“Knowledge of yourself will preserve you from vanity."– Miguel de Cervantes

Here’s a case study illustrating why, despite having reasons to be confident in our intuition about how customers view the world, relying on that intuition can lead us astray. (Names have been changed.)

How well do you know your client? I mean really know them and their offerings? The gut reaction we usually hear is "of course, we know them." But often, there is an opportunity to differentiate your agency by demonstrating that you know them better than the other agencies you're pitching against.

Whether it’s Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Sam Walton (Walmart) or any other founder who managed to build a multi-billion dollar operation, the question will inevitably come up: “What was the secret?” While these entrepreneurs may mention timing, innovation and hard work as the reasons behind their success, they all emphasized the importance of focusing on the customer first.

If you have or know a child between the ages of 12 and 18, chances are you have probably heard about, or maybe even experienced, the jumping through hoops and bending over backward that the fan base of a certain pop princess endured just to see the dreaded ‘sold out’ alert flashing on laptop and mobile phones screens across the country. Taylor herself even referred to the experience as “feeling like [they went through] several bear attacks.”

The 2021 holiday season was a time of great celebration as families and close friends were finally able to (carefully) get back to spending the festivities together post-COVID. This year, it appears that people are ready to kick that up a notch as they get back to larger parties and other holiday events with bigger groups. As recently reported by ModernRetail.com, 77% of people plan to gather in groups this season, up significantly compared to 65% planning to celebrate only with immediate family in 2020. Additionally, 29% of those surveyed are planning to host a party and 61% answered “holiday parties” when asked what kind of celebrations they missed the most.

There are about 14,000 marketing and advertising agencies in the US.

Just like the brands they are hired to develop marketing plans for, agencies need to find new ways to stand out from the competition. In order for an agency to prove itself better and different from the rest often comes down to creating an excellent first impression. In the world of marketing agencies, this means presenting the pitch of a lifetime. How can you show the prospective marketing team that you understand their business? What makes you able to deliver a superior pitch versus other agencies?

Early enrollment numbers are in for Fall 2022 - just in time for Early Decision and Action deadlines for the class of 2023. And while early reports had experts hopeful that we’d see a rebound after the steep two-year decline in the wake of the pandemic, it appears that the overall enrollment rate has once again decreased for the fifth semester since fall 2020.

As an agency, a great way to stand out -- but also one of the most nerve-wracking -- is to start taking chances and not be afraid to really rethink your clients' messaging. Even though it can push both you and the client out of your comfort zones, with great risk can come great reward.

It’s that time of year again... The smell of printer ink and anxiety pepper the air. People put on their game faces and psych themselves up to go head-to-head with the competition.

Confession: I’m 47 years old and my Instagram feed is filled with posts from college students. No, I’m not trying to relive my youth (though, I must admit it IS a fun trip down memory lane) - I have a high school senior getting ready to apply to college.

After 17 years of experience as a marketing professor, teaching, doing research, and working with companies, I settled finally on a 9-word imperative to help students understand competitive strategy...

When businesses talk about understanding customer choice they’re usually referring to the purchase decision, but this is just the last choice in a longer decision journey. Understanding all of the choices made throughout the customer journey is vital to growing your business and developing strategies to impact choices made earlier on can dramatically grow your sales pipeline.

When launching a new product or marketing campaign, the first question that must be answered is, “Who is my target audience?” Most brand leaders and marketers use demographics to identify their audience - objective data like gender, age, income, and marital status - and for some brands, this may be enough. A large cosmetics and skincare company for example could simply target women and still do quite well in reaching their buyers. But what if this skincare company wanted to launch a new, luxury vegan-ingredient product line? They would still likely reach their buyers using their current demographic targeting, but would also waste dollars reaching buyers that don’t have a preference for natural products and are not willing to pay a premium for them. Gathering subjective data like values, goals, and attitudes helps narrow down the target audience - and budget - to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of marketing efforts. 

You can’t throw a proverbial rock at marketing and strategy publications these days without hitting an article about customer-centricity. And for good reason. In today's marketplace, the customer is firmly in the driver's seat - switching brands and services at a rate like never before - and companies that put their customers at the center of their business are seeing an increase in customer satisfaction, loyalty, and overall lifetime value. Forbes recently reported that 64% of companies with a customer-focused CEO are more profitable than their competitors.

The sudden spike in online shopping in the early days of the pandemic has some experts maintaining that eCommerce’s penetration of usage was propelled ten years into the future in a matter of a mere three months. (McKinsey). People who had never shopped on digital platforms had no choice but to purchase online as stores, restaurants, and warehouses shut down. In the first year of the pandemic, e-commerce sales rose by 43% -  $571.2 billion in 2019 to $815.4 billion in 2020 - according to the U.S. Census report. It’s clear that perceptions about online shopping have shifted dramatically across all generations as more people are now open to it than ever before.

The SCOTUS ruling to end Roe v Wade and a federally-guaranteed right to an abortion has left prospective and current college students reconsidering where they want to spend the next four years of their lives. As state legislators begin to determine how to proceed with this new ruling, those within institutions of higher education face ramifications for their students, campus health centers, and how they educate and train their medical students. 

When analyzing data in market research, we cannot expect to be able to examine every individual respondent separately. While each individual detail of research is important, it can become tedious and too time-consuming to evaluate hundreds and even thousands of distinctive cases of data at the same time. However, there is a method of segmentation that allows us to analyze this information without oversimplifying it, but at a level that is easier to process.  Enter cluster analysis - an approach used in market research that allows researchers to identify and define patterns in data that had not been apparent before but could give significant meaning to the data once discovered.

With anxiety around the COVID virus on a downturn, shoppers were back to hitting the stores in person again earlier this year - until, of course, inflation hit a 40-year high this spring. Retail sales were less than expected in April and fell by 0.3% in May. As summer heats up and consumers grow anxious to return to leisure travel again, experts predict consumers will pull back on big-ticket retail items, like electronics, appliances, and clothing in order to afford rising gas and food costs. As prices increase with the temperatures, consumers will have to make some sacrifices and it looks like the retail industry may bear a lot of the brunt of impending customer spending cuts.

If there is even a chance that your customers think that your company spends more time and money marketing how socially responsible it is than actually investing in such efforts, this post is for you. There has been a lot of attention in the press lately on businesses that are suspected of greenwashing, or “CSR-washing”, and it would be wise for companies to take a deeper look into their sustainability and ethical practices and investments before they themselves land in the negative spotlight. 

Including demographic questions in research studies is pretty common practice -with these questions usually placed at the end of a survey but sometimes used as screeners in the beginning. The resulting data is sliced and diced into subgroups which can be examined for comparison and used to extract helpful insights. But what happens when these demographic questions are not entirely inclusive, or even considered offensive? You may end up with inaccurate data, missed findings, or worse, leave your customers with a negative impression of your brand.

In these increasingly challenging financial times, it will be hard for companies to not offer some sort of incentive or discount option and still maintain customer loyalty. More and more loyal customers are leaving their favorite brands in search of a better deal, leaving businesses scrambling to find ways to keep them.

It’s hard to turn on the television or read your daily news updates without seeing a segment addressing rising inflation rates. Several key factors have created a perfect storm for inflation rates nearly reaching a 40-year high; the pandemic, the conflict in Ukraine, high energy costs, supply chain disruptions, and heightened consumer demand have all contributed to price increases across every industry. From the gas pump to the grocery aisle to the housing market, consumers are nervously watching prices increase and business owners are feeling the pressure of raising their prices and cutting costs, while still trying to keep their customers happy and loyal.

The number of college students seeking mental health services and accommodations has been steadily increasing over the last few years– and even though the pandemic has intensified this unfortunate trend to a seemingly critical point, it most certainly wasn’t the sole driver of the mental health crisis currently plaguing institutions of higher education today. And although it’s not just students facing struggles with depression and anxiety, this epidemic appears to be more acute in younger, college-aged people with nearly 30 percent of people between ages 18 and 25 reporting a mental illness in 2019 and 25% of 18- to 24-year-olds surveyed reported thoughts of self-harm according to reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In the market research industry, it’s something we hear all the time from our clients – simply delivering a list of statistics won’t help them see the big picture or form a plan of action, nor will it be easy for them to remember. What will create an impact is a story, one that is thoughtfully crafted together from their data.

Consumers today have more information, options, and input in how and where they spend their money than ever before - and retaining their loyalty can prove to be a difficult challenge. Marketers are finding that consumers are growing more promiscuous with their brand choices, and the reasons aren’t limited to just one cause. Consumers are brand switching at higher numbers in order to suit their needs and brands must reevaluate the changing territory of consumer loyalty and how to maintain it, especially in light of current market disruptions. In order to overcome these disruptions and loss of loyalty, brands must be willing to uncover and understand the reasons why consumers have become less loyal.

In today’s age of invention, businesses are constantly looking for the next big idea or solution that will have consumers lining up at the register and sharing their praise with their friends and followers. But with this eagerness to hit the jackpot and discover the hottest new trend, there are sometimes missteps – new product developments that miss the mark or worse, are openly criticized across social media channels.

Even before “The Great Resignation”, the manufacturing industry had been struggling with filling open positions, with job openings increasing at double-digit rates since 2017 according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics employment survey. Post-pandemic, Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute predict that 2.1 million manufacturing positions will go unfulfilled by 2030, costing the U.S a loss of about $1 trillion in GDP. Without a drastic reversal in this downward trend, this deficiency could set the U.S. manufacturing industry back by decades.

The aftermath of the last two years has left sales teams with a remarkable challenge they haven’t encountered ever before – building and maintaining relationships with their customers in the absence of in-person connections. We’ve seen lockdowns, reopenings, and then mini lockdowns again, leaving businesses to pivot and adjust on what seems like a monthly basis. Even as we look forward to the future, it’s likely that the ‘new normal’ will bring an entirely different way of doing business than sales teams have been accustomed to in the past.

In a world where personalized consumer experiences are not just appreciated but expected, many businesses and organizations are using some form of personalization in their marketing strategies. And when 97% of marketers report a measurable lift from their personalization efforts (Salesforce, 2020), they should be. Personalized marketing is here to stay – especially as the tech-savvy Gen Z generation now makes up 40% of total U.S consumers. But the landscape has changed since the early days of buyer persona building and some argue that these old-school personas built mainly on demographic information are antiquated and useless because they are full of information that has nothing to do with the reasons why people buy your products.

Natural disasters, cyber-attacks, pandemics…oh my! If we had to describe the 2020s in one word so far, ‘disaster’ might be the one we’d choose. We’ll be feeling the domino effect these events have had on our life, our businesses, and our economy for years to come. And just when we think we’re in the clear, surprise! Something new happens and we find ourselves shaking our heads in disbelief thinking…again? Really?

With application submissions for the Fall 2022 semester wrapping up, admissions leaders are shifting focus to the class of 2023, examining how to best attract this new pool of prospective students to their institutions. Since the start of the pandemic, admissions and marketing teams have had to pivot - working to find new strategies to engage with students as on-campus visits, tours, and events were canceled or limited. And with the overall number of enrollees decreasing, it’s become more important than ever to continuously engage with students and parents to maintain interest and excitement in an increasingly competitive landscape.

For months, retailers and marketers convinced customers to start their holiday shopping early to avoid the stress of limited inventory – thanks to the highly reported supply chain delays. Black Friday and Cyber Monday became month-long events instead of the usual post-Thanksgiving whirlwind weekend of deep discounts. Early reports show a continued rise in spending, but with a slight slowdown in November due to this earlier start to the holiday rush.

The close of 2021 is nearing and consumers are gearing up for a fresh start to 2022, hoping for a more positive, healthy year ahead. Every year, Americans start the new year off with the best intentions, and sometimes these good habits stick, but oftentimes people are back to their usual ways as the year progresses. But the last two years have been anything but ‘usual’ and consumers are becoming more and more focused on making positive changes that stick. Post-pandemic consumer behaviors have changed, and those changes will impact every commercial industry, with those keeping up with trends positioning themselves for growth and those that are not falling behind.

As the number of U.S. vaccinations continues to rise, Americans are starting to make up for lost time and making plans to travel again. After being isolated and limited by where they could visit and who they could see for the last year and a half, people are ready to get back on the road, in the air, and even on the water as the travel industry starts to open back up after a nearly $500 billion spending decline since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic (U.S Travel Association). According to TSA, 2 million people passed through U.S. airport security in the seven days leading up to Thanksgiving and AAA reports that more than 50% of American adults plan to take a domestic vacation before the end of 2022.

Before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, remote patient monitoring (RPM) and telehealth services were already on the rise but in the spring of 2020, the need for RPM technology and virtual physician visits became an unavoidable necessity. Now, even with the pandemic seemingly more under control, many healthcare providers plan to continue to offer virtual solutions and increase their adoption of remote technology making the demand for RPM devices and services one of the biggest trends in medical device manufacturing of 2021, moving into 2022.

Classes are in full swing and students have (hopefully) settled happily into campus life. For most higher education institutions, it’s not just your first-year students that are new to campus living but, thanks to Covid, many second-year students are just experiencing the ins and outs of their new in-person school life as well. Your upper-class students might be missing ‘the good old days’ of unrestricted social gatherings, bare faces, and the absence of a brain probing nose swab on a weekly basis. Regardless of year, these students have experienced a significant shift in their lives with the new academic year.

While we’re sure you have the most creative, inventive, brilliant minds working on your product development and marketing teams, odds are that they are lacking clairvoyant abilities and can not accurately predict how your customers will react to new product features, branding or messaging.  And since your amazing team isn’t made up of a bunch of psychics, you must gather actual customer feedback prior to launching a new initiative or trust your gut. With budgets as tight as they are right now, do you really want to take your gut’s word for it?

The last few years have unquestionably tested our dependency on a commercial goods supply chain constantly in motion. From pandemics and severe weather to canal blockages and labor strikes, even the most successful companies are currently feeling the effects of the currently clogged chain, regardless of industry. In the wake of the Covid-19 shut down, factories closed or slowed production and the re-opening of the economy has been anything but seamless. There just isn’t enough – people (longshoremen, drivers, and postal workers), places (warehouse space), or things (lumber, computer chips, paint, etc) – to fill the demand for many of the goods that consumers need and want today.

Short answer – pretty important!  Sustainability is no longer the buzzword it once was at the turn of the century – it’s now a ‘must-have’ instead of a ‘nice-to-have’ when it comes to consumer purchasing behaviors and if your company isn’t committed to reducing their environmental footprint, you might find yourself falling behind the competition.

School is back in session, and many are back to a little bit of normalcy after the Covid-19 pandemic propelled higher education institutions into uncharted territory with abrupt shutdowns and the challenges of online learning and instruction. Nonetheless, there has been an increased push to establish mental health support programs and services to help students deal with the lingering stress, depression and anxiety related to the feelings of isolation and uncertainties about the pandemic and what lies ahead.

Choosing a college is a big decision – arguably one of the biggest of a young adult’s life. Tons of research is done, both formally and word of mouth, visits are made, feelings are had, and finances are evaluated. The timing of the entire process can take up to two years with many students now starting their higher education search early in junior year. Finally, after a consideration process unlike almost any other, the final choice is made.

Businesses tend to perceive market research as a “one and done” part of the process in the early stages of a project, campaign launch or overall business rebrand - limited to an output of data that will be used to inform development and sales teams of who their target audience is and what messages they want to hear. While this information is clearly important, the methods used in early market research can also be utilized by sales teams to increase renewals and upsells on an ongoing basis from existing clients. With the support of internal research teams or supplier-side consultants, sales teams can employ research techniques that will not only provide the insights necessary to increase overall revenue, but also improve the relationship between the company and their clients or customers.

Accomplishments are not bound to any age and the steady rise in adult learning enrollment has been a witness. Many non-traditional higher education schools are starting to create new opportunities that can expand learning for adults and help them maximize their talents in any area of their interest. However, for non-traditional schools to increase adult enrollment, factors that are important when aspiring students are considering a college or university for an undergraduate degree must be examined as well as the competition with other non-traditional and traditional schools. With the landscape of education changing due to COVID, how is this demand driving adult learning enrollment?

If you have read the book or seen the movie, Moneyball, you know that trusting your gut leads to insanity.  In other words, you make the same poor selections, resulting in the same dismal performance, over and over again, all while hoping for a different outcome.  In a word, insanity.  Data saves us from ourselves, whether it be in baseball, business, or higher education. 

When considering the post-COVID landscape, one of the more difficult sectors to predict is higher education. With many potential students having postponed their enrollment during the pandemic, will they come back for undergraduate, graduate, or doctoral degrees or seek out different paths? And for those who do return, how will their expectation for learning and campus lifestyle have changed?

Teams within startup companies endure environments fraught with challenges. Revenue generation, valuable resource management, investment security, talent attraction, market capture, and more all require incredible focus for any company, though the missteps by small organizations can prove fatal. Enduring such challenges by small teams requires critical thought and poised communication. Consider the following three key tenets of small team communication success, built around the deliberate “thought” that precedes the “speech.”

When you observe the trajectory of successful organizations, whether Microsoft, Apple or upstarts like the Dollar Shave Club, and Warby Parker, it’s clear that innovation sets them apart from the competition.

Empirical learning - the practice of developing knowledge from direct investigation and experience – is one way the Agile software development framework enables small teams to deliver value quickly.  If teams do not take the time to truly step back and honestly inspect & adapt their work together with transparency, they could greatly hinder this learning.

No one uses rotary phones to make calls anymore, the age of mimeograph paper is long gone, and soon the idea of using “gut instincts” to drive marketing campaigns will feel just as archaic. We have officially entered the age of data-driven marketing—and marketers who rely on their guts alone may find themselves increasingly ineffective in an industry capitalizing on data insights to reach customers.

Today’s post will be the first in an ongoing series about biases and other traps that can affect the results of your market research. These can come into play at any point in the process, from writing your survey or interview guide, selecting participants, or when conducting your analysis. Being aware of them is necessary not only for those conducting the research, but also client-side employees who are tasked with evaluating the work of a research supplier.

Personality tests have become popular in the corporate world when evaluating current and potential employees for team “fit.” While the jury is still (and probably always will be) out on their scientific validity, models such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the Enneagram, or OCEAN (the “Big 5”) do make it easier to understand behavior in a directional sense.

Unlike the Lord of the Ring’s “one ring to rule them all,” there is never one message that will resonate with all of your customers. This is true for your own employees as well. With the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies have turned the lens on themselves. This has largely taken the form of gathering opinions on remote work and maintaining team collaboration, but some companies have sought input from their employees on how to keep not only themselves, but also their customers safe. In today’s political and social climate, addressing the safety concerns of your employees is another area where one message is not going to get through to everyone.

Most agency-marketing relationships are long-term, which is why thinking with that in mind can be a huge asset for an agency. Being in a long-term relationship with a marketing team requires you to be more of a consultant than an advertiser or creative team.

Survey from Vennli highlights keys for agencies looking to differentiate from their competition

SOUTH BEND, Ind., Jan. 18, 2018 — Vennli, the leading voice of the marketplace solution, today announces the results of a recent survey of agency and in-house marketing professionals. The results include findings from a survey of 200 U.S.-based agency and marketing professionals. The survey results delivered crucial insights into the factors that separate agencies from their competition when pitching for new business.

Survey from Vennli identifies key differentiating attributes in medical device marketing

SOUTH BEND, Ind., October 12, 2017 — Vennli, the leading voice of the marketplace solution, today announces the results of a recent survey, “Differentiating to Win in Medical Device Marketing. Combining and evaluating survey results from over 9,000 healthcare professionals, the data identified key drivers for purchasing medical devices according to physicians, dentists, and other clinicians, including the most and least important attributes, differentiating factors, points of parity (little perceived differences) and unmet needs.

A client of mine recently asked their customers a single question. They provided a long list of features, and asked, "For this product, which of these features do you most prefer?"

Ten years ago, the average storage cost per gigabyte of data was $1.24.

Now, it’s just under $0.03.

Data has never been easier or cheaper to collect and store... but that mean businesses are making better decisions because of it?

Leading salespeople understand the importance of building and maintaining excellent customer relationships–but how do you keep the sale when your manufacturing procurement contact has retired or moved onto another company? To keep your customer, you will need to pay close attention to who they are, then tailor your communication style or your messages to cultivate the new customer relationship. Here are a few tactics that will help you keep the sale.

By considering our customers’ unique sales journey and buying styles, we can tailor our messages and sales approach, and increase our sales effectiveness.

April presented the largest rise in manufacturing production since 2014, and the Wall Street Journal recently published an article about this solid increase in output in manufacturing.

We spend much of our time thinking about how attractive our customers look to us. The secret to shortening manufacturing sales cycles is to understand how attractive we look to our potential customers. Think about it. In meeting after meeting and spreadsheet after spreadsheet we analyze customers based on their purchase volume, profit margin, and product mix—celebrating those customers that buy a lot, pay a lot, or buy what we want to sell. In the same breath, we grumble about customers that require gobs of TLC but then don’t buy very much, spend very much, or order what we would like to sell.

The entire financial services industry is undergoing drastic changes. New technology, increased regulation, and expansion of digital channels have come together to create a really interesting time for retail banks.

You know this already.

“I’m not sure about naming competitors in our customer survey. Isn’t it risky to name potential replacements for our products?

This question has come up from not just one but multiple customers over the past year. At first, I was somewhat surprised and thought it may be a unique aspect of certain industries. But the more it came up, the more apparent it became that this was a fairly widespread concern.

When I started as a brand manager at Kraft Foods, our focus was on driving consumption and shipments to retailers. We did this through increased advertising and effective in-store promotions.

We used data to drive decisions. We were focused.

Our scorecard was (and maybe still is) the weekly retail scanner data that informed us of how successful our programs were in the market. Religiously, every week, we looked at the consumption and shipment metrics. We monitored our advertising campaigns with the same rigor. How was TV performing compared to print or in-store? Was the mom-centric campaign outperforming the kid-centric campaign?

This was over a decade ago. Using data in marketing is not a new way of operating.

Hear that? That was the nation collectively sighing as they received their email invitation to their next strategic planning retreat.

Somehow the year is halfway over already and we’re, yet again, pointing our thoughts to the next year.

Here at Vennli, we work directly with businesses to understand their customer choice, but we also work with a growing number of agencies and consultancies to help their clients analyze customer choice and build market share. Therefore, because both our interests and audience overlap, we’ve become an unofficial connoisseur of the marketing agency blog.

"Place" is an element of the classic four P's in marketing (product, price, place, and promotion), more commonly referred to as distribution. It refers to the methods, strategy, and structure an organization executes to get its offerings to market and into customers’ hands.

If you’re on Twitter and follow influential brand marketers, leaders, strategists, agencies, and consultants, you’ll see something interesting develop in your newsfeed. Someone writes about a topic or shares a new term, and pretty soon you see it spread like wildfire.

We’ve all seen it happen. You’re in a meeting, and a strategic question is raised related to marketing, sales, or product development. Everyone has a different opinion.

The goal of market segmentation is to identify groups of customers who differ in their needs and responses to marketing efforts. This allows businesses to target their strategies to increase effectiveness.

Often, demographic variables are used to segment customers. While demographics describe consumers and business customers, they often offer little insight into those customers’ needs, the benefits they seek, or the true drivers of their purchase decisions.

“So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong, and strike at what is weak. ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Going head-to-head with competitors can be brutal. You find yourself constantly having to react to what your competition is doing, which is not only exhausting but can stifle innovation.

College enrollment is competitive. Many institutions are experiencing flat or decreased student enrollment. At the same time, their debt is increasing.

With increasing tuition rates, part-time options, specialized programs, and online universities, the choice of what to do after high school graduation has only gotten more complex. Students have options.

I was recently introduced to a marketing consultant by a mutual connection. To follow-up on his questions about Vennli, I sent him an email which included a link to a case study

Every day at Vennli, I’m reminded that a growing company requires passionate, driven employees. We are successful because each member of our team applies their talents fully to our mission. They’re engaged in the work that we do.

We recently interviewed 15 impressive brand leaders at a range of companies, including some of the largest in the world. One major finding was pretty startling: brand managers are not happy with their unhealthy data diets.

Gone are the days of the expansive car lots with knowledgeable sales people and uninformed customers. Consumers are now able to conduct comprehensive online research before they ever arrive at a dealership, with 1 in 6 skipping a test drive all together and choosing to purchase their car completely online instead.

At its core, analytics is simply the science of mining data to come to conclusions, but it’s never as simple as it sounds. Today’s market leaders are using advanced analytics as a core competitive advantage, allowing them to agilely respond to market changes and win their customers’ choice. These are some of our favorite inspirational quotes for your insights and analytics professionals out there blazing the trail.

Effective marketers aim for “the right product, price, and message for the right customer at the right time. Today, technology makes it possible for us to customize and distribute our offerings and messages to very specific, targeted audiences.

Every December, people across the nation are bombarded with requests for donations. Not only are people in the holiday spirit, but they also have a chance to donate by the end of the year and claim the deduction on their taxes.

Your market is competitive and your customer needs are always changing. The old way of strategic planning is no longer cutting it. We have to move faster and get better results. We need to evolve how we make decisions about our business. This infographic shows the evolution of strategic planning, market research, and more.

You’re not alone. Recently, a coworker presented to a large auditorium and asked the attendees how many of them had ever done a SWOT analysis in their jobs, and just about everyone raised their hands.

A client of mine recently asked their customers a single question. They provided a long list of features, and asked, “For this product, which of these features do you most prefer?�?

"Give me the freedom of a tightly defined strategy.�? - Norman Berry, former Creative Head at Ogilvy and Mather

I heard this back in my advertising days, but it has stayed with me and become even more relevant in my technology career.

The process students undertake to research college programs has changed drastically in the past couple decades. Students no longer rely exclusively on print advertisements, US News & World Reports, and word-of-mouth.

Conferences can inspire and motivate us. They can challenge our thinking and send us home ready to take on the world.

Everyone yearns for customer love. However, in business, getting customer love may be easier than keeping it.

October brings pretty leaves and football. The kids are back in school. People are back from summer vacations filled with renewed energy and new ideas. At companies around the world, energy levels are high. And everywhere, everywhere, people are in meetings to talk about next years’ plan.

I’m fortunate that I love my job. My current role at Vennli brings my past experiences in brand management, leadership, and marketing full circle because the tool we provide helps people in those roles be more effective. I’ve probably done at least 250 demos of Vennli’s software to business leaders. (I’m not kidding when I say I dream about demoing.)

This summer was an exceptionally busy one. I’ve been traveling around the country meeting with customers and learning about their challenges when it comes to growing their business. Through these discussions, I’ve seen a very interesting trend among both small and large companies.

Due to the recent events in the news about Volkswagen, Vennli published survey results from car buyers.

You’d be hard pressed to identify an industry right now undergoing as much change as medical device manufacturing. For example, just about every day, you see articles about amazing new applications for 3D printing (like new ribs for cancer patients, or a flexible new arm, or fully functional blood vessels).

Are you a dental company looking to grow your business?

In a growing company, every employee’s efforts must produce maximum value. Every action has to contribute to growth. Every moment counts. Every person counts.

We present today at the DEMO Traction Enterprise event in Boston, a conference focused obsessively on growth by connecting the most promising growth startups with prospective customers, investors, and strategic partners.

“Data-driven organizations.�? That’s the Promised Land. If you’re not excited by data, then you aren’t part of a modern company.

As a Millennial, I don’t spend a lot of time actively thinking about brands. In fact, I’m pretty oblivious. They’re just there; a logo slapped on the stuff I want. I have some favorites (hello, Kate Spade) but I’m not loyal to many.

Recently, I read an article referencing a study by The Journal for Patient Safety that stated "…when patients are shown Hospital Safety Score grades and cost information together, consumers will choose safer hospitals 97% of the time, regardless of cost."

Vennli was founded on the belief that growth results when the customer’s voice drives decision-making, and our software provides an engine for organizations to make this happen.

I am inundated with surveys. Toyota wants to know how I like my car or service. Amazon wants me to rate my experience. Last week, I received a survey from my children’s school!

I frequently hear my clients say, “Our market is becoming commoditized.�? They see the products in their market becoming similar, more competitors jumping in, prices falling, and profits eroding.

A business builds and sustains growth because it is different from competitors in ways that are important to customers. Growth means more customers are choosing you.

But this is a deceptively simple concept. What does “competitive advantage�? really mean, and how do you make this idea stick?

PE investment firms have outperformed public equity markets over the past three decades, so we know they must be doing something right. I've been lucky to have worked with a few great private equity firms throughout my career.

Years ago, I heard a presentation of customer segmentation research findings at Whirlpool. Among other things, we learned that there were many women who cared deeply about their families but were not emotionally invested in housework. Chores were chores - things to be done - with little meaning or gratification.

Success in today’s market requires a relentless pursuit of growth. Resting on your laurels is a luxury that companies today don’t have – we have to act quickly just to maintain our presence in the market, let alone grow.

When I was growing up, my parents gave us a few dollars each week for doing our chores. We had a chart on the refrigerator that told us when it was our turn to do the laundry, wash the dishes, and put out the trash.

Looking for patterns is only human, but for me, it’s a passion. And over the past year, the team here has talked with well over a hundred C-level leaders of organizations – across diverse industries, geographies, and types. And we consistently hear the same problem. (A pattern!)

People always want the big moments. The big strategy, the home run, the presidential election. But the real power lies in the everyday, and real change depends on harnessing the small, critical moments behind behavior – the moment of decisions.

As a kid, I loved Sesame Street - especially a game called, “One of these things.�? The audience was invited to identify which of the objects in the set of four that was “not like the others.�? Sometimes the objects were shapes; other times they were children doing different activities. Either way, the goal was the same— determine which were similar and the one that was different.

Dear SWOT Analysis,

I think it’s time we parted ways. We used to have something great together, but it’s just not the same anymore. The magic isn’t there. In fact, it hurts me to say it, but our growth has stalled.

All organizations seek growth, and decisions about how to grow involve some level of risk. Clayton Christensen and colleagues - in summarizing some compelling empirical evidence - make a strong statement about how big that risk can be:

A wealth of research has been done on why so many strategic initiatives end in failure. Most of this research points to lack of leadership buy-in, poor communication of vision, misaligned employee effort, etc. However, one thing is certain: If your strategy itself is wrong, it doesn’t matter how well you implement it. When you’re headed in the wrong direction, you’ll just get there faster.

Jugglers captivate audiences. Juggling just three balls is an elegant and artistic act that seems out of reach for 95% of the population.

A Bain Consulting study of large companies in eight countries found that 7 out of 8 companies failed to achieve profitable growth. Challenges in developing and executing effective growth strategies have reached plague proportions.

TechPoint, Indiana’s technology growth initiative, honored Indiana’s best companies, entrepreneurs, educators, and other leaders for their technology excellence and innovation at the 16th annual Mira Awards gala presented by BKD CPAs & Advisors at the JW Marriott in downtown Indianapolis. Read the full story here.

A leader of a Boston venture capital firm once said to me that the number one responsibility of a Board of Directors is to hire and fire the CEO.

It’s no secret that I’m a little competitive... okay, a lot... I’m VERY competitive! I’m not sure where my competitive nature came from, but it’s the same feeling that drove me to try out and walk on to the Notre Dame football team. I may have been a little lighter and a step slower, but I was determined to win my spot on the team.

What bothers you as you’re trying to go to sleep (work-related, of course)? What are you still thinking about on your evening commute home?

A couple weeks ago, my manager made an off-the-cuff comment that stopped me in my tracks.

Jordan Spieth’s historic Masters victory this past weekend seemed like a walk in the park. We saw an effortless swing, flawless putting, and an impenetrably calm demeanor. The brutal test of golf that is the Augusta National seemed to lay down quietly as Spieth walked the course.

Do you manage a medical, law, accounting, or another type of professional practice? If so, chances are that you’ve seen some changes in recent years.

If your business isn’t achieving its goals, you probably have a strategy problem.

Inevitably, in my work with nonprofits, the subject of fundraising comes up. More recently, donor retention has been a hot topic. After reflecting on my personal fundraising experiences and listening to my dear friends in the not-for-profit world, I can’t help but be reminded of my mother’s counsel...

There is something very exciting about entering a partnership with a venture capital firm. Getting to that point can be seen as a sign of success. It is often one of the most important steps for a start-up company as it expands its business and builds a financial stronghold for itself.

Quick confession to my sales peers out there: I didn’t start my career as one of you. My background is rooted in traditional marketing, and I have spent the majority of my career leading marketing-focused teams.

In the previous post, we discussed complexity. Not only is the market place complex, but so are the frameworks that seek to organize it for decision-makers. However, there are three core competitive strategy principles emerging from those frameworks that can provide focus.

Decisions can be overwhelming. Businesspeople make hundreds of decisions each day, within a complicated context. Many factors (competitive market, technological, economic, socio-cultural, political-legal) can influence the success or failure of a given choice.

One of the most critical things for any start-up company is ensuring solid financial backing, whether it is from private investors, venture capital firms, or angel investors. This is on the mind of every chief executive officer in every start-up company.

Being a healthcare leader is stressful. Period. Besides the challenging macro-trends impacting the industry, day-to-day operational challenges plague executives.

CEO Mike Lenahan built a thriving specialty recycling business around a unique cost model and excellent service and relationships. The number of customers – steel foundries - grew from 15 to 30 over the company’s first 17 years of operation. However, sales flattened in economic recession as competition intensified.

It’s a common scenario: you need a few groceries so you stop by the local supermarket on your way home from the office. You walk into the store and check your list. First item up: bread for sandwiches. Easy enough! You make your way to the bread aisle.

You can’t pick up a newspaper or journal these days without seeing frightening macro trends and legislation impacting the healthcare industry. No one is unaware of the challenges, although it’s those who are charged with providing patient care while keeping the doors open that are losing sleep.

Who isn't bombarded with emails left and right? This simple trick can help alleviate your email stresses and also keep an organized inbox.

When starting a new company, understanding and being able to explain your unique selling proposition will help in your journey towards success. Additionally, it will help grow your sales. Here's 3 things you should do:

In life and business, maintaining a positive attitude will help you be more successful than if you were to consistently carry a negative attitude.

A business plan is a necessity for any organized and well-structured business. Large or small, it's also something that should be updated and modified as you shift and grow. Here are 8 reasons why you probably need to update your business plan.

One notable entrepreneur, Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, claims to have made his fair share of mistakes and explains how they helped propel him forward towards additional successes.

Companies, employees, and entrepreneurs are consistently searching for ways to increase productivity. Increased productivity results in time and cost savings, improves happiness, and often improves results.

In a short video, Premal Shah, President of Kiva, explains what Kiva does every year to increase productivity throughout their organization, regardless of position or title.

Take a look at his short video on Inc.com.

Whether you're part of a billion dollar enterprise or a small mom-and-pop local business, a healthcare provider or a consumer packaged goods company, or anything in between, we're all faced with a common challenge. Competitive markets are... well... competitive. Differentiating yourself isn’t easy. We often don't have great information but have to make decisions quickly. And, until you understand how your customers make their buying decisions, you're spinning your wheels.

Sit down with Vennli's co-founder, Joe Urbany, to hear how to grow your business by focusing on what matters.

As a company is founded and begins to notice growth, so much time and energy is focused on building a strong foundation to establish the company for the future. However, Brenna Sniderman, a Forbes staffer, explains how important talent acquisition is to the long-term success of a company.

In her article published on Forbes.com, she explains that "senior executives at mid-size businesses may be overlooking one of the most essential ingredients for business growth: having the right people in place."

See the video where she explains her thoughts in a bit more detail.

The NFL is back for yet another season and fans are rejoicing across the nation. Tens of thousands of chicken wings and beers were consumed this weekend, and everything seems to be alright in the world again. The first Monday Night Football game of the year is expected to see somewhere around 16 to 17 million viewers. It’s this kind of viewership that has kept the NFL as the king of sports in the United States. They have built an incredibly large and passionate community that almost feels too big to ever fail. This is where startups can learn a thing or two.

Without a strong community that is passionate about your product, it is likely the company will collapse. One of the most powerful ways to cultivate a community comes from creating great content and sending that content down the appropriate avenues. Digital marketer Harry Hawk has provided 5 tips concerning content creation and communication to improve your community.