Grace W. Ueng is CEO of Savvy Marketing Group in Cary, which works with various local companies. A consultant, speaker and writer, Ueng has served on the adjunct faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler Business School and in the international MBA program at Fudan in Shanghai, a joint venture with MIT Sloan School, teaching "Entrepreneurial Marketing and Innovation." For several weeks in Work&Money, Ueng is offering her 12-step guide to marketing new and existing businesses. Last week, she discussed how to price new products (to catch up, go to www.newsobserver.com/business).
Step 8. Generate awareness
Sean Murphy said that online seminars have been effective at NeoNova, where he is vice president of sales, marketing and business development.
"Earlier this year, we were the first to market with timely content and commentary around the broadband stimulus program aimed directly at our customer-base," he said. "We pulled together our webinar on a sprint speed schedule before others were able to and captured the lion's share of prospects interested in this topic. The feedback was very positive."
Dan Clem, director of marketing at AlertNow, said that sponsoring an event such as a breakfast at a state school board event gives him 10 minutes to speak in front of a captive target market. Rather than using that time to have an employee speak, Dan prefers to be introduced by a happy customer who tells the AlertNow story.
Lee Prevost, president of SchoolDude.com, said that his company has used trade shows and associations, as well as newsletters. Going forward, it will use professional online networks.
Hosted Solutions has sponsored events to establish brand awareness.
In the competitive markets such as Boston in which they compete, choosing to sponsor events that position them to look bigger than they are is key to winning business when competing against giants.
But Noreen Allen, vice president of marketing for Hosted Solutions, warned to be careful with sponsorships: "Do things that are more memorable. Constantly evaluate what is working and not working. Try new things - we took customers whitewater rafting - it was a new thing, as football and hockey can get old."
Hosted Solutions has also used social media successfully to create awareness of their events. Allen said that LinkedIn was useful for promoting an event this past summer that attracted a large crowd. She is a big fan of influencer marketing and plans to do more with the company's blog and Twitter by commenting on hot topics in coming months.
