Articles by "Marketing"
Showing posts with label Marketing. Show all posts

on Friday, September 03, 2021 0

For those who have not heard the term “Elevator Pitch” (for the under 40 business population this may be “new jargon”) … it meant if you get into an elevator with someone you wanted to obtain a business relationship with you had the time of traveling up (or down) to make an impression.  Sales folks/Co-workers would time their elevator trips to join the people they needed to connect with for the ride… first ride up in the morning, when they went out to lunch, or when they left for the day.

A good elevator pitch should last no longer than that elevator ride of 30-60 seconds or 75 words. It must be interesting, memorable, and succinct. It must contain or explain what makes you or your organization, product, or idea – unique.  The truth is during that elevator ride the true connection created is of personalities, a foundation during that shared ride and your future timed rides with that individual.

One origin of how the “Elevator Pitch” began is that of Ilene Rosenzweig and Michael Caruso, two former journalists active in the 1990s. According to Rosenzweig, Caruso was a senior editor at Vanity Fair and was continuously attempting to pitch story ideas to the Editor-In-Chief at the time, but could never pin her down long enough to do so simply because she was always on the move. So, to pitch her ideas, Caruso would join her during short free periods of time she had, on the elevator ride. Thus, the concept of an “elevator pitch” was created.

Advantages to conducting an elevator pitch include convenience and simplicity. For instance, elevator pitches can be given on short notice and without much preparation due to the pre-planning of the content being delivered within said pitch, making the listener more comfortable. Furthermore, elevator pitches allow the individual who is giving the pitch the ability to simplify the content and deliver it in a less complicated manner by providing the information in a cut-down fashion that gets right to the point.

In this 2021 business world the “Elevator Pitch” as morphed into what has been coined the “Meet and Greet”.   I have even heard it referred to as “Business Speed Dating” no matter how the interaction is referenced, it often is accompanied with a business card being offered or exchanged between the two parties.

Let’s take the convention center “Meet and Greet” scenario – This type of Elevator Pitch/Meet and Greet/Business Speed Dating has been around for decades – you are invited to a booth or get a punch card to visit many booths and then your full punch card is entered into a raffle for a wonderful prize.  At the booth, for as long as you will stand there a representative from that company will determine if your company is a fit to start building a foundation with.  You may be asked for your business card or on your own drop your card in their bucket or have your badge QR code scanned.  If asked for your business card by an individual or QR code scanned, be rest assured, notes about your discussion can immediately be documented for future reference.

True Business card story: I use to work for a company by the name of Medical Logistics 20+ years ago.  It was a startup, and the business cards were dark royal blue with white lettering.  The printer made an error and did the dark royal blue on both sides of the card, there was nowhere to jot down a note on the card! The male Client Acquisition Team members kept their business cards in a right top shirt pocket to easily hand them out at tradeshows – one morning it rained buckets, we all got drenched going into the convention center… the blue leaked onto their shirts! (mine were safely stored in a business card holder in my pocketbook!)

The goal of the business card or QR scan with notes is be able to continue the conversation where it was left off, “dog is Shih Tzu, kids are___” or “company has problems with name a vendor that supplies them X” the next time there is a conversation?

No matter the jargon – The Elevator Pitch/Meet and Greet/Business Speed Dating… the first step is making a connection with an individual in less than a minute… that is a skill very few people have naturally.

 Today an Elevator Pitch is to “hook” a person into truly listening… with our high population of the business world working via Zoom/Teams/Skype for Business etc. combined with being able to hide your face makes many wonders, who is listening? 

The University of Louisiana Monroe morphed to the times and held a Virtual Elevator Pitch competition in 2021 with a 1st place prize of $150?!  Stephen King has been quoted to say, “Sooner or later, everything old is new again.”   

Ilene Rosenzweig and Michael Caruso would be proud to know what they did and documented still has relevance in our long distance, virtual business world.

The bottom line, “The Elevator Pitch/Meet and Greet/Business Speed Dating” – the technique builds a comfort level.  Once the comfort level has been created then an introduction to “talk business” can truly begin.  

At Corcentric, we are often introduced to provide both Procurement support and IT related subject matter expertise. In working with IT stakeholders, we strive to develop and maintain the comfort level, listen to pain points, providing resources to improve the client-supplier situation that is creating angst; This enables the building of trustworthy partnerships with our clients.  









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on Friday, November 06, 2020 0

It’s almost 2021 and if you’re a marketer, you’re likely working up a new plan for your 2021 marketing budget. With COVID-19, the chances are your marketing budget was slashed… and burned… and buried… and then somehow set back on fire again. While your 2021 budget will likely be significantly less than what you would like, that doesn't that you can't succeed and have highly impactful marketing activities

Quality over Quantity

If you are a football fan and watch the NFL, you know that all the teams have a salary cap to keep larger market teams from buying all of the best players. This concept doesn’t exist in many other sports leagues, and it shows. In the MLB, the New York Yankees team salary of $113.9 million is nearly double the median MLB salary of $64 million, while in the Spanish football (soccer) league, La Liga, FC Barcelona’s average player-salary is almost 4 times greater than Valencia, the team with the fourth highest average player-salary. With this in mind, money can’t be the dominating factor to win in the NFL. Teams that win in the NFL have a strategy and usually, the strategy involves dominating in one aspect of the game, like having a top notch defensive line or a strong running game. When you make a marketing budget, you should be trying to do the same thing: Dominate in one aspect of your game. 

In a typical year, you may have, for example, an event marketing budget for many events. Instead of trying to do those the same number of events with less money, you should do fewer events with the right amount of money.  Bring your “A Game” to these fewer events and make them count.

In some cases, doing fewer with the same amount of money won’t cut it. You’re likely going to need to eliminate certain marketing activities that aren’t contributing enough to the final sale. For example, if you’re going to advertise, you will want to make it count as much as possible. This means anything from eliminating an advertising channel such as OOH or TV to focus a stronger reach on digital, or removing all advertising in a market where a product is floundering to focus on a market where the product is more competitive. What you want to avoid is cutting evenly ac
ross the board. If your marketing activities are not wowing anyone, they are not worth your time, or your money.

Talk to Your Sourcing Teams

As a marketing your job is to make the marketing strategy focuses on activities that best contribute to ROI. When you partner with marketing sourcing experts, they can make those activities go as far as possible. If you have an internal team that can help you with your marketing activities, make sure to include them as early as possible to get them aligned on your plan so they can provide the proper advise, or sourcing needs to ensure that you’re getting the most value from your budget.

If you don’t have an internal team that can help you, reach out to our team at Corcentric. Our marketing sourcing subject matter experts have decades of experience working with all types of marketing teams and activities from large pharmaceutical companies and banks, to extremely niche brands that require overly-specialized services.   

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Gabriella Bittner on Friday, June 19, 2020 0


Part 2: How to Assess the Current State of the Category


As a result of the new economic reality, profit, and cash-flow improvements are a top priority across companies in every industry. The dynamics of the current climate shifts week to week and organizations are presented with the challenge of doing more with less. By assessing the current state of the category, or baseline assessment, organizations can identify, quantify, and prioritize initiatives to drive cost reduction opportunities. Opportunities that are usually missed because of fragmented spend across suppliers, under-resourced teams and reactionary management.

Though this approach is far from the cries of a new concept, oftentimes these assessments are conducted during budgeting and the financial planning season by most companies. Meanwhile, organizations are currently working feverishly to navigate the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and may be taking a reactionary rather than a structured approach to decision making given the impacts. Taking a step back and using a methodical approach to identify where to target first and where the greatest savings opportunities lie. 

By following the steps below organizations can identify the cost-reduction and improvement possibilities, and proactively determine how to achieve them.

1.       Data Collection and Category Analysis
2.       Opportunity Identification/Validation
3.       Implementation Roadmap

Data Collection and Category Analysis
The initial phase is critical as it lays the framework for the entire assessment and ultimately a successful sourcing engagement. Missing data sets or contractual documents will not only delay the exercise but depict an incomplete picture for the assessment team to analyze. It's important to understand the qualitative details related to the category such as the incumbent supplier partnerships including the history, value-adds, and pain points of the relationship.

Opportunity Identification/Validation
The fully developed spend profile creates a baseline to calculate savings projections for each opportunity. It's important to have buy-in from the stakeholder groups and ensure everyone, including finance, agrees on the savings methodology for each opportunity before proceeding to the final stage.

Implementation Roadmap
The implementation process for each opportunity should be planned out and will vary with available resources playing a key role. Today organizations are running lean as a result of the current COVID-19 climate and it may be unrealistic to expect teams to expedite identified programs. SourceOne's experienced consultants can support your organization's existing team in driving the identified initiatives, responding to the current economic challenges, and increase realized savings that impact the bottom line.

Be sure to look-out next week for part 3 of the Strategic Recovery in the Marketing Category mini-series where we will discuss why NOW is the time to be negotiating with suppliers.

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Gabriella Bittner on Tuesday, June 16, 2020 0



Everyone within your organization is held to a high standard and your vendors should be no exception to this rule. For business relationships to thrive both parties mustn't get complacent and actively participate in the relationship. No matter how many vendors your organization is working with, accountability is key. Once your vendor understands the level of accountability expected their performance and your relationship will grow.

Establishing a Service Level Agreement or "SLA" with your supplier is one of the best ways to ensure accountability. SLAs will help to eliminate any expectation gaps by constituting acceptable service in quantifiable and measurable terms, where applicable.

To ensure everything in your power runs like a well-oiled machine, we've developed a set of components, both service, and management related, that should be included in a merchandising Service Level Agreement. While the expectations below should act as the framework for your service level agreement Procurement professionals can formalize service expectations that build onto this framework based on SLA best practices and experience within the merchandising space to create a culture of high-quality service and accountability within your organization.
  • Specifics regarding the services provided
  • Timing related to each provided service
  • Remedies/penalties for each of the performance expectations
  • Termination proceedings for failure to comply with expectations
  • Quality control plan, including resources and assurance details
  • Reporting Process, including content and frequency
  • Ongoing communication expectations, including meeting iteration and context details
  • Key contacts/responsible parties of both the organization and vendor


As mentioned previously, complacency is detrimental to relationship growth and overall success. Keep in mind that SLAs act as a measuring tool and bring uniformity and consistency to vendor performance allowing your organization to compare similar services across vendors within your space. To ensure consistency from an accountability perspective a service level agreement must be actively monitored to determine compliance and reviewed periodically to determine if modifications are needed.

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Gabriella Bittner on Friday, June 12, 2020 0

Part 1: The Benefits of Marketing Procurement in the Current Economy 


We are all feeling the strain of the current climate and reacting to the panic. As firms are cutting "non-essential" spend during this period of economic and financial uncertainty, marketing is traditionally one of the first areas to be considered. However, it's critical to remember that indirect spend suppliers are looking for ways to not only maintain but increase their business, resulting in a buyers' market.

Meanwhile, due to staff cutbacks, your company workforce may be shrinking with increased responsibilities being assumed. This means individuals with limited procurement sourcing and negotiation experience may now be managing entirely foreign areas. This approach is potentially leaving dollars on the table to drive savings and identify efficiencies across both the category and the company holistically.

Our consultant's at Corcentric have built their reputation by leveraging category expertise and sourcing best practices to produce savings. Trust the sourcing specialists to gain negotiation leverage and provide strategic support through these otherwise uncertain times by;

  1. Assessing the current state of the category
  2. Negotiating with existing suppliers
  3. Addressing the service/capability gaps within the category

In the coming weeks we will be discussing the steps above required for strategic recovery following the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as it relates to the marketing category. This 4-part series will shed some light on the strategies and details involved in regards to the right approach and the true value procurement experts offer, helping to take full advantage of the current market conditions.

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Kathleen Jordan on Thursday, May 28, 2020 0
The Marketing spend category has its fair share of complexities and sensitivities, making it difficult at times for Procurement to support the Marketing function, especially if there is a lack of category knowledge on Procurement’s end. Driving collaboration, maximizing investments and delivering value are key success factors when managing the Marketing spend category and demonstrating results.

As companies continue to navigate new challenges at this time and seek out opportunities and strategies to remain profitable, no spend category is off limits. In the past, Marketing was often one of the last few areas considered for cost cutting measures, due to its strategic nature, direct impact on a company’s ROI and various other reasons. And for some companies, this is still the case. However, an overall shift has occurred within the past decade to the point in which Marketing Procurement is in high demand when it comes to Category Management hires. And the current crisis we all find ourselves in could very well compound this demand. Many companies at this time are not in a position to hire and onboard new category managers, but an expectation may exist to support the Marketing function in a smart and effective way.

In an upcoming webinar hosted by ISM NJ, Corcentric will share some insights we’ve gathered over the years in supporting various Marketing groups and driving budget optimization across several Marketing spend areas. As Corcentric’s Marketing Sourcing Practice lead, I will be leading the discussion and speaking specifically to the following topics:
  • How to properly engage Marketing, offering up potential conversation starters
  • Our approach to categorizing Marketing spend, presenting our taxonomy and definitions
  • Various sourcing levers applicable to certain Marketing subcategories/budget areas
  • Recent trends to be aware of pertaining to Marketing investments and the agency/supplier landscape
The planned talking points can be considered relevant to many different groups that currently touch the Marketing spend category or are striving to learn the category in order to properly impact it. If you are a Procurement Professional recently tasked with tackling the Marketing spend category, you will walk away with some tips on how to properly engage your Marketing counterparts. If you are a Marketer that has recently started working with Procurement, the webinar could be worth attending to understand how Procurement ticks and also learn about some sourcing strategies that could very well apply to your current state. Marketing Sourcing consultants, agencies and other industry experts are welcome too! Overall, we’ll discuss ways that Procurement can partner well with Marketing and create a roadmap together that is centered around the right objectives and spend areas.

The presentation will be held on Wednesday, June 3rd at 1pm EST. Members and Non-Members of ISM are encouraged to tune in – and it’s free for all registrants! Sign up before 10am EST on June 3rd to secure your spot. See you there!
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on Friday, April 24, 2020 0


In Part 1 of this blog posting, I discussed the topic of why you should still invest in marketing activities during a recession, along with the overall benefits that you can receive as a marketer. Today, I want to focus a little more on the nitty-gritty of it all and dive into the execution piece, which involves leveraging digital platforms. Studies show that during the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers are spending significantly more time on digital devices due to quarantining/social distancing. For marketers, this means that increasing your focus in digital is an absolute priority. In my first post, we discussed investing in market research, positive brand value, loyalty tactics, and advertising. Let’s break down how you can use digital marketing in these areas during a recession. 

      1.       Digital Market Research

With the proper market research, you can properly steer your brand and interact with your target market(s) at the right touch-points. Effective market research will provide you the right information to execute, and improve your strategies. This means you can produce better content with strong calls to action (CTAs) that could increase conversion.
All things digital, including SEO, Email, Social, and paid advertising, can and should be used as primary market research. You should be tracking how well all of these campaigns perform and focus on the “Three T’s… and one R”: Test, Track, Tweak, and Repeat. In a nutshell, great SEO will allow your customers to find you easier; a great email campaign can be used in a plethora of ways from loyalty programs to brand information and benefits; social media allows for conversations with your customers along with interactions with your content (and allows you to understand more about who they are and what they value); and paid advertising allows you to reach new customers and present your brand as a market leader. With every campaign run in these categories, you learn more about your customers. Every tweak made will change the performance of your KPI’s so ensure that you pay extremely close attention to the results and always look to find ways to improve.

      2.       Loyalty Tactics within Digital

Great rewards and loyalty programs can become so automatic that a customer can actually forget that they’re part of a program. If an online system can recognize a customer by name, phone number, or payment info, the customer doesn’t need to remember details like punch-cards or codes, and the rewards program is often out of sight and out of mind. This is an area that we’ve all likely dealt with in digital automation as I know I’m not the only person who’s forgotten a password since Apple introduced touch ID.

Using email, apps, and social interaction can be a wonderful way to enhance a loyalty program. DSW launched a personalized email campaign in 2017 to remind their customers about their program by detailing snapshots of points earned and the number of points needed to earn their next $10-off certificate. Starbucks and many other companies tie their loyalty program into their app so they can collect and consolidate their customers’ information. In doing so, they have a database of knowledge, which they can use to personalize specific benefits to the customer. Using social media, Foot Locker ran an incentive for members of their loyalty program where Houston Rockets All-Star guard James Harden challenged Foot Locker “VIP’s” to a game of HORSE. In this program, customers recorded a video of themselves performing a shot and posted it to social media with specific hashtags, and Harden would try to meet or beat their submissions.

There are many ways to enhance a loyalty program using digital tactics. Consider leveraging your own market research to learn about your customers and work on a strategy that complements your brand and your customers’ interests.

      3.       Continue to invest in TV Advertising – For Positive Brand Value

In Part 1 of this blog, I mentioned how local TV stations are getting a surge in viewership during COVID-19; however, the stations aren’t making more money off of the increase since many companies are pulling back advertising. In a nutshell, this means that prices are down for TV spots in a time where you’re likely to reach larger audiences. It’s a buyer’s market out there so if you see an opportunity for local TV and the budget dollars are available, go for it! Even when everything seems to be going digital, TV still works for reach and brand awareness, and it’s also a great opportunity to speak from the heart. Since COVID-19 came to the US, Guinness produced a commercial for St. Patrick’s Day with a heart-warming message to raise each other up; and Verizon made a commercial talking about ensuring that they’re doing their part to help customers stay connected. Right now is a great time to use TV advertising as a way to show off your brand’s goodwill with a wider audience, so consider calling your local TV stations to get your brand on the air. As I mentioned in my last post, your brand is likely to be more noticed and your company could be better off for investing in advertising once normalcy returns.

Marketing during a recession can be a scary time, but solid opportunities exist for your budget investments. As a Marketing sourcing professional with agency and practitioner experience, I recognize that every brand is different and not every tactic presented in this blog series will apply to your overall marketing campaign now or ever. At the end of the day, marketers know their brand better than anyone else. If a new investment makes sense to drive consumer engagement and sales during this time, and outside support is required to execute, Corcentric can help you source a potential new partner, leveraging our market intelligence and knowledge of the dynamic agency landscape. And if you happen to be in cost mitigation mode, as many companies are, we also have the know-how to properly engage marketers and identify the right opportunities to optimize your Marketing budget.   
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