THE 3 COMMON MARKETING MISTAKES OF HIGH TECH REP FIRMS AND HOW YOUR REP FIRM CAN AVOID THEM FOREVER
By Granison Shines | On January 3, 2008 | In Sales | Rated 
Marketing for every high tech rep firm is extremely important.
However, many make the same mistakes over and over again when using their chosen media for marketing their business. That is, if they do any marketing at all!
However, these costly marketing mistakes can be avoided with a little understanding, knowledge, and wisdom of how to appropriately market your high tech rep firm.
In this article, I am going to discuss five common mistakes in how you can avoid them for ever. I guarantee that if you implement these simple, yet highly effective marketing and business strategies, you will find greater opportunity for your high tech rep firm in any other business you start.
So let's get started!
Common mistake # 1: disparate databases spread across several field sales reps.
I’ve worked with several high tech rep firms and this is a common problem and presents several other problems as well. For instance, if one, God forbid two, of your field sales engineers leaves your company, so does a percentage of your database. This should never be!
The simple solution is to centralize your database. By centralization, you can manage your database, massage it to tailor your business needs and mass market to your client and contacts via email as soon as a new device come out or some other hot issue comes up. In fact, your database system should also provide automated marketing and follow-up for your products and services over the Internet.
All the contacts from every OSR should be within the database including their name e-mail address and phone number at the very least. This is critically important because you are going to use e-mail as a marketing tool to disseminate information. By doing this you are going to leverage speed in which you communicate information faster than your competitors can even think about.
Common mistake # 2: not capturing the information of your website visitors.
99.9% of the time, the websites for high tech rep firms are nothing more than an online brochure and is not effectively being use as a marketing tool. I’ve had the opportunity to visit hundreds; literally hundreds, of rep firm websites and they all have the same information on them. Talk about conformity! They ALL show their line card, the team members, their collective years of experience, the OSRs are double E’s, and when you go to the line card webpage within the website, it’s nothing more that a gateway to their principal’s website, where their potential customer, (I say potential customer because now the visiting engineer has left their website) downloads a datasheet or any other information they need, and the rep firm's website is never visited it again perhaps until they need samples. Tisk! Tisk!
So, what can a rep from do about this problem? First, you need to offer something very enticing on a website that the design engineer will salivate over. Like a FREE white paper or special report on, “How Design Engineers Can Cut Their Design Cycles In Half And Increase Their Salary By Doing So!” (Sorry but you can’t use this one; we made this report for one of the rep firms in which I do some consulting. They get tons of new leads this way.) And when the engineer wants your information, have them give you their name and e-mail address, at least, which is linked to an auto responder (which is also managed by your database system.)
Therefore, you do not have to do any management to the system directly yourself, but you are informed every time an engineer fills in the web form on your website. This way you are able to track downloads and other important information you can use later to market to that particular engineer or engineers.
This is a very simple and easy to implement solution to a massive problem which plagues the high tech rep firm industry.
Common mistake # 3: Not using low-tech marketing to its fullest.
“So Granison, what type of low-tech marketing are you referring to and why should I use low-tech marketing in this high-tech world? I am so glad you asked.
When I say low-tech marketing, I'm referring to the good old sales letter.
A strong sales letter can still do its job, regardless of the company and industry or whether or not you are doing B2B or B2C. It really doesn’t matter!!
What I see most often is still the time consuming, nerve-racking, cold calling to obtain new customers. Although there are several ways to getting into an account, a good old-fashioned, direct-response sales letter can save you a ton of time and money in travel expenses, just to get new customers.
The more successful rep firm would use this type of marketing for several strategic reasons. One being, an interesting direct mail piece received on the desk of the engineering manager or CFO goes a very long way. I can guarantee that many of your competitors, other rep firms, are not using the strategic marketing/sales technique at all.
That concludes this article on, “The 3 Common Marketing Mistakes of High Tech Rep Firms and How Your Rep Firm Can Avoid Them Forever!”
Granison Shines is a marketing and business development expert for small and medium businesses focusing on rep firms in the high tech industry. He is a certified copy writer and uses his advanced skills in marketing, sales, and business grow strategies to help businesses quickly get to the next level. He provides “live” online e-workshop, teleseminars, and e-courses to small and medium business regarding marketing and sales as well as, leadership and management to large organizations. To listen to a recorded teleseminar and watch a video regarding rep firm marketing go to: www.granisonshines.com/marketingwebclass.html
However, many make the same mistakes over and over again when using their chosen media for marketing their business. That is, if they do any marketing at all!
However, these costly marketing mistakes can be avoided with a little understanding, knowledge, and wisdom of how to appropriately market your high tech rep firm.
In this article, I am going to discuss five common mistakes in how you can avoid them for ever. I guarantee that if you implement these simple, yet highly effective marketing and business strategies, you will find greater opportunity for your high tech rep firm in any other business you start.
So let's get started!
Common mistake # 1: disparate databases spread across several field sales reps.
I’ve worked with several high tech rep firms and this is a common problem and presents several other problems as well. For instance, if one, God forbid two, of your field sales engineers leaves your company, so does a percentage of your database. This should never be!
The simple solution is to centralize your database. By centralization, you can manage your database, massage it to tailor your business needs and mass market to your client and contacts via email as soon as a new device come out or some other hot issue comes up. In fact, your database system should also provide automated marketing and follow-up for your products and services over the Internet.
All the contacts from every OSR should be within the database including their name e-mail address and phone number at the very least. This is critically important because you are going to use e-mail as a marketing tool to disseminate information. By doing this you are going to leverage speed in which you communicate information faster than your competitors can even think about.
Common mistake # 2: not capturing the information of your website visitors.
99.9% of the time, the websites for high tech rep firms are nothing more than an online brochure and is not effectively being use as a marketing tool. I’ve had the opportunity to visit hundreds; literally hundreds, of rep firm websites and they all have the same information on them. Talk about conformity! They ALL show their line card, the team members, their collective years of experience, the OSRs are double E’s, and when you go to the line card webpage within the website, it’s nothing more that a gateway to their principal’s website, where their potential customer, (I say potential customer because now the visiting engineer has left their website) downloads a datasheet or any other information they need, and the rep firm's website is never visited it again perhaps until they need samples. Tisk! Tisk!
So, what can a rep from do about this problem? First, you need to offer something very enticing on a website that the design engineer will salivate over. Like a FREE white paper or special report on, “How Design Engineers Can Cut Their Design Cycles In Half And Increase Their Salary By Doing So!” (Sorry but you can’t use this one; we made this report for one of the rep firms in which I do some consulting. They get tons of new leads this way.) And when the engineer wants your information, have them give you their name and e-mail address, at least, which is linked to an auto responder (which is also managed by your database system.)
Therefore, you do not have to do any management to the system directly yourself, but you are informed every time an engineer fills in the web form on your website. This way you are able to track downloads and other important information you can use later to market to that particular engineer or engineers.
This is a very simple and easy to implement solution to a massive problem which plagues the high tech rep firm industry.
Common mistake # 3: Not using low-tech marketing to its fullest.
“So Granison, what type of low-tech marketing are you referring to and why should I use low-tech marketing in this high-tech world? I am so glad you asked.
When I say low-tech marketing, I'm referring to the good old sales letter.
A strong sales letter can still do its job, regardless of the company and industry or whether or not you are doing B2B or B2C. It really doesn’t matter!!
What I see most often is still the time consuming, nerve-racking, cold calling to obtain new customers. Although there are several ways to getting into an account, a good old-fashioned, direct-response sales letter can save you a ton of time and money in travel expenses, just to get new customers.
The more successful rep firm would use this type of marketing for several strategic reasons. One being, an interesting direct mail piece received on the desk of the engineering manager or CFO goes a very long way. I can guarantee that many of your competitors, other rep firms, are not using the strategic marketing/sales technique at all.
That concludes this article on, “The 3 Common Marketing Mistakes of High Tech Rep Firms and How Your Rep Firm Can Avoid Them Forever!”
Granison Shines is a marketing and business development expert for small and medium businesses focusing on rep firms in the high tech industry. He is a certified copy writer and uses his advanced skills in marketing, sales, and business grow strategies to help businesses quickly get to the next level. He provides “live” online e-workshop, teleseminars, and e-courses to small and medium business regarding marketing and sales as well as, leadership and management to large organizations. To listen to a recorded teleseminar and watch a video regarding rep firm marketing go to: www.granisonshines.com/marketingwebclass.html