This issue's marketing dilemma does double duty by addressing two aspects of SWOT: How political hotbeds can be both an internal Weakness and an external Opportunity.
Feel free to provide your best advice to this dilemma (below) or submit a dilemma you face. Our SWOT Team is continuing to grow and provide excellent marketing advice.
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Next week, you can read what your peers said about last week's dilemma—the “necessary evil” of telemarketing—and help your peers solve a new marketing problem.
This Issue's Dilemma
SWOT Category: External Opportunity and Internal Weakness
How Do You Sift Through Politics Enough to Get the Job Done?
We have published our e-newsletter for 14 months, and by all account, it is successful. Our sales team is happy with the leads it generates, product development stays informed with the “electronic focus group” capabilities, and MARCOM likes to embed surveys to take our customers' pulse (external opportunity).
We also have a companion print newsletter, which has been part of our branding strategies for years. It is sent out every quarter, and includes longer versions of stories and additional articles.
So what's the problem? It's getting harder and harder to get each issue out the door. We try to coordinate the information from the e-version with the print version, but the more successful our newsletters become, the more they become political hot beds.
Somehow, everyone has his or her own agenda for the newsletters. It's getting ugly as one VP wrestles with the production manager and our copywriters are given inconsistent directions for content (internal weakness).
Would you ask your readers if they have any tips on how to smooth out some of these politics?
— Sharon T., VP of Marketing
Share your experience, strength and hope with Sharon. We promise you won't be disappointed. When we tap into our collective experience—everyone benefits. And you could win a copy of our book, A Marketer's Guide to e-Newsletter Publishing.
