Graham Bailey - Marketing Blog

As more and more marketing effort is concentrated on CRM strategies and relationship marketing, I raise the question ‘How good is the average marketeer at developing relationships?’ This goes beyond hosting discussion forums and sending e-newsletters to the core of relationship nurturing and building. Most of us are not giving enough time and attention in our marketing planning to this fundamental skill. I believe we should all work harder at this and probably get some help to do it well.

Keep building the relationships!

Its a question which many have posed and few have answered completely so I thought it is time to explore this whole area more fully from Youtube to Twitter and Facebook to Flickr. I have put together a comprehensive guide to the world of social media which will initially run as a training course but can be adapted to a workshop session or in house consultancy to get you started. Let me know if you would be interested to learn more at graham.bailey@gb-marketing.com

With so much written in recent months about the credit crisis and the state of the world economy many businesses are focusing on the tough times and how to weather the storm - quite right you need to be responding to this. However the smart marketing planning is preparing yourself for the upturn so that as the green shoots appear you have a plan ready to implement and take advantage of the recovery.

I have recently been working with companies in the manufacturing, service industry and charity sectors and in each case our focus has been on preparing the plans to take advantage of the improvement in the business climate, if you would like to explore this for your company then get in touch now as if you leave it until the recovery is in full swing you will have already missed significant business opportunities.

As more and more companies feel the impact of the credit crunch and all it’s associated impacts, there comes the need to save costs wherever possible. One of the favourite pots to raid has always been training and new product development, as they do not give an immediate return and can therefore be cut with no apparent effect. So far, so good - however one of the very real hidden dangers is the fact that we are storing up problems for the future as when the economy recovers we will neither have the products or people skills to take advantage of the upturn.

There is considerable evidence from previous recessions that those organisations who continue to invest in their products and people emerge faster and fitter from the difficult economic times than those who cut these areas of spending significantly.

I am working on a number of programmes which look at ways in which organisations can profit from the current situation and will keep you posted as these ideas and programmes develop. Don’t cut the very things which are your future profit earners! 

Hi - welcome to this occasional blog looking at the world of Marketing and all aspects of building a strong Marketing presence. Having worked in the Marketing industry for over four decades I believe the experience and insight of a practitioner brings an added value to whats happening in the world of business today.

An opening thought for you to ponder is ‘Has Marketing lost its way in the technology’ as more and more of the campaigns we produce are technology driven rather then customer driven? This view comes from a feeling that the wonders of the technological world can sometimes dazzle the marketer to the point where the customer can be overlooked in the rush to harness the new technology. The opposite view, of course, is that the trechnology is a liberating factor which allows the user to access content in their preferred medium when they want to capture it. There is obviously a balance to be struck and in future blogs we will explore this and other topics of interest.

Occasional offers and tips will also be added to the blog to give you some real added value for your read.