Attracting and retaining customers is a process that requires a range of marketing strategies and tactics. As a full-service, integrated marketing agency, IM Partners is committed to helping its clients throughout the customer creation and customer management processes.

Awareness & Preference Building
It is often critical to create awareness and interest in a product before trying to close the sale. For some of our clients, the right approach has been dedicated print and online advertising as part of the overall marketing campaign. In other cases—where budgets are limited, or the company enjoys strong brand awareness—we have successfully employed direct marketing strategies to serve the dual purpose of building product awareness and generating leads.

Lead Generation
Lead generation is the primary objective of many of the marketing programs we develop for our clients. Selling high-ticket or complex products can be accomplished only with multiple contacts and, very often, with the involvement of the sales force. Optimizing the efforts of a costly sales organization requires directing efforts to the most qualified potential buyers. Lead generation marketing accomplishes two important goals for our clients: It generates interest in the product or service, and allows the sales force to focus on the most qualified and motivated prospects.

Sales Support & Channel Marketing
Leads are valuable to a company only if a substantial portion of them can be "monetized"—or converted into sales. Turning a lead into a customer generally requires both marketing support and the efforts of a sales force. At IM Partners, we plan for the integration of sales support at the beginning of a program, whether it's sales presentations, collateral, or incentive plans.

Channel or partner marketing is a critical component for companies whose products are sold through third parties—such as retailers, value-added resellers, or consultants. In fact, the channel is an important target for nearly all of our technology clients. For these clients, we address the channel in our up-front planning, either by customizing a version of the end-user marketing for the channel, or by employing a stand-alone channel marketing effort.

Customer Retention & Cross-Sell
Given the high cost of acquiring a customer, retention and cross-sell are key initiatives for all of our clients. In the case of business-to-business marketers, prospect universes are often limited in number. Add to that the higher responsiveness of customers, and you have a compelling argument for nurturing customer relationships. Consumer marketers have a similar need as they deal with an increasingly competitive landscape in which customers are exposed to myriad competitive messages and buying opportunities. IM Partners uses both traditional and online marketing to keep clients top-of-mind with their customers.