Sales channel development/management
Every business could sell more by tapping into a potential sales channel that has never been pursued or perfected. Whether the issue is staffing, bandwidth of the leadership, organizational DNA or channel-partner politics, The MarketFarm is dedicated to identifying, cultivating and managing new sales channels to deliver more revenue and increased profit.
Inbound marketing
The marketing most people know is “outbound” marketing: A company has a message, it buys media, it does PR, it buys sponsorships – it spends big money to bludgeon prospects with a message.
It’s also commonly described as, “We talk; you listen.”
That’s not so much what people are into these days. They’d rather have a conversation. So how do marketers replace “We talk; you listen,” with “Let’s talk.” You need to provide information that your prospects want and need; and then make sure those prospects can easily stumble across your name wherever, and whenever, they’re looking.
It sounds intense, and it is. It means doing things in a very different way than ever before. But it overcomes that sense of helplessness traditional marketers face when they realize people are no longer responding to messages pasted on every vertical surface. Further, it’s less costly than old-school branding campaigns.
Some people call this approach content marketing; others call it social media marketing. At The MarketFarm, we think “inbound marketing” is the description that fits best.
We have the tools and know-how to make sure the right prospects to find you — from web strategy to social networking to measurement and campaign results.
Media management
More businesses are developing their own media in-house. They are creating content, distributing it, promoting it and using it to generate demand and sales leads. This is “Inbound Marketing.”
But managing such an operation isn’t the same as manufacturing a product or providing a service. It may not be rocket science, but media management is a unique discipline with its own nuances that most companies don’t want to learn the hard way. The MarketFarm offers strategic direction and turnkey services to help any company of any size become its own Inbound Marketing and media machine. This work includes campaign measurement and ROI justification at every step of the way, providing great results at low risk.
Content Monetization
The economics of media are falling apart before our eyes. And the reason is simple: everybody is over-saturated with marketing messages and advertisers are looking for a better way (see “Inbound Marketing” above).
In the traditional media model, advertisers would essentially sponsor media-generated content for the purpose of getting in front of the media audience.
Today, advertisers want something different; they want the media to validate their own content and wisdom.
Adding to that is the fact that the those who use content – members of the audience – have never actually paid for it. Even the price of a newspaper or magazine doesn’t come anywhere close to what it actually costs to produce the information.
The upshot: Traditional media companies are fast losing their ability to monetize content of any type and quality.
With access to research, hard-won experience in the media, and a unique perspective, The MarketFarm helps media companies to develop new business models based on current economic reality. These include reducing the cost to generate content; developing content through the audience itself; and creating new means to monetize the aggregation of content and audience.
