Archive for January, 2009

The lessons to be learned from the Rogers Cablevision’s negative billing nightmare and Intel’s chip fiasco is that they can occur to almost any business, large or small. The one difference between the problems Rogers and Intel experienced and the many small crises that affect most IT companies - or any business - on a regular basis is that the major news media picked up the stories and leveraged the damaging effects to both companies. [... Click headline to continue]

The 1998 Team Canada trade mission to Latin America underscores the fact once again that Canadian companies can successfully export their products to the world. Yet, sales and marketing initiatives - such as joining the prime minister on a trade mission, advertising in international trade magazines, and organizing foreign sales trips - can be expensive, especially for Canada’s smaller exporters. Since many of these programs usually don’t deliver immediate benefits, a substantial sum of money can be risked simply to determine if a foreign market is receptive to a product or service. [... Click headline to continue]

Product publicity and corporate promotion, like advertising, are vital components of every marketing strategy aimed at selling products across North America in today’s competitive business climate. But evaluating a program aimed at obtaining the non-paid placement in trade magazines of your company’s new product announcements, projects and company-bylined articles is much like performing an advertising review. Since it’s often hard to tell what the maximum potential results could be, that age-old question from the CEO - “How do we know we’re obtaining good results for our trade press budget?” - is difficult to answer. [... Click headline to continue]