I need a breakdown of examples of companies and their best practices
in different marketing and sales related activities. I'm talking about
specific concept, strategies, and tactics, and how specific companies
are using them, but not detailed, in-depth explanations of complex
concepts like six sigma.

=====================
For example, Cisco is well known for tying the bonus compensation of
everyone in the organization to a customer's satisfaction level.
Theoretically, that gets everyone to rally behind thrilling each
customer.

Google, and others, are well known for giving away products or
services to increase awareness.

Progressive Insurance posts the rates of its competitors on its web
site to establish credibility, transparency, and give prospective
customers a reason to visit their site.

General Electric uses principles of six sigma to identify customer and
end-user priorities/needs throughout the product development process.

XYZ company uses html email with embedded video presentations to
explain the advantages of its new enterprise software solutions.
==========================================

I'm looking for 30-40 examples of these types of marketing and sales
best practices CURRENTLY OR RECENTLY USED by technology businesses to
increase awareness, quality, customer satisfaction, and sales. They
can be examples of best practices culled from popular business
magazines or WSJ or NYT. The 30 or so examples can be phrased as
above. Just a description of who's doing it, what they're doing, and
why they're doing it.

They should all be technology B2B examples, especially software
(enterprise) focused. But some examples from hardware vendors, and
even consumer electronics, or non-tech products and services is fine,
as long as the majority are B2B software. Should mostly be examples of
larger companies, although smaller companies are fine if the best
practices are especially novel/unique.

Examples shouldn't be obvious, as in: "XYZ uses customized mass emails
to generate sales leads", but "XYZ researches the personal and
professional interests of industry analysts that cover its products,
and assigns executives within the company to meet regularly with these
individuals, to establish personal relationships with them, and to
reward them for participating in two day spa vacations designed to
collect their feedback and suggestions for new product development"

I'd like at least a couple examples in each of the following categories: 

Public Relations
Direct marketing -- paper and email
Internal corporate communications
Promotions
Sales tools
Sales internal incentives 
Aligning sales and marketing activities/goals 
Prioritizing product features 
Obtaining and using customer feedback 
Compensation 
Video/Multimedia usage
Sales training 
Customer value-add/education
Analyst relations
Social networking
Customer loyalty
Customer support

This information will be used by a large software/hardware vendor as a
'reality check' to understand what other companies are doing
creatively and effectively in these different areas. The vendor has
longstanding relationships with the marketplace and its customers, but
constantly seeks to expand market share in existing and new accounts.
Goal is to reach multiple decision makers and decision influencers in
the company with consistent messages about the company's products, in
a powerful and saturating way. These examples will be used to 'color'
the discussion about: a) what can be done in various mediums to reach
different goals, and b) who's doing what.

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Request for Question Clarification by czh-ga on 06 Oct 2005 12:23 PDT

Hello sumadvantage-ga,

I've taken a look at your question and I've found it too difficult and
financially unreasonable to attempt. You ask for 30 - 40 examples on
14 categories of fairly detailed research. You place a lot of
constraints on what types of companies you want the examples from and
you also require that the "examples shouldn't be obvious." All this
for $150. Researchers get 75% or $112.50. The research you're asking
for is complex and will be time consuming.

I suggest that you reframe what you're looking for and post several
more clearly delineated questions. I advise that you group your
categories to keep related items together. (Customer service, product
marketing, product development, sales and promotions, etc.)

I notice that this is the first question you've posted on Google
Answers. I think you will have a better experience with GA if you
first familiarize yourself with how GA works by reviewing these links
so you can get a better sense of what you can expect for the price
you've posted with the breadth and scope of what you're asking for.

http://answers.google.com/answers/faq.html
http://answers.google.com/answers/pricing.html

I'd love to work on your questions.

~ czh ~

For marketing best practices there is a company that has done work at
our enterprise called EMM Group. www.emmgroup.net