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Sprockets
Think of our blog as a window where you can see what's new with us, our clients and the demand creation world we operate in. To close the loop between advertising and sales, we find ourselves in interesting places: cornfields, laboratories, retail stores, bank lobbies and more. Enjoy our tales. Be sure to share yours.

Category Archives: Ag Practice

February 4, 2011

A Welcome — and Welcomed — Addition To Our Ag Team

– Ashley Williams, Ag Practice Lead

“It’s been a whirlwind couple of weeks,” says the senior account manager who recently joined our ag practice group in Charlotte.

Coming from Maggie Mae Armstrong, that’s saying something.

Born in South Africa (in the same hospital as singer Dave Matthews), Maggie Mae grew up “all over,” before her family landed in Georgia.  Even then, as a college student, she packed and re-packed her bags, taking summer internships in Greece, Mexico and San Salvador Island.

Now, though, she says North Carolina will be home.  And we’re grateful, because Maggie Mae brings considerable advertising and public relations to our already accomplished team, having worked on such brand name accounts as Michelin Tire, Freightliner, Thomas Built Buses and Cummins Engines.  Plus, she’s got the inside track on ag.  Not only is she now surrounded by some of the most knowledgeable ag marketers in the country, but Maggie Mae’s sister is an ag scientist!

We look forward to sharing her expertise – all of it – with our clients at Technekes.  Welcome aboard, Maggie Mae!  (Any chance you could hum a few bars of “Ants Marching”?)

Author Ashley
1
December 13, 2010

Rewards & Incentives: Amp Up Sales and Production.

This is part of our continuing series describing the services we offer clients in the agriculture, financial services and healthcare industries.  As always, if you’ve got comments, we’d love to hear from you.

Surely you’ve been in one of those meetings – where one person suggests a rewards and incentives program, and another person all but groans out loud?  We’ve all been there.  It sometimes seems as if everyone loves the idea of incentives, but no one loves administering the program.

Except us.  Where other agencies falter, Technekes shines.  We know rewards and incentives work, so we made certain to have the expertise and technology in place to do the job right.

For example, a rewards program designed for you might include:

•  Training modules

•  Branded cards

•  A points-based rewards platform and catalog

•  Non-points based fulfillment of cash or gift items

We’ve cut hundreds of thousands of checks, totaling millions of dollars, including services such as:

•  Program development and administration

•  Managing banking relationship

•  Design, print & deliver branded checks

•  Incentive qualification

•  Rules and processing

•  Escheatment (filing unclaimed property reports and turning over unclaimed checks to a state authority)

•  1099 processing

•  Fraud detection

With the right technology, the right strategy and the right partnerships, Technekes stands ready to deliver measurable results for you.

Author Cheri
0
December 6, 2010

Sales Support: On the phone. On the ground. In the trenches.

We’re continuing our series of posts telling more about the services we offer clients in the agriculture, financial services and healthcare industries.  This week’s topic — Sales Support — features one of our particular strengths.


Sales is one tough business.  And it’s tougher still when much of a sales person’s day is consumed with prospecting, generating leads, and follow-up – not to mention piles of administrative work – all of which translates into less time doing what a salesperson does best – sell.

Our sales support programs will help your team become more successful by:

•  Identifying prospects

•  Qualifying and ranking leads

•  Completing administrative work, such as recording and reporting sales

•  Preparing reps for sales calls

•  Acting as a “back office,” sharing valuable information and background gleaned from previous interactions

•  Following up, quickly and appropriately, using a variety of tools, including email updates, newsletters, thank you notes and training

Supporting sales doesn’t just make sense – it makes money.  Look at some of the results we’ve gotten for other clients:

•  23,000 appointments set in less than a year with a team of six

•  95% lead rate

•  $30 million sales increase over one year

•  $17 million in net new revenue

We can do the same for you. Let’s set some new records in the year ahead.

Author Cheri
0
November 29, 2010

Lead Generation & Nurturing: Open up the lines of communications

This is another in a series of posts describing the services we offer clients in the agriculture, financial services and healthcare industries.  We’ve already covered “Marketing Strategy” and “Targeting & Qualification.”  Next week — “Sales Support.”  As always, if you’ve got comments, we’d love to hear from you.

You’re busy.  Your team is busy.  Your customers are busy.  We’re all just, well, busy.  And that poses a problem for marketing and sales teams.   We all know that lead generation and nurturing is essential, but who has the time?  And then, how can you reach and effectively communicate with clients and prospects who have their own overloaded schedules?

Easy.  Let us do the heavy-lifting, by building and executing an integrated marketing program to:

•  Gather more information

•  Drive sales

•  Prioritize leads

•  Leverage brand assets

•  Connect with your audience via phone, direct, web or even social media.

We’ll also work with your existing base to:

•  Cross-sell

•  Up-sell

•  Generate leads

•  Provide customer service

Before long , you’ll see that when you nurture your customer and prospect base, all that “busy-ness” can turn into “business” of the very best kind – ROI.

Author Cheri
0
November 22, 2010

Targeting & Qualification: Identifying the best candidates for maximum ROI

This is the second in a series of posts telling more about the services we offer clients in the agriculture, financial services and healthcare industries.   Next week, we’ll cover “Lead Generation.”

Look.  This isn’t rocket science.  To grow and be profitable, your business has to either retain customers or acquire prospects.  Which means, step one, you’ve got to reach them.  But how?

Buying a list isn’t the solution.  Mailing to your entire customer base isn’t the solution.  Asking your sales force to follow-up on every tradeshow lead isn’t the solution.

Sure, all of these are a “start,” but none is the solution.

A solution has to be smarter than all that.  More effective.  And more profitable.

At Technekes, we give your marketing efforts the greatest possible chance of success, not only by appropriately targeting your audience, but further refining your efforts by qualifying and scoring your customers and prospects.

By qualifying your leads and lists and databases, we help you maintain your credibility by mailing to accurate addresses.  We make sure your efforts aren’t wasted, by ensuring that you’re reaching the real “decision-maker” on an account.  We then score customers and prospects, and lists and leads to find out whether they are genuinely in the market, and, better still, where they are in the decision process.  We’ll even rank them, so you can prioritize and know who is most likely to buy.  You’ll know who to reach out to first and where you’ll find the best success.

Yes, this all takes more effort, but we do it every day here at Technekes.  It’s not rocket science.  It’s just rock solid marketing, giving you rock solid results.

Author Cheri
1