Companies put enormous resources into positioning their products, backing warranties, training customer service staff, creating benefit driven collateral and other content only to drop the ball in the sales process.

We tend to focus on the tasks, tactics and strategies marketers use rather than their role. Positioning products, branding the company, analyzing the competitive environment, creating the messaging, outbound combined with inbound marketing, establishing an effective CRM program -- all of these are generally how the job is done and not why the job may or may not be getting done.

Some online and social media proponents are proclaiming that inbound is replacing outbound marketing activities and that we are seeing a healthy and dramatic shift from promoting products to 100% customer engagement. Pardon my bluntness, but this is baloney.

Key differences between B2B and B2C direct marketing activities. 1. Telesales are used more in BtoB new business acquisition. 2. Lead and sale cost allowables tend to offer more flexibility in B2B. 3. The contact quantities for B2B are lower. 4. The database requirements make B2B direct response extremely complex.

To all of you who supply clents with services, listen up. You can loose a great client within less than one minute with these 5 comments. 1. "Send that request to me in writing" 2. "Exactly, what do you want us to do?" 3. "We will optimize your website for $XXXX a month..." 4. "What charge do you think your client will accept?" 5. "Our company demands a Purchase Order. Your email order is not acceptable even though you are paying our estimate to you in advance.”

Every now and then clients make assumptions about marketing that on the surface appear attractive. But when they call in the experts, the consultants spend a lot of effort and time re-educating the client about what works best for them. The Post Office has done a good job promoting their Every Door Direct Mail program. But there are always two sides to very story. And so it is with EDDM.

Terminology makes a big difference when discussing direct marketing or any subject for that matter. In fact, deceptive advertising runs rampant in the direct response world. In every case, these “leads” are actually cold names. By definition, leads refer to names that responded to an offer of some kind. They are inquiries.

There are many money-making principles that social media, content marketing, or any new fad will not obliterate. These principles survived the crucible of human behavior that will never change.

Every plan must contain essential elements for short and long term success. I can at least provide you with some useful guidelines on what those elements are.