What is the difference between Marketing, PR and Sales?
Published August 8, 2011 | 
As small to mid-size business and non-profit leaders, many of you have to wear multiple hats, providing technology advice, marketing strategy and engaging in sales work supporting relationships. This is for you.
I was watching a video by my sister Payson Cooper, who has cultivated a nice skill-set in strategic marketing, and I thought she articulated something more clearly than I’ve ever heard it before, so I wanted to share it with my audience.
So what is the difference between Marketing, PR and Sales anyway?
Professionals blur the lines between these disciplines, its not surprising that small business entrepreneurs who have less time to specialize do the same.
Here’s what Payson had to say:
Marketing is identifying what problems you solve, how you solve them, and getting that information in front of the people who care. This covers everything from strategic marketing, where you are thinking about your audience, what problems they face, and how you can solve them, to lead-generation marketing, where you identify people who care and pass them to a sales team.
PR (Public Relations) is defining information to help third parties understand what you do and who cares about it. This is very important because it provides your potential customers with a third-party, relatively independent, perspective into what you have to offer. Its dependent on marketing, but entirely different. It supports sales, but is different. This is identifying industry experts who have credibility and giving them what they need to make an impartial evaluation of your services and
offerings, so that the folks who listen to them get to know about you and what you can offer.
Sales is the process of overcoming natural objections to purchasing your services or products. Isn’t that a nice description? When you have something to offer, those interested will have natural questions and objections. Why would this help me? Do I need it? What is included? How much is it? Why is that a fair price? Sales is the process of helping a potential customer answer those questions.
So there you go; a nice, discrete separation of Marking, PR and Sales for the small business executives and entrepreneurs among you out there to use when you need to strategize.
I am in training the first couple of weeks of August, when I return Techivity will take a look at some of the new services Google has made available.
If you found this post helpful, and want to take a look at what Payson offers in marketing strategy, take a look at her site. She and I approach things a bit differently, but her strategies are quite effective. As usual, feel free to post a comment, or contact Techivity for consulting services.
Facebook: The future of mobile apps?
Published June 16, 2011 | Well, well. I was checking my news feeds this AM and I see this post about project Spartan.
http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/15/facebook-project-spartan/
Seems that there’s a top-secret project at Facebook to implement an app delivery service on Safari to target the iPhone and iPad. It also seems that the social media giant is working on a major update to their photo apps:
http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/15/facebook-photo-sharing-app/
I know many small business contacts who still shy away from Facebook not sure how to leverage their time there.
What this means to you, if you are a small business client, or just someone who follows our blog for tech advice and strategy is that if you haven’t figured out how to use Facebook to connect, network, and grow your business yet, you need to do that. LinkedIn is a great business, professional networking site, but at this point it should be pretty clear to most of us that the mobile world is going to be very important to our future in business communication and networking. Already, we use our phones constantly, most calls are mobile-to-mobile these days, and we use email, messaging, and more constantly. Its only natural that social media would make that migration too.
And Facebook is putting resources and effort into being a major mobile social media player. It will help you if you are comfortable using it. As usual, if you want help, we’re happy to provide consulting and assistance.
So get in there!
MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter
Published February 15, 2011 | A quick post about the audience found at each of the major US social networking sites to share how they can work for you! Each of the major social networking sites has developed its own niche, audience and purpose. Use social media to reach an audience that cares so you don’t upset your potential customers or waste your effort.
MySpace has developed into a kind of hip culture site that is ripe with music, art and pop news. The home page for MySpace connects up to hulu, has music info on it and other popular media. If you are looking for people who are into music, who are interested in connecting and finding this pop and artistic, then MySpace is a good spot to do that. Most of the clients that I know who use MySpace to connect to their customers are dance clubs, social venues, musicians and other artists.
LinkedIn is a much more professionally oriented service, in fact, their home page talks about creating a career fast-track and getting more out of your professional network. LinkedIn provides tools to connect with business professionals, provide references, promote services and so forth. Its great if you want to connect with and promote to business professionals.
Facebook is a fairly generic social media resource and it has a huge audience. Most of Facebook is used to connect and promote around our own lives; major events, projects and relationships. There are games and resources for having fun, but in my experience, Facebook is mostly about being able to publicize who you are, who you know, and what you like. Its a great place to build and manage a natural network; the friends, family and associates you know, and if you have a product or service that is appropriate to present to family and friends, this is a good spot.
Twitter is all about small burst information on a wide range of subjects, thus has a wide audience. With Twitter, its about building up connections with your networks, connections that are interested in quick updates and advice from you. With Twitter, your emphasis ought to be what you offer and whether or not you can build an audience that’s interested. If you can find an audience interested in your professional advice, news tips and other quick notes then you should try using Twitter. There are some good courses out there about using Twitter, like the one my sister Payson Cooper put together.
As with pretty much any marketing effort, using social media appropriately is all about understanding who you are trying to reach, where they hang out, and articulating what you can offer them.