CHOOSE YOUR BATTLES: PRACTICAL TIPS FOR PRIORITIZING YOUR DIGITAL MARKETING EFFORTS.

Marketing hasn’t changed much since the term first appeared in dictionaries in the late 19th century. It’s still about getting stuff from the people that make it to the people willing to buy it. But what has changed—many, many times—are the tactics employed by those of us in the ever-evolving marketing profession. In the last […]

THINGS THAT CAN TURN YOUR CUSTOMER JOURNEY INTO A DEAD END.

The quest for a better Customer Experience has produced solid results for many brands. And in most cases, that means an improvement in sales. It can be in the form of new sales, repeat sales, or increased sales volume from existing customers. Either way, sales is the metric that’s making management happy. All this is […]

IN DEFENSE OF SALESPEOPLE.

Sales may not be on your resume, but it’s part of every marketer’s job. I came to a couple of conclusions early in my career that have served me well. We’re all selling something. The best salespeople solve problems. Salespeople get a bad rap. They’re punch lines, the butt of jokes, and typically reduced to […]

Let’s Make the Dealer the Hero of Your Brand

Your dealers should be catalysts that propel your brand forward. Marketing and brand directors will likely nod along and say, “Absolutely, they should be. But they aren’t.” I’ve witnessed frustration on both sides of the fence between dealers and the manufacturers they represent. Like any relationship it requires effort from both parties. But dealers are required to serve many masters, so for better or worse the lion’s share of the effort in this relationship belongs to the manufacturer. Of course, the manufacturers also reap most of the rewards.

Helping Your Dealers Starts with Understanding Their Business

Heavy equipment and truck dealers manage a lot of competing priorities: Staffing, sales and marketing, evolving technology, and dealing with market forces. Brands often want to help, but many run into an obstacle that prevents them from making a difference. They just don’t understand the dealer’s business from the dealer’s perspective. Understanding that perspective means […]

Handing off a warm lead to a dealer is precarious. We can fix that.

Only one out of three independent dealers respond in a timely manner to an inbound lead generated from a brand’s marketing campaign. Let that sink in: 66% of inbound leads—your leads—end up in a digital black hole. Marketing campaigns get complicated when your brand sells through independent dealers. You put in a lot of time, […]

Stop making the same mistakes: Start your annual planning now

We all start the planning season, usually in the final stretch of the current year, with a B2B marketing version of New Year’s resolutions. This year will be different. I won’t fall into the same traps that have tripped me up in years past. Just like that treadmill in the corner collecting dust, we begin […]

Having the ROI conversation before it’s too late.

As a marketing firm, we’re often asked to demonstrate ROI. And we should be. Our clients need to know that their marketing dollars are having a positive impact. But showing a clear return on investment is a team effort—a nimble dance between agency and client. Unfortunately, the ROI conversation often occurs way too late in […]

Industry change drives training.

The exponential rate of change in today’s world is reflected in the kitchen and bath industry. Products, especially, are becoming more complex.

In 2018, Ten Pound Hammer took on the project of asking dealers in the custom kitchen and bath industry about the issue of training to determine dealer attitudes toward training and their most important training issues.

How to do training that actually works (and creates revenue).

Over and over, dealers in the kitchen & bath industry express the need for quality training materials. Similar to a sales-and-marketing mindset, training materials must be engaging. And no matter what format they were commenting about, dealers agree that boring, confusing, or incomplete material is not helpful and therefore altogether unnecessary. Moreover, outdated materials created […]