Phil Lauterjung

I have written in the past about marketing automation and how it can help you grow your business.  Yesterday I experienced this from the customer’s perspective.  Of course, the average customer wouldn’t have recognized the use of a marketing automation system; but, it served to remind me of how effective it can be.

It was just another phone call among many others on a typical day.  This one was from a pleasant female voice with Edible Arrangements.  She asked if I remembered buying one of their arrangements last year for Valentine’s Day.  I don’t normally remember everything that I buy for my wife – probably because I buy her so much, hah .  But this time I did remember because I was in Kenya last year for the month of February, and quite far away from my wife.  Read more... (519 words, 2 images, estimated 2:05 mins reading time)

One question that frequently comes up when discussing email marketing campaigns is: what are reasonable results to expect? Results can typically vary widely.  Fortunately, Silverpop recently did research on this subject and I know that many of you will be interested.  The results are based on random sample sets of 7,000 email messages delivered to recipients in the U.S., the U.K., and Germany.  The best part of their data is instead of giving the usual average rates they also included the median as well as the top quartile and bottom quartile.  This will allow you to get a better idea where you might place, and where to put you focus to improve your results.  Read more... (501 words, 8 images, estimated 2:00 mins reading time)

NOTE:  I have added a plug-in that gives me more flexibility with fonts and sizes.  So I’m trying to make this more readable.  Let me know what you think in the comments.  Thanks.

I have written in the past about the importance of developing a “buyer persona” that incorporates as much as possible about your typical customer.  The persona should include demographic, geographic, psychographic, and behavioral information about that company and your persona.  Read more... (538 words, 2 images, estimated 2:09 mins reading time)

When I first started in sales – in the dark ages – buyers had to contact us if they were interested in our products.  Not any more!  All they do is hop on their favorite search engine and start clicking away.  Gaining a clear understanding of this new buying cycle is critical to reaching buyers at an optimum point.

Online buyers tend to take their own sweet time doing research before settling on a product to purchase.  Studies have shown that these wandering buyers conduct as many as a dozen or more searches over many weeks before deciding.  These are not usually the same searches over and over.  Most are multiple searches on the same topic.  Read more... (655 words, 2 images, estimated 2:37 mins reading time)

Let’s face it, we all say we are “customer focused”.  Or some other such term.  If we were to ask our best customers, would they have a positive response?  All of them?  How about your own front-line employees?

Here are 5 warning signs that you might be heading off a cliff in your customer focus.  Read more... (595 words, 2 images, estimated 2:23 mins reading time)

No, this is not another Top 10 list of anything.  I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty tired of seeing those.  I know that they sometimes have some interesting insights, but enough already!

As a history buff I do know that there is value in looking back and learning from the past.  The old axiom of hindsight being 20/20 is often very true.  And, as technology advances ever faster it becomes more difficult to take a breath and review anything.  Read more... (434 words, 2 images, estimated 1:44 mins reading time)