26 Roadblocks To B2B Marketing Success

Profit inhibitors are roadblocks to your B2B marketing success.

This checklist will help you think about possible barriers that you are facing with your brand, product or service. More importantly, it will get you to focus on how do you plan to overcome the profit inhibitors that are impacting your marketing programs?

Profit Inhibitors

Do They Apply?

Plans To Eliminate?

1.  Absence of customer oriented thinking
2.  Inexact or inadequate marketing objectives
3.  Internal communication failure
4.  Inadequate distribution planning
5.  Lack of innovation in product, packaging, etc.
6.  Budget deficiencies in communications
7.  Failure to dominate in communication media used
8.  Misunderstanding customer motivation
9.  Too generic marketing approach/messages
10. Inadequate understanding of market and customer opinion
11. Failure to “merchandise” or follow through
12. Over-promoting (dealing) or too much “price” concern
13. Information loss from management to point-of-sale
14. Giving promotion jobs it cannot do
15. Watered-down messages due to too much committee approval
16. Failure to build-in measuring systems for all plans and programs
17. Failure to define – and influence – the corporate image
18. Imbalance between communication activities
19. Copying competition in communication activities
20  Failure to build extra benefits of quality image of product and company or service
21. Failure to update marketing strategy/ organization
22. Working in silos
23. Inflexibility of policies
24. Inadequate knowledge of competition
25. Lack of or stagnant web and social media content
26. Failure to take advantage of “competitive edge”

 What Profit Inhibitors did we overlook that are barriers to your B2B marketing success?

Good Selling!
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Are You Using This Simple Product Commercialization Checklist?

GeekThere’s been a lot of attention lately on innovation, agile development, NPD and product road mapping.  All are critical to developing new products but all fail dramatically in fully understanding the product commercialization process.

Miss out on successfully launching your product and not only will you miss your targets, but you’ll struggle to be credible with future product launches with your field sales team and customers.

With that in mind, here’s a comprehensive checklist to make sure you are considering the many facets of the commercialization process.                         

Market Analysis

Purpose

Why are we looking at this product / service?

What is in it for us?

What is in it for the Channel?

What is in it for the End User?

Objectives

What do we hope to do?

What is the timing to carry out the goal(s)?

Strategy

How do we envision accomplishing this objective?

What are the short and long-term strategies?

What is the timeline for each strategy?

How will the product be positioned?

Impact on other products (cannibalization)?

What plants and markets?

checklistOnGlass

Market Factors

What factors will help this product?

What factors prohibit us from meeting our goals?

What are the crucial market factors for this product?

Product

Requirements

What market research do we have to support product?

Define the channel and end-user(s) priorities

Define the market size and total opportunity for us

Feature/Benefits              

Define strengths and weaknesses of proposed product

Positioning

How will product be positioned (high/medium/low-end)?

Who are the key targets for placement?

Who are the pull through targets?

What is our pricing strategies by channel?

Packaging

What is the product called?

How will it be packaged?

Production Plan              

Clearly define production capabilities

Establish ordering procedures

Benchmarking  

Have we benchmarked other competitors in the industry?

Have we benchmarked other manufacturers outside the industry?

Measures of Success

How will we measure progress?

What will be considered a success?

Timeline

Key dates for all product elements?

Develop an implementation roll out strategy 60/90/120 day

Sales Plan                                                                                                                                           

checklistSales Forecast

What are the sales plan by Region/Nationally (in units and dollars)?

What are the seasonality/current trends?

Other Measures                 

Clear and tangible outcomes?

What is the total brand budget to support new product?

Selling Proposition

Sales                                       

What is the value proposition at each level?                       

Channel Customer                                                                                          

End User

Brand Support

Brand Plan

Define the communication plan for end-user/ customers/field sales?

Ensure product included in other programs

Social Media

Link our social media efforts

Website updates

You Tube, Facebook, Blog, Twitter, Pinterest

Literature

Define literature requirements

Develop technical facts to support new product

Samples

Produce product samples as required

Selling Tools

Determine tools required to support business proposition

Define product displays requirements

Develop plan-o-grams for retail customers

Photography

Will product availability delay photography (and literature)?

Packaging

Determine artwork

Timeline

Coordination of brand support programs

Define schedule and key dates

Field Implementation

new-bright-ideaImplementation Plan

Coordination of channel, product marketing, and brand efforts

Define processes and tools required for implementation

Determine channel programs (target accounts/promotions)

Develop time line for field sales communication

Provide advanced communication (90 days) to Sales

Training

Establish internal and external product training schedule

(Field Sales/Customer Service/Channel Customers)

Training Vehicle

Develop training modules

Scorecard

Clear Outcomes                

Follow-up review of business strategy after 90 days/6 months

Develop bail out strategy if not performing

What else would you add to this checklist?