Early April is report card time for nearly every business in America.  Public, private, large or small, company executives are evaluated on their performance every three months.  Will you be the company hero when the first quarter numbers are finalized, or will you be the company heel?  Regardless of your first quarter results, the second quarter brings a fresh new opportunity to shine again.

Michael J. Simmons, a serially successful technology company CEO who specializes in turnarounds and accelerations, points to a very basic principle when advising clients on how to fix or accelerate their revenue.  Awareness is critical.  If prospects don’t know about you, you’re excluded from the game.  “You lose 100% of the deals where you aren’t invited to the table,” Simmons counsels. 

Building favorable awareness of your company within your target audience and staying top of mind with your existing customer base doesn’t require millions of dollars and a huge in-house team.  There are many tactics that can be executed very quickly and affordably.  Well-targeted marketing and public relations can have an immediate impact on revenue, providing the air cover your sales force needs to get deals done this quarter and new opportunities lined up for subsequent quarters. 

1. Conduct a customer loyalty survey.
Every sales expert knows the best source of new business is your existing customers.  When’s the last time you checked the temperature of yours?  Are they hot or cold?  If they’re hot, they might be ready to buy more.  If they’re cold, you could be at risk of losing them. 

Regular customer loyalty surveys ensure you’re tuned in to the lifeblood of your business.  Customers love that you care enough about them to ask for their opinion and getting them talking is a great way for you to uncover hidden opportunities.  Surveys can be constructed and executed in two weeks or less.  And on-line tools like Survey Monkey (www.surveymonkey.com) help make it affordable for any size company to conduct surveys.

2. Host a peer exchange event.
User groups became popular among technology company customers in the 1980s as a means of bringing people with similar challenges and goals together.  Aside from education, one of the biggest benefits to user group attendees has always been networking with their peers.  You can give the user group concept a unique twist by hosting regional peer exchange events for both customers and prospects.  Host the event in the banquet room of local restaurant or hotel that provides all the services needed.  In addition to lunch or dinner, offer insight on a hot topic from a high profile industry leader, followed by networking among peers. Be sure to invite happy customers as well as prospects to these educational events.  Nobody has more power to sell your prospects than your existing clients.  

3. Establish an informational newsletter.
You’ve called your prospects so many times you jokingly refer to yourself as “the stalker.”  And yet, most still aren’t ready to buy.  There’s a better way to stay top of mind than leaving a string of voice mail messages for these busy executives.  By publishing a monthly e-newsletter with expert perspective on topics of interest, you’ll develop credibility with your prospect. 

After your newsletter template is designed, you can populate it with an article and two points of interest.  It doesn’t have to be long to be valuable.  And since you’ll be visiting your prospect’s e-mail box on a regular basis delivering valuable expertise, you’ll be the first one they turn to when they do have a need.

4. Execute a targeted three-dimensional direct marketing campaign.
E-mail marketing, once the darling of marketing for its ease of execution and low cost, has lost its luster due to spam laws and corporate filters.  Three-dimensional mail properly targeted, on the other hand, has never lost its dramatic appeal.  Who can resist the lure of a mystery box?  Boxes and lumpy envelopes consistently get opened.  The rub is, to get past the gatekeeper to the recipient, something of perceived value must be inside.  To keep your campaign affordable, narrow your list to your top tier prospects only and be sure your gift, offer and/or call to action are compelling.   Often, a single new customer from this type of tactic delivers a significant ROI.

5. Broadcast your customers’ success stories.
Your customers help define your brand.  Take the time to document the successes from within your customer base – the challenge, the solution, and the benefits – and share them with others prospects who may be facing similar challenges.  You can showcase a customer success in a 2-page document that can be e-mailed to prospects or posted on your Web site, or you can package the success in a news release and share it with the trade magazines in your industry. 

Don’t cram at the last minute.  Optimize your Q2 revenue report card by executing some simple, affordable and powerful marketing and PR tactics today.