazine business, we used to have the “10-second rule” which was about the time it took a reader to scan a page, determine if there was anything of interest to read and turn the page to the next spread. I’ve heard that we have as little as 7 seconds per web screen to tell our story before the reader is off to the next click.

Michael Firsikov, Director of IT, VerkkoStadi Technologies Inc. has reviewed the metrics for the large social networking site he manages. As he shared this week in the Target Marketing Magazine webinar on email, Michael found that within 30 seconds, 48% of the audience is gone and within 40 seconds 63% are gone.

The thing that made me sit up and take notice was his assertion that often “Your first impression is your last impression.” It’s probably safe to say that educators looking for solutions to their particular problems are willing to spend a bit more time scanning a website for kernels of help. It’s probably true for most professionals in most markets. But since we may be talking about the difference of nano-seconds, we ignore the customer behavior above at our peril. Even though the examples are based on social consumer behavior, educators are consumers too.

So if our first impression is our last impression, what kind of impression are you making with your website?

Share This

Posted in: Marketing | Comments(0)

Yesterday I participated in a webinar sponsored by Target Marketing Magazine that focused on getting the most out of your emails to customers. The presenters were sharing the results of a study across four vertical markets. I learned some amazing facts such as:

1. 30% of marketers do not send an email to interested prospects within 30 days of the prospect making herself known to the company through a subscribe/send me more information process.
2.  Another 25% do not send the first email within 9 days.
3. 60% do not send welcome messages.
4. 70% collect enough information in the sign-up process to customize messages and then don’t use the information.

I don’t know about your experience, but the educational publishers I have worked with spend enormous amounts of time crafting their email communication with their customers. Although, K-12 publishing was not one of the vertical markets surveyed in this instance, it does make me wonder what kind of waste would we see in our own industry? Read the rest of this entry »

Share This

Posted in: Marketing, Educational Publishing | Comments(0)

 In most small companies sales and marketing is the responsibility of the same person. Often the person in charge has been with the company for some time and what they know about sales and marketing has been learned on the job. Sales and marketing are joined at the hip. In fact your strategic sales plan should be an outgrowth of your strategic marketing plan. Although there are multiple marketing objectives such as investing in customer relationships, building community, establishing your company as content expert in your field, etc., the fundamental purpose of marketing is (drum roll, please) to create sales opportunities.

It is amazing to me how many companies operate without full understanding of the answers to the following questions. So what are the key questions that should be answered for successful sales and marketing to occur?

1. Who is the customer?
2. What problem does our product solve for the customer?
3. How do we reach the customer? Read the rest of this entry »

   Share This

   Posted in: Sales, Marketing, Educational Publishing | Comments(0)