If you are the owner, president or CEO of your company, you can play a strong part in building a leadership position for your firm within its marketplace. Even if your company does not presently hold the lead in revenues, market share, geographic penetration or other key metrics, you can take the leadership role and become the “spokesperson” for your industry.

Senior executives have years of experience in management and often have spent their career within their present or primary industry. Because they have been through the cyclical ups and downs and are intimately familiar with the trends and dynamics that affect their industries, they are often sought out for their clear insights and observations.

However, achieving such a lofty status does not occur overnight. It should be done with skillful strategy and planning in mind. Create a public relations plan that will enable you to become the source of meaningful information and opinion. Through research, prepare thought leadership articles on industry trends that are timely and of strong interest to your publics. The articles may address present customers and prospective customers as well as other key audiences that may include suppliers and government agencies or municipal officials.

For example, let’s assume your company’s long-range goal is to build a plant to supply parts or services to the soon-to-be-booming personal jet industry. A well-prepared article in a locally read business weekly, print or online publication can condition the market for the benefits the new plant will bring and help to create awareness. As a recognized industry expert in aviation services, your insights on employment, technology, skilled positions, and their long-term affect on the local economy may be read with great interest. Follow with speaking engagements, media interviews and blog postings. Be sure to add the earned media as fresh content on your website. Quickly you, and by extension your company, can become the knowledgeable go-to expert in your markets.

If you carefully define the audiences you need to address and prepare an article or speaking opportunity that provides valuable new information or speaks directly to their concerns, you’re likely to reach your strategic objectives much sooner and at less cost.

Start by listing the topics or subjects you are qualified to address and then review the latest editorial calendars of leading local or national publications. Then prepare a brief or abstract of the topics you can cover, along with a bio sheet providing your curriculum vitae. This summary of your professional qualifications should make clear why you are best suited to discuss these topics. Be prepared to offer an exclusive opportunity to one publication. Set a time limit for acceptance, and if the publication is not interested, take it to another publication. Trade publications thrive on bringing new and timely information to their audiences and your paper may be precisely what their readers are most interested in.

An outstanding example of a thought leader in the investment world is the “Oracle of Omaha,” Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. It seems no article on careful, long-term investing is complete without a common-sense quote from the master investor. Bill Gates, discussing the future of technology, has been Microsoft’s mainstay thought leader since the personal computer industry began. Likewise, Steven Jobs with Apple Computer has achieved nearly star status as he introduces amazing, people–friendly products each year.

Becoming a thought leader in your category may also lead you to achieving “expert status.” Skillful media relations, combined with social media outreaches, can keep publishers, editors and reporters aware of the topics they should consult with you as the expert on if they are building a story or article on a particular topic. Again, this should be done strategically so that it contributes to your overall status as a “thought leader” and contributes to your company’s business goals.

It takes work and planning to achieve thought leadership and expert status, but the rewards for your company can be substantial and long lasting.

In the business-to-business marketing arena, your direct sales force should play an integral role in your marketing plan. They are the “front line” that comes face-to-face with your customers and prospects. The great entrepreneur Marshall Field once said, “The distance between the salesperson and potential buyer is the most important three feet in business.”

As part of every marketing plan, you must develop key messages that resonate with your target market. These are simple, direct statements that clearly define the most important benefits that you offer to prospects. The key messages should be tailored to meet the critical needs of your customer base.

Once you have established key messages, you must determine the most effective way to communicate these benefits to your clients and prospects. You need to evaluate the potential communications options, which include traditional advertising, direct marketing, interactive/internet marketing, sales promotion, public relations and personal selling.

Personal selling has the distinct advantage over other media of letting the sender immediately receive and evaluate feedback from the receiver. This allows you to customize the messages being sent, so the benefits conveyed can be tailored to meet the specific receiver’s needs and wants.

A drawback of direct sales is that it is considerably more expensive than other types of media. Belch and Belch in Advertising and Promotion state that the cost of the average sales call varies by industry and has increased $9.06 per year since 1980, which makes it currently about $385.00.

Therefore, it is very important that you maximize the benefit you derive from your sales efforts. By including the sales team in the implementation of your marketing tactics, you can ensure that they are communicating your key messages in the most effective way.

A good marketing plan offers many tools to help the sales force enhance their dialog with prospects. For example, a strong public relations program will generate numerous press releases, white papers, bylined articles and case studies. By having reprints made and circulating them among your sales force, they can be presented to prospects to show third-party endorsements that provide credibility and reinforce your key messages.

Case studies are especially effective. These are real-life examples that describe how your company faced a challenging situation and developed a solution that produced tangible results. Case studies can be developed for various industries that show how you met the needs of customers similar to the prospects you are targeting. By demonstrating to a prospect that you can solve the kind of problems he faces each day, you increase the impact of your sales presentations.

Your sales force should also be equipped with reprints of the current ads, direct marketing pieces and be kept aware of the information and updates on your website. By making sure your sales people are using these tools, you can control the information being conveyed to prospects and get first-hand feedback about their reactions to key messages. By analyzing the feedback, you can tailor your messages to make your direct selling efforts more effective than ever.

The only way your site can really be effective is if people can actually use it. It should be easy to read, easy to navigate and easy on the eyes. If you keep these concepts in mind, you will most likely end up with a website that is effective. Why? Because you are thinking like the end user and not the company owner.

Think of your homepage as your resume. It is the first impression the user has of you. This is their first opportunity to ‘fire’ you and go on to the next website their search engine found. A clean and simple website will allow the user to relax, locate what they are looking for and act. If there is too much going on, your user will not know where to go and will probably leave your site.

The key to an effective website no longer is just getting the site built, but it’s getting the site built right. Companies that have an effective website use their site as part of their overall marketing strategy. They understand that their website is a tool, much like an advertisement, podcast or brochure and that it should be used for one purpose: to further their business objectives. Seven out of 10 buyers say a website has ‘at least some influence’ over their decision to open an initial discussion with a provider*. Gone are the days that you can sit back and not actively participate in your own website marketing. The idea that ‘if you build it they will come’ no longer applies. The new age of website marketing requires your continual participation. An effective website marries strong design elements with your business objectives. This means that you and your web designer must work together in the creation of your website keeping the above concepts in mind.

Easy to Read:

Your website content should be written for the web. Don’t just transfer content from another marketing piece, like a brochure, and place it on the web. Website content should be short and to the point. Your end users are probably looking to solve a specific issue, and they want to be able to locate that information quickly. The content should be focused on what your target audience needs and not what you or your colleagues want to say.

If you have a page with little or no content, remove it or place the content elsewhere. Empty or near empty pages will give the user the impression that you don’t have much to say on that topic. Remove as much content as possible that doesn’t specifically enhance the understanding of your services/product to your end user. Stay away from too much industry jargon. And even though website content can be quickly updated, it should be thoroughly proofread just like anything else. Remember, it is the first impression of your company.

Easy to Navigate:

It is easy to want to be overly creative with the navigation titles and design, but again, you must think about how a user wants to experience your website. So, the navigation should be easy to understand and consistent throughout the site. The hierarchy of information should be clear and the look of the navigation should not make it difficult to read.

There are some general standards for website design, such as: making sure the logo is in the same place throughout the site and that clicking o it takes the user back to the homepage, creating quick links off the homepage for popular items so users can access these areas quickly, listing the contact and copyright information on every page, making it easy for your users to contact you no matter where they are within your site and making sure all pages load quickly. When dealing with a larger site, you should provide the visitor with a crumb trail indicating where they are within your site.

Easy on the Eyes:

Along with your straightforward navigation, you should have an uncluttered website. Clean, white space (open space) is a very important part of this equation. Images can be a useful addition by helping clarify your services/product or by strengthening your marketing message. Images, videos and other bells and whistles can slow down the loading of your web pages, so chose imagery that is meaningful. If your user has to wait for material to download, they will loose patience and leave.

Colors are also an important role in keeping your site clean. Colors should reinforce your brand. They should be consistent and have the same meaning throughout the site. Colors used behind text should be neutral, as to not take away from the actual message. This will also provide the option of using a couple strong contrasting colors to emphasize more important messages.

However, the most important way to ensure you have an effective website is to use it. Promote it, update it, apply search engine optimization (SEO) tactics to it and share it. Make it a part of your marketing strategy and leverage it. Because in the end, the success of your website is less dependent on a great design than on great content, and your continued participation with the site is necessary.

*RainToday.com study on How Clients Buy

As your mother told you countless times, first impressions are critical. Business executives, as part of their process in evaluating your business as a potential valued partner or deciding even to take an initial sales meeting, will visit your website. An updated website with customer centric content will further the sales process, while a self-serving website that offers no meaningful insight to your company can eliminate your company from consideration.

A number of corporate websites still remain poorly designed, written without regard to a prospect’s evaluation criteria or lacking relevant, fresh content. Decision makers will factor in your website’s design and content to evaluate your value proposition to further their business objectives.

The quality of your website in the eyes of your prospect is a direct correlation to the quality of your offered service and product. Neglected, poorly designed and self-proclaiming websites are a detriment to your sales efforts—resulting in a poor initial impression. For many companies, their websites are simply an interesting piece of technology that doesn’t move the sales needle.

A corporate website to support sales must continue a business dialog by demonstrating your company’s capability and expertise to deliver value to your prospects. An effective website starts by determining who you need to influence to grow your business, then think of what should be conveyed to that target audience to instill confidence in your company.

To offer reasons to believe that your company will be a valued partner, demonstrate your capability and expert status by:

• Self-author thought leadership articles and business tips via a blog
• Publish client case studies
• Showcase prior work
• List your management team’s and key personnel bios
• Document any industry awards and community service outreach
• Link to publicity earned from industry trade publications or local media

An important factor is to realize that a website, like all marketing activities, is a process not an event.  It is essential to create a schedule to keep adding fresh content in order to keep your website current. The worst sin that companies continue to make is starting off with well intentions but then stop investing in their websites, as they become distracted by other aspects of running a successful business.

Keep critiquing your website through your prospect’s perspective and adding content. These elements will allow your website to contribute towards effectively impressing prospects to your company’s abilities, securing them as new clients.

Many companies today struggle with the concept of lead generation and brand awareness, erroneously thinking that if they attain general brand recognition, sales leads will naturally follow. They will not. Marketing never sold a thing. Sales people sell things.

Brand awareness reflects your company’s reputation within the space your product or service lives and is achieved and cultivated over time. It is the sum total of the market’s experience with your product or service. Whether your company is well-known, highly thought of or considered a thought leader by the business press within your category, all speak to brand awareness.

Introducing a product or service into a new market can be challenging, especially if the client does not enjoy high levels of brand awareness. Challenging, yes, but achievable if the appropriate tactics are utilized. Traditional advertising can be an extremely valuable method used to reach target audiences if executed successfully.

To be effective, a good advertising campaign must address the benefits of the product or service head-on, tell a compelling story that addresses a customer’s concerns or points of pain and close with a persuasive offer that provides a solution. Statistically, a well-crafted ad placed in a strategically researched publication will not become effective until it runs six to eight times in said publication to achieve the frequency required to affect brand awareness. However, simply relying upon brand awareness will not achieve market penetration. Somebody has to sell something, and that’s where lead generation comes into play.

Lead generation is the art of creating immediate interest in a specific business offer, product or service. To be successful, this strategy must work hand in hand with the sales force to ensure materials created and distributed, or any promotions offered, are properly followed up with direct sales contact. It is by nature one-to-one marketing and may include tactics such as e-mail, targeted direct mail, dimensional direct mail or Purl combinations.

The concept is simple: identify your target audience by name, create a communication that specifically addresses a point of pain, describe how your product or service improves or eliminates this problem and provide a compelling offer, enticing the recipient to initiate trial or secure a sales meeting. Lead generation is vastly improved if the company enjoys good brand awareness; however, good brand awareness is no guarantee of a steady stream of quality sales leads.

While advertising may be an effective method to reach target audiences and generate qualified leads, there are many other tactics that can and should be utilized. Public relations seeks to build relationships, trust and credibility with target audiences through a variety of methods, including media and community relations efforts. These tactics aim to create a third-party endorsement, which reaches an audience from a very different angle and can be equally if not more effective than traditional advertising.

One-to-one marketing tactics, while effective in generating leads, may be too narrowly focused to achieve brand awareness. Only the recipients of direct contact communications will be exposed to your brand and at that, only fleetingly unless sales personnel follow up with these recipients after direct communication has been made. Public relations efforts seeking to leverage the company’s expert status in the business press through thought leadership feature articles can be very powerful, but these articles are never guaranteed to be published. Such efforts may get trumped by breaking news. Further, public relations by its very nature cannot be frequent enough to impact brand awareness. The media will not publish a feature article on your company every month, as there is no news value in doing so. This leaves traditional advertising as a potential tactic to create brand awareness in a new market.