Author: Brian Bluff

What are CRM’s and How They Bridge the Gap Between Sales & Marketing Your marketing team may spend hours crafting captivating campaigns and generating stacks of leads. Those leads that marketing garners may be getting tossed over the fence to sales, who drown in a sea of unqualified contacts, struggling to convert them. Deals stall, opportunities dry up, and fingers get pointed. Sound familiar?  This, unfortunately, is the all-too-common consequence of siloed sales and marketing efforts. You may have already come to the solution of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. This is a step in the right direction, but…

ChatGPT and other AI (artificial intelligence) tools represent a major game changer for business in a way comparable to the impact search engines and the internet had on business 20+ years ago. Back then, search engines and digital marketing revolutionized the way businesses gathered information, solved problems, communicated issues and capabilities, and, at the highest level, conducted business. Today, AI tools like ChatGPT can potentially transform how businesses operate in exactly the same ways. Just like 20+ years ago, this change will produce a significant number of winners and losers. It was the early adopters that gained and, for the…

When it comes to a digital presence, the first go-to-market tactic is typically organic search engine optimization (SEO). SEO involves configuring your website to rank at the top of the search engines for free (also called organic). Establishing high rankings is about two things: relevance and authority. In this article, I’ll focus on relevance and provide you four tips and one free gift to help you capture valuable traffic for your website. Tip 1 – Your URL Should Contain Your Target Keyword Let’s say you want to rank for the term “welding training Syracuse, NY.” The first thing you should…

Throughout the pandemic, some companies have thrived, while others have struggled; but one thing is certain, the case for a better user experience has been given a shot in the arm. Outside sales teams have become inside sales teams; and customers that continue to work remote will help to keep it that way. Whether or not it’s logical that your business transact online, prospects expect to find the information they need on your website – without your help. The ability to advance the sales process toward, and perhaps including, completing an online transaction is now a requirement. People Want E-commerce/Online…

The other day, I unpacked a box from storage and came across four old iPhones. I replaced them because the batteries stopped holding a charge, they started running slow, and because I really wanted a better camera and larger screen size. The decision to upgrade my phone was relatively easy; but what about the decision to replace a website? Below are six reasons why you should replace your website. 1. It’s over three years old. As a general rule, a website should be replaced every three years. In that time, the technology available to give your customers and prospects a…

There is a scene from the movie Minority Report where, as Tom Cruise’s character is walking through a mall, he looks into a retinal scanning device and suddenly starts seeing and hearing digital ads personalized to him. Over the buzz of people talking and promotional messages, one digital sign announces “John Anderson, you could use a Guinness right about now.” Pretty cool stuff! Although Minority Report was made in 2002 and set in 2054, much of this technology is becoming reality. That is what this article is about – digital advertising targeting technology. As with most topics in digital advertising…

For just about every distributor-based association whose members I’ve worked for or for whom I’ve written an article, the story is the same. It’s commonly believed that members are far behind the times when it comes to digital marketing. To some extent this is true, but in most cases that’s not the case. Here’s what I usually find: The majority of members don’t know where to begin from a digital marketing standpoint. Some members understand digital marketing is important, but can’t seem to execute the program they know will produce results. These folks never seem to allocate enough budget to…

A few years ago, my digital marketing agency audited the internet marketing programs of over 175 distributors and manufacturers and found that only 3.4% had a marketing plan. That’s not to say the companies without a plan weren’t spending money on marketing. Rather, they were letting marketing happen instead of creating a list of objectives, dedicating the necessary resources (internal labor, vendor support and advertising dollars) and establishing a system of measurement to allow for an assessment of progress toward specific goals. As you might imagine, that’s not a great situation. For those committed to taking digital marketing seriously, you’ll…

While digital marketing was once new and revolutionary, it’s now mature with less opportunity to stumble into success. That means you need to have a plan if you hope to succeed. But how does a company know where to start or if what it has in place is working? Further, what work should be performed in house and what should you outsource? At the highest level to be successful in digital marketing you need to develop a plan to address the following: Your website Search engines (Google) Social media Video Email marketing Measurement for success (Google Analytics) Your Website The…