Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today

I write about the three topics that I am most passionate about; Sales, Marketing and Social Media. These topics are covered from my experiences in outside sales and marketing. My objective is to use my expertise to help business and the individual.

How Buyers Buy EdTech & Tech Products

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I asked my audience how they find Education Technology products and solutions. According to a survey I conducted on LinkedIn, 58% used google, viewed product demos, and read reviews. Next was Social Media and word of mouth at 33%. This suggests that the education technology buying cycles are customer-centric. A great product demo is only as good as product reviews, word of mouth, and the customer experience for established brands. Only 8 % found products from seller-centric activities such as seller calls emails and catalogs. Customers are educating themselves and seeking out sellers at the end of the buying process, not the beginning.

When marketing and selling an EdTech or tech product or service, it is important to ask two questions to understand your buyers.

1. What motivates people to buy your tech product or service?

2. How do people find a tech product or service to buy?

How it breaks down for technology in general.

1. What motivates people to buy a tech product or service?

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People buy a technology product or service for many reasons.

2. How do people find a tech product or service to buy?

People find and buy technology products or services in different ways.

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These findings suggest businesses need to create customer-centric offerings to survive in a competitive marketplace.

Answering these questions will help businesses develop, create and, position offerings people want to purchase.

What motivates customers to buy your education technology products and services?

How do your customers find education technology products and services?

Share your thoughts in the comments. 

Posted 141 weeks ago

Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today

I write about the three topics that I am most passionate about; Sales, Marketing and Social Media. These topics are covered from my experiences in outside sales and marketing. My objective is to use my expertise to help business and the individual.

What makes Product Marketing Difficult? What Product Marketers do

What is the hardest part of Product Marketing?

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LinkedIn poll of my audience

Marketers need to develop and deploy a buyer-centric go-to-market strategy. It is time for marketers to ask better questions about buyers.

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What is the role of a Product Marketer?

I covered the Product Marketing Community workshop to find out.

Workshop Topics included how to:

  1. Build and execute go-to-market plans
  2. Develop actionable buyer insights
  3. Create effective Messaging and Content for buyers
  4. Enable Sales and Product Teams

Businesses should identify their ideal customer.

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Only certain target customers will buy due to internal and external factors.

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To grow revenue, businesses need to develop and use better competitive insights. Developing these insights entails examining everything about the competition to identify: strengths, weaknesses, competitor priorities, growing, and under-served markets.

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Product Marketing involves more than Marketing and Product Team support. Product Marketers serve Marketing, Sales, and Product teams. Each team has different needs and responsibilities. However, they all grow the business and serve customers.

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Product Marketers serve as market experts and translators for teams from across the organization.

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What is Product Marketing?

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Product Marketing is the discipline of bringing a product to market and nurturing its success. Businesses need to create and market products people want to buy. To do that, they need to use the Pragmatic Framework.

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Product Marketers are taking on some Product Manager responsibilities

Product Marketing needs a separate brief.

Just as Marketing has a plan or brief, Product Marketing does.

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SmartSheet.com Product Marketing Template

Here are nine things to address in a Product Marketing Brief.

  1. What does your company do? Does your product offering align with your business goals?
  2. What are the features of your product? Do others understand what you are building and why?
  3. Does this Product address gaps in the Market? Include an overview of a Competitive, win-loss and, SWOT analysis.
  4. Who is your ideal customer or target market? Include an overview of findings of demographic, psychographic, and buyer persona research. Does your product solve customer pain points?
  5. How will you measure product success?
  6. What are can go wrong? Can failure be anticipated and corrected?
  7. What is the roadmap and schedule of the product? Who’s responsible and in charge?
  8. Who needs to be included in the project and who needs to approve deliverables?
  9. How will goals be tracked? How often will they be monitored? What insights are you trying to glean from the data?
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Johnathan Hinz of Seismeic shares his insights on sales enablement and its role in marketing.

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The lack of Sales and Marketing alignment is due in part to the inadequate amount of customer value mapping relating to the number of buyer types.

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Product Marketers, what’s the hardest part of your job?

How do you know if you are successful?

Share your thoughts.

Posted 174 weeks ago

Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today

I write about the three topics that I am most passionate about; Sales, Marketing and Social Media. These topics are covered from my experiences in outside sales and marketing. My objective is to use my expertise to help business and the individual.

How Vehicles are Bought & Sold: Trends in the Automotive Industry

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Things are changing in the automotive industry. These changes are from the way vehicles are bought and sold. Vehicle offerings are also different. Vehicles went from gas combustion engines to hybrid vehicles which means a split between gas and electric. Now there is going to be a shift to all-electric vehicles or EVs. The adoption of EVs will accelerate as more charging stations become available.

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Source: Derived registration counts by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Experian Information Solutions https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10861

“This figure illustrates the population breakdown of alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs) registered in the United States as of Dec. 31, 2020. Most of the vehicles are flexible fuel vehicles (FFVs), but those generally operate primarily on conventional gasoline. FFVs were produced and sold as a way for vehicle manufacturers to meet their fuel economy requirements. Hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) are the second-largest population by fuel type, accounting for 70% of the AFV population when excluding FFVs. Plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) include all-electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), and account for about 30% of the AFV population when excluding FFVs.”

I covered The New York Auto Show which was back after a two-year pause because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This year’s auto show had different types of cars, trucks, and SUVs. The show was made up mostly of electronic vehicles and hybrid vehicles. This change is because of changes in the industry and US government policy to improve the environment. Starting in 2026, all gas vehicles will need to get 50 miles to the gallon to be sold in the US. Gas engines are being phased out.  The industry pledges to sell only electric vehicles or EVs by 2035. This is a global trend.

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This is information that came out of the World Traffic Symposium, at the New York Auto Show.

Guest Speakers included:

Jennifer Homendy, Chair, National Transportation Safety Board

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Andrew Wishnia, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Climate Policy, U.S. Department of Transportation

Dr. Steven Cliff, Deputy Administrator, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

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David Strickland, Vice President, Global Regulatory Affairs, GM

Mark F. Schroeder, Commissioner, NYS DMV, Governor’s Representative for Highway Safety

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I did a survey on LinkedIn on how people find and buy vehicles. The results are here.

People are buying and selling cars online but many sales are still happening at dealerships.

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According to the New York International Auto Show, here are the demographics of people who attended and bought cars at the auto show over the last 10 years.

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How do you feel about electric vehicles? How do you find and buy vehicles?

Share your thoughts.

Posted 130 weeks ago