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Marketing Services
GAA provides a full range of marketing services to companies
of all sizes who sell their products business-to-business,
trade, and industrial markets.
While our main focus is on helping companies involved
in B2B and trade marketing areas, we have also been
involved in a number of high-profile consumer marketing
and product development projects in the Internet and
consumer electronics fields.
GAA provides a full range of marketing services to its
clients:
Marketing Plan Development and Execution: GAA
works primarily with its client's VP-level marketing
managers to develop a long-term (at least one year)
marketing plan and budget to support the company's marketing
and sales goals. GAA is then responsible for providing
all of the marketing services required to execute the
plan. These usually include the following activities:
Direct Mail: Development, production and execution
of sales lead-generation and direct sales direct mail
programs, including development of both in-house or
specially-compiled mailing lists, and acquisition of
third-party mailing and buyer lists to support the client's
direct mail marketing projects.
We have found direct mail, in all of its forms, to be
the most universally effective and productive marketing
activity for most of our clients in trade and B2B markets,
and we have a wide range of experience in implementing
successful direct mail programs in companies across
a wide range of industries.
Advertising: GAA has extensive experience in
planning, development, and execution of trade print
advertising programs for companies of all sizes, in
many trade and vertical markets.
Many companies waste too much of their marketing budgets
on ineffective or underperforming print ad campaigns
in the wrong-headed pursuit of a branding strategy for
their companies.
Our Real Marketing™ approach to creation of advertising
programs makes the best use of print advertising opportunities
for our clients, by removing all doubt that the client's
advertising could have done a better, or more persuasive,
job of selling the client's product or service.
Sales Force Support: Since the vast majority
of trade and business-to-business marketers utilize
a combination of in-house, field, and telemarketing
sales forces to sell their products, most GAA marketing
programs are developed to support the client's sales
force. Here, all of the marketing activities developed
by GAA and used in the client's marketing plan, such
as direct mail, advertising, Web sites, and trade show
development, etc., are executed to support direct, telemarketing,
or distributor-based sales in the client's market.
Examples of sales support activities provided to our
clients include: Prospect direct mail programs, product
price promotions, new product launches, inquiry and
sales lead-generating advertising programs, trade show
promotion and development, and creation and development
of sales support deliverables, such as sales videos,
marketing deliverables to support sales presentations,
and services to support high-level business development,
investment, and joint-venture discussions.
Internet Development: Since the beginning of
the widespread commercial use of the Internet, and long
before, GAA's management team has extensive experience
in the planning, development, and implementation of
strategies that have helped its clients to successfully
market and sell their company's products and services
on the Internet.
These services include:
• Web site design, development,
and re-design;
• customer e-publishing and prospect
 communications
systems;
• development of Internet-based affinity marketing
and value-added
programs;
• user interface design and implementation for
new
hardware
products and systems;
Since most company Internet projects are extensions
of a company's current marketing and sales activities,
such as advertising, direct mail, sales force support,
etc., our Internet development activities are, in most
cases, designed to support the other marketing services
we provide to clients.
Trade Show Support: Trade shows are a very important
marketing activity for most companies in industrial,
trade, vertical and B2B markets. GAA has extensive experience
in all aspects of trade show marketing support for companies
in a wide variety of industries, from both sides of
trade show operations, as both a trade show marketing
support provider, and drawing upon its extensive experience
as a trade show production company.
GAA trade show marketing support services include: Trade
show booth and signage design and production, pre-show
sales promotion (direct mail and advertising), and development
of print sales collateral and other presentation deliverables,
such as trade show booth sales videos and multimedia
presentations.
PR: GAA also provides, where required, public
relations program development and execution to support
the client's marketing program.
Next to print advertising, public relations is another
marketing activity where companies spend too much money
and often receive poor sales response, mostly due to
overselling by PR firms.
We view the PR function as a secondary activity that
serves the other, more productive, activities in a company's
marketing program, such as sales support, direct mail,
trade shows, and print advertising. However, where appropriate,
we develop and implement PR programs to the business
and trade media in the client's industry to support
the client's marketing program.
Video and Multimedia: Increasingly, companies
are using video in a wide variety of forms and distribution
channels to market, promote, sell, and service their
products. We provide a full range of video production
services to our clients, which include:
• Sales videos;
• Trade show booth videos;
• Web site video, audio, and multimedia;
• Customer product how-to and instructional videos
We make the fullest use of the latest in digital video
editing technology to provide our clients with a total
range of video production services: On-site film crews,
video editing and special effects, audio narration and
production services, and specialized multimedia services
for Internet distribution, to provide our clients with
affordable, effective video projects in these exciting
new applications.
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Product/Applications Development
GAA also provides clients with a variety of product
development services, primarily in the Internet, information,
and high technology fields. These services include:
Customized Internet Applications: Often, companies
will require specialized online and Web systems development
to support their ongoing sales and marketing activities.
We provide a wide range of systems development, networking,
and programming services to support company marketing
and joint business development activities, including:
Customer and prospect online catalog, ordering, and
registration systems, Web-based, back-end company-to-company
data interchange systems to support joint marketing
ventures, and systems development services to support
customer value-added and affiliate marketing programs.
Interface Design and Development: GAA has developed
exciting new user interfaces and related authoring systems
for both personal computers, television set-top boxes,
and Internet appliance-type devices, and has been active
in this field since 1981.
These product development services include our company's
J-Frame™ multimedia interface for digital television,
the first HTML-based, platform independent video/audio
interface, content programming and authoring system
for set-tops and Net appliances, developed in conjunction
with a major consumer electronics company.
Our experience in design and development of user interfaces
has helped us improve the usability of all the Internet
and software projects we undertake for our clients,
serving the important goal of removing barriers to understanding,
and turning viewers and readers into interested prospects
and customers for our clients.
Custom Publishing Services: GAA also provides
custom print and online publishing services to support
company sales and marketing efforts. These include:
Development and publication of value-added books, directories,
and magazines for retail, consumer electronics, and
value-added product sales promotions, and custom directory
publishing to support trade shows, conferences, and
online services.
In all forms, both in print and online, publications
and targeted content can be important added-value marketing
deliverables to provide a company with a competitive
edge in their markets, giving prospects an added incentive
to buy.
Patentability and Strategic IP Services: A patented
product, service, or process can dramatically improve
a company's strategic market position and investment
value. In addition to marketing and product development
services, GAA works with clients to discover and develop
patentable aspects of client company products and services.
Working in conjunction with its own, or the client's,
patent counsel, GAA helps clients develop and draft
patent claims that are both strategically valuable to
the company's long term market position, and useful
as a proprietary tool to protect the company's important
intellectual assets.
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Start-Ups & Product Launches
GAA has extensive experience in providing marketing
and business development services to start-ups and early-stage
companies, and to established companies launching new
products, or testing new markets for established products.
Our range of new venture and product launch services
include:
• planning and development
of start-up and product
launch marketing
plans;
• pre-launch prototype development and market
testing;
• live market testing, utilizing direct mail and
advertising,
to gauge initial product sales response;
• product
development consulting, and development
and support
of high-level joint venture, licensing,
and business
development efforts.
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Professional Development
The Marketing Manager's Handbook
Eric Gagnon, president of GAA, has recently written
The Marketing Manager's Handbook, a 508-page
book detailing the proven, effective marketing techniques
required for the planning, development, presentation,
and successful execution of marketing programs for companies
of all sizes.
The Marketing Manager's Handbook is an
indispensible professional development reference, and
provides marketing managers in trade, business-to-business,
and industrial companies with the proven, practical
information they need to increase the presentation and
execution of their marketing programs.
For more information on this book, click here...
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Turnaround Situations
Our experience in rapid, effective marketing presentation
and execution has helped a number of companies execute
successful turnarounds in underperforming sales and
marketing programs. We help companies restructure their
marketing programs to increase sales response, open
new markets, and correct major defects in their marketing
programs.
Often, and especially in the case of start-ups and new
product launches, the client's problems go beyond its
marketing program, to its product. In these cases, we
have drawn upon our firm's product development expertise
to implement changes to the client's product line, to
improve their marketability and market acceptance of
the client's product or service.
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