How does a local business become a world leader? Choose a niche to own, be the best at it, and put in place a global digital marketing system to make it happen. Big thanks to Martin Van Der Linde for sharing the story of Noja Power. Brisbane-based Noja Power is a world leader in Medium Voltage Electrical Equipment, with a global footprint across 104 countries. Unless you’re an electrical engineer, you’ve probably never heard of them. But their products are everywhere – typically at the top of your street’s electricity power pole. As GM Marketing, Martin has been responsible for developing a global digital marketing system to generate the sales leads and referrals needed to achieve the company’s growth objectives and revenue targets. Through the clever use of marketing technology, he is able to manage inbound and outbound marketing activities on a global scale.  Inbound marketing activities focus on providing potential customers with information and education at each stage of their search and evaluation process. Once potential customers show purchase intent, qualified leads are passed to the sales team to begin the sales process. Outbound marketing is largely confined to tender platforms and sales-initiated prospecting with existing clients.  How effective has it been? By switching the emphasis from outbound marketing (finding prospective customers and chasing them) to inbound marketing (customers search for a need and find us), Noja Power has been able to optimize its return on investment in marketing and create a more automated marketing system that can support company growth. Integral to this has been the close working relationship between marketing and sales who have shared responsibility for achieving revenue targets.  Thanks again Martin for sharing the Noja Power story. #marketing #digitalmarketing #inboundmarketing

Choosing an effective marketing strategy requires knowing what alternatives exist and how they work under conditions. Traditionally, the demand side of the market has helped to identify which customer segments to target, while the supply side has showed us how to differentiate our offering. But does this still hold in today’s digital environment? Take a look at your market and ask the follow the following questions.  Do customers differ in their preferences? If so, how and why do they vary, and which segments are best aligned with your capabilities. Are customer preferences changing over time? If so which segments are the best to retain? What are competitors doing? How do you differentiate to raise competitive barriers and create sustainable competitive advantage? How do you make the most of limited resources? What trade-offs need to be made? How do you optimise the effectiveness of your marketing? Can you leverage the resources that customers, suppliers and channel partners have to do things in a different and better way? Now look at how digital disruption is impacting your market.  How is it changing the way that customers behave?  How is it changing the way you and competitors interact with them? How is it opening up new networks, customers and partners? How is it creating new business models? How is it limiting your ability to compete? Depending on where you are in your digital transformation, some of these answers may not be clear yet. However the digital age is here. The challenge is to start viewing markets as being interconnected networks – complex systems that can be shaped by the way you cocreate new value propositions with customers and network partners that lead to innovative business models offering greater value. #marketing #strategy #digital