Marketing Articles About Presentations

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96 items found:

How has article marketing renewed the hope of survival of small businesses?. In the present scenario, millions of pre-existing websites are being further populated by newer additions on daily basis, as the majority of business concerns are going online in order to exploit wide... (08/26/08 09:01 PM)

New Jersey car loan financing: How to finance a bad credit car loan in NJ.

Overview

If your are staying in the most beautiful state of New Jersey then you must definitely be knowing the present market value of the real estate, changing interest rates and even diff... (08/23/08 09:01 AM)

To Better Run Your Business, Address Scheduled Overtime Issues.. If you don?^TMt think that having scheduled overtime is crucial, read more. Like the link to the istockanalyst article on the problems presented as the city of Fairmont tightens its payroll belt when ... (08/23/08 09:01 AM)

Olympic Training for Your Presentations. What an Olympic athlete like Michael Phelps can teach you about the preparation and mindset needed to win over your audience

(08/22/08 09:00 PM)

Oracle Corporation will discuss Performance Management Deployment at the 2008 Financial Services Technology Forum. August 21, 2008 - Toronto, Canada - Oracle's Vice President of EPM & Data Warehousing, Robert Stackowiak will present a session on technical solutions for mastering performance management challenges a... (08/22/08 09:01 AM)

A most important topic in online advertising- Click Fraud . Click fraud is currently a major topic in online advertising. Many argue that it presents a threat to the stability and viability of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, the key revenue generator ... (08/21/08 09:01 AM)

The Ill Effects of Terrorism to the Stock Market. Our present world is crammed with terrorism. It doesn't only affects peace but it also brings severe damages to the economy. There has been much written about the short-term macroeconomic impact of t... (08/21/08 09:01 AM)

Entrepreneur.com announces the launch of Entrepreneur Connect. Biz.Yahoo.com: Entrepreneur.com announces the launch of Entrepreneur Connect, a highly anticipated online social networking site for the small business community at http://econnect.entrepreneur.com. The new online destination, presented by Sprint, is a business-to-business marketplace designed specifically for entrepreneurs. While other social networking sites feature an atmosphere of play, Entrepreneur Connect was created by the online authority in entrepreneurial [...]
(08/15/08 09:00 AM)

Our Favorite 25 TV Bosses (And What We Learn From Them). If you think your boss is tough, wait ’till you see these guys! The scripted, non-reality TV show might be a dying breed, but shows past and present provide us with many memorable bosses and leaders. Following are some of the most unforgettable TV bosses, along with what made them so great (or not so [...] (08/12/08 09:00 PM)

Be A Real Estate Bird Dog. College Startup: Bird dogging real estate has been around for awhile now, but with the recent mortgage, forcelosure, and housing mess, it could be present an even better opportunity to those looking to make a bit of money in the real estate arena. Here’s an overview of how college students with some analytical skills, patience, and [...]
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25 Businessmen Who Broke The Rules (And Some Laws). Fortunes are rarely won by playing it safe. On the contrary, the biggest fortunes have been won by those willing to step outside the box and change the way the game is played. Following are twenty-five business innovators of the past, present, and future whose stories are different in many respects, but [...] (07/31/08 09:01 AM)

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(07/23/08 09:01 PM)

Some Thought Leadership on Thought Leadership Marketing. I had the distinct pleasure of presenting to the Reno-Tahoe chapter of the American Marketing Association today. The topic was Thought Leadership Marketing. What a fun group! The deck from the event is below.

Thought Leadership Marketing

view presentation (tags: thought leadership marketing)

(07/23/08 09:01 PM)

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(07/08/08 09:00 PM)

I've Been Gnipped.

Earlier this year we made a seed investment in a new company called Gnip. Yesterday, Gnip launched their first service - a free centralized callback server that notifies data consumers (such as Plaxo) in real-time when there is new data about their users on various data producing sites (such as Flickr and Digg). I've written my version of the overview on the Foundry Group blog in my post titled Gnip is Ping Spelled Backwards, there are a couple of posts up already on the Gnip blog, and a number of people have already written about Gnip including TechCrunch, TechCrunchIT, ReadWriteWeb, VentureBeat, Dave Winer, and Joe Smarr (Plaxo's Chief Platform Architect). Rather than repeat what Gnip is here, I'm going to tell you how this investment came about.

It started in 2004. I got an IM out of the blue from someone named bpm140 (my IM addresses are easy to find - AIM/Y!: bfeld; Skype: bradfeld; MSN: brad@feld.com.) bpm140 asked me if I'd be willing to take a quick look at a business plan he had. I IM'ed back that he should email it to me - I got it 30 seconds later.

I took a look and scheduled a call. It was a plan for an educational game thing that I didn't really get but I was intrigued by some of the stuff in it. I talked to bpm140 (Eric Marcoullier) and gave him some feedback. After talking for a little while I told him it wasn't my thing, but he should feel free to holler if he thought I could be helpful.

Over the next few months I periodically got IMs from Eric. We'd have quick interactions - usually around a specific question - and he shared with me a new idea he was working on. He and his partner Todd Sampson (who I only knew through Eric's references to him) had this idea for a thingy (this was before little lines of javascript that you put on a blog were called widgets). You put this thingy on your blog and it gave you statistics of how many times someone clicked on a link. I'm a stats junky so I loved it. Eric said it would cost $3 / month. I told him it was stupid to charge for it, but I'd prepay for a year for $25. He took my money.

Over the next few months I gave him plenty of feedback on this new thing he was calling MyBlogLog. The UI of the stats service was hideous, but the popup link data on my blog was awesome and the stats were killer. By this point I had invested in FeedBurner, so I introduced Eric to Dick Costolo - FeedBurner's CEO. More feedback ensued.

One day, I got a familiar bpm140 IM saying something like "we came up this amazing idea to turn your blog into a social network." All I needed to do was put a little different piece of javascript on my blog. I did and the old version of the MyBlogLog widget - with names only and a really yucky font appeared on my blog. For those of you that remember it, it was one of those amazing widgets that you suddenly couldn't ever remember living without. Names were great, but soon little images appeared and the idea of seeing who had recently been on my blog was incredibly satisfying. MyBlogLog took off like a rocket.

Up to this point, Eric and his partner Todd hadn't raised any money. I remember the first "are you interested in investing call" happening in May 2006. Amy and I had rented and apartment in Paris for the month and I can remember the conference call with Eric and this new guy Scott Rafer who Eric and Todd had brought in to be CEO. They were considering putting together an angel round with the idea of going for a venture round in three or four months. I committed $25k on the spot, although I remember Scott saying he really didn't want investments of less than $50k.

MyBlogLog continued its torrid growth over the summer, appearing on virtually every blog I read. Fred Wilson - one of my co-investors in FeedBurner and another fan of MyBlogLog - and I started talking about doing a VC round. We came close to do a deal (the documents were a few days away from being signed) when Yahoo! acquired MyBlogLog shortly after getting excited about them after seeing them at the Web 2.0 conference in 2006. I had one awkward conversation with Eric where I quickly told him that while I was disappointed that I wouldn't be investing in MyBlogLog, I was psyched for him, Todd, and Scott and wished him luck. I also told him that I'd love to stay in touch and have another chance to work with him in the future.

I didn't expect Eric to stay at Yahoo! very long (he lasted about six months, although Todd is still there trying hard to keep the MyBlogLog flame alive.) True to my invitation, Eric and I stayed in touch, he and Todd were a big help at TechStars in 2007, and Eric started making occasional trips out to Boulder to see me.

I spent most of 2007 raising our first Foundry Group fund. By the fall we had finished raising our fund and had turned our focus towards making investments. It was in this context that Eric and I sat down on one of his trips in the fall of 2007. Over a couple of hours, Eric ran me through a half dozen ideas he had for a new business. He was hedging a little - struggling with whether to go deep on one business or try to start a few. I strongly encouraged him to focus on one. I told him that four of the six ideas were stupid, one wasn't for me, but one was awesome. It was the seed of what turned into Gnip.

During that trip, I dragged my partners Ryan and Seth into a conference room to sit with Eric and sketch out Gnip more. Eric was originally calling the idea Pingery but somewhere along the way Gnip popped out and it stuck ("meta-ping server" was a little awkward). Gnip fit perfectly in a new theme that Ryan, Seth, and my other Foundry partners were calling Glue and we told Eric that if he wanted to do Gnip as the exclusive thing he worked on, we'd be game to go after it with him.

I got a call from Eric a few weeks later that he'd decided to go all in with Gnip. We'd recently made an investment in Zynga and Eric had spent some time with Mark Pincus, the founder/CEO of Zynga. I think Mark's single-minded obsession with the business he was creating made a deep impression on Eric, especially since Mark is a multi-time successful entrepreneur who also has plenty of angel investments and can basically spend his time wherever he wants.

Part of Eric's success in MyBlogLog was his partnership with his technical co-founder Todd. I told Eric he needed either Todd, or a technical co-founder like Todd, as part of Gnip. Todd wasn't available as he was committed to staying at Yahoo! so we introduced Eric to a few people, including Jud Valeski. We'd known Jud for several years as he was a Netscape/AOL refugee that had settled in Boulder. Jud had recently left Me.dium and was working out of our offices as he contemplated his next gig. Jud and Eric hit it off immediately and started working together remotely (Eric in the bay area; Jud in Boulder) to both flesh out the idea behind Gnip as well as see if they could work together.

A few weeks later Eric and Jud gave their formal pitch to us for Gnip. It was a 10 page PowerPoint presentation that outlined the idea, opportunity, and how they would go about it. We committed to leading a seed investment of $1m on the spot - either by ourselves or with another VC firm. A few weeks later we closed a $1.1m round with SoftTechVC (Jeff Clavier) and First Round Capital (Josh Kopelman) and were off to the races (BTW - Josh has written a really clever post about Gnip titled The Story of Francis Bates.)

Eric, Jud, and Gnip have surpassed all of our expectations from our seed investment at the beginning of the year. They've totally nailed the concept we were kicking around when we first started talking about Gnip, have built a superb initial service in a remarkably short period of time with the help of Pivotal Labs, and have added a handful of awesome technical people to their team. They've managed to do this while still being split between the bay area (Eric, Tiffany, and Pivotal) and Boulder (Jud and the rest of the team).

It took a three year courtship, but Eric and I are now working together as partners. As my grandmother used to say, "My Gnip Runneth Over."

(07/03/08 09:00 AM)

Can You Patent The Idea of Recommending Contacts in a Social Network?.

Microsoft is trying to. It's up on PeerToPatent and you can comment on this patent application (and the USPTO will presumably listen to you) if you'd like to help keep the world free of really silly software patents. Following is the abstract.

"A method and system for recommending potential contacts to a target user is provided. A recommendation system identifies users who are related to the target user through no more than a maximum degree of separation. The recommendation system identifies the users by starting with the contacts of the target user and identifying users who are contacts of the target user's contacts, contacts of those contacts, and so on. The recommendation system then ranks the identified users, who are potential contacts for the target user, based on a likelihood that the target user will want to have a direct relationship with the identified users. The recommendation system then presents to the target user a ranking of the users who have not been filtered out."

Dear friends at Microsoft - please stop patenting stuff like this. Just implement it in Outlook - or - even better - Exchange.

I hate writing blog posts like this - it makes me tired. If I'm the guys at Xobni, I'm working on (a) getting my patent filing updated and filed and (b) commenting on the PeerToPatent site about my prior art. Actually, I'm probably just ignoring this and innovating like crazy. But that's just me.

(07/01/08 09:00 PM)

Geoffrey Moore "Provocative Selling" Presentation. Geoffrey Moore presented at Austin Texchange a couple weeks ago. It was a great event. A lot of buzz from 300 entrepreneurs and executives in attendance. His topic was "Provocative Selling: How to Break and Enter Markets...Even in a Downturn". The biggest takeaway for me was that 'leads' don't work when selling something new in a downturn. You have to have the warm introduction and participation from executives, and create a sense that something is missing in the prospect's business without your solution. Geoff gave me permission to link to his slides from our Austin Texchange site here. Also see pictures from the event. Incoming President Charley Dean (Silverton Ventures), Geoffrey Moore, and Sam Decker (outgoing Texchange President) (06/30/08 09:00 AM)

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(06/17/08 09:00 AM)

Book: Microsoft 2.0.

If you do business with or compete with Microsoft, Mary Jo Foley's new book Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft Plans to Stay Relevant in the Post-Gates Era is an absolute must read.

Mary Jo writes the popular All About Microsoft blog and has been a long time Microsoft watcher. She's often complimentary of Microsoft but can be brutally critical when she wants to be. Overall, I've found her to be balanced, thoughtful, and usually enlightening.

While her blog is usually about stuff happening in the moment, the book Microsoft 2.0 does a great job of looking backwards and summarizing how Microsoft got to this point (along the many dimensions of their business) and then looks forward and explains where she thinks their priorities are and who is or will be responsible for them. I found her long laundry list of key people and initiatives within Microsoft particularly useful.

Mary Jo wrote this before the conclusion (at least the present conclusion) of the Microsoft / Yahoo! semi-attempted merger so there are some things she's left hanging, but from my perspective she gets a lot of things right. It's easy to get lost in all the Google / Microsoft / Yahoo! / Apple consumery noise and forget about the incredible business software, infrastructure server software, and operating systems businesses that Microsoft has built (and now has to defend); Mary Jo does a great job of separating the various parts of Microsoft's businesses and articulating their strengths and weaknesses.

I've read a lot of books on Microsoft over the years. The only other one that I'd put in the absolutely must read category is Partnering with Microsoft: How to Make Money in Trusted Partnership with the Global Software Powerhouse by Ted Dinsmore and Edward O'Connor.

Nice job Mary Jo!

(06/16/08 09:00 AM)

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Off to the ALI Social Media Summit in Chicago.

If you're in Chicago between Monday and Wednesday, drop me a line!

I'll be presenting at the ALI Social Media Summit in a pre-conference workshop. Check it out:

How To Use Social Media To Enhance And Improve Your Internal Communications Efforts - And 7 Steps To Take Your Internal Social Media Program To An External Marketing Program

Some people may think that social and emerging media tools are just for customers. However, they can greatly improve your internal communication, peer networking and knowledge sharing and management initiatives if used properly. This workshop will show you how to leverage the most prominent social media tools to strengthen your internal communications processes and improve the effectiveness of any customer-focused organization. If you're considering social media for customer/external communications, this workshop will also give you specific insights and help you to 'eat your own dogfood' before going headlong into social and emerging media & marketing with your customers and prospects.

Each attendee will take away:

A comprehensive understanding of each and every internal social media tool available to their organization
Concrete examples of organizations that are employing these tools
A roadmap of where to start and how to progress in your internal social media endeavor
Develop the business case to sell internal social media based communication tools to management
The seven steps to taking social media from an internal endeavor to an external marketing program
A comprehensive workbook which explains how to learn more about each of the tools discussed

(06/09/08 09:00 AM)

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(05/29/08 09:00 PM)

How to Hear the Voice of Your Customers: Hone First-Person Intelligence From All Forms of Feedback. Today's technology offers ample opportunities to start conversations with and among customers, fans, foes, competitors, and the press?any person or group who cares to listen and, perhaps, act on the messages received. By some estimates, 85% of the information companies collect is not in a form that they can access or analyze?it is unstructured. The Gartner Group reports unstructured data doubles every three months while seven million web pages are published every day. This cacophony presents the one of the biggest challenges companies face today. (04/29/08 09:02 AM)

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Advice and Feedback.

I don't have to do much writing on my current assignment -- the Staffing Plan that I've talked about the past couple of days is my major contribution to the proposal in terms of new writing. Since this is a re-compete, my client has first-hand knowledge of the project and the ability and resources to write most of the sections.

So my role is primarily to provide advice and suggestions to the client, as well as feedback on their written sections. I will likely also be involved in some re-writing and editing as the proposal moves toward its final stages.

So what does this advice and feedback involve? Well, much of it has focused on interpreting the RFP, which contains a good deal of unclear information about what should be addressed in the proposal and where it should go. So I offer suggestions to my client about what the content of the various sections and ways that the information might be presented. "What should we say here?" or "What do they mean by this?" are questions that my client has been asking.

As drafts of proposal sections are completed, my client sends them to me. I review them and check them against the RFP requirements to see if they have addressed what the RFP has asked for. I also provide comments on the drafts using 'track changes' in Word. Some of my comments relate to RFP requirements; others relate to the content -- whether more detail or more specific information is needed, whether there are gaps or internal inconsistencies, etc.

I like this role a lot because I can advise people what to do without actually having to do the work myself. It's a welcome break from the intensity of writing.

(03/12/08 07:31 AM)

Referrals From Great Sites.

Every once in a while I take a look at the Google Analytics reports for my website. These reports provide detailed statistics about the number and type of visitors to a site, where they came from, what pages they visited, etc. The reports contain a lot of data and take a while to review, which is why I only look at them occasionally.

But one of the reports I do like to look at is the Referring Sites Report, which indicates which sites referred people to my site via a link. And if you are interested in grants (both government and non-government grants), grantwriting, or grant research, you'll want to take a look at some of the websites that send the most visitors to Proposalwriter.com . Among my top 10 referring sites are:

The Grants Information Collection at the University of Wisconsin. This fabulous site has a wealth of information on grants, funding, and other related topics. I'm delighted to say that they link to my site on four different pages. They have consistently been my #1 referral site.
My #2 referral site is The Foundation Center, which sends visitors to my site via links on 3 of their many pages. If you want grant-related information from the nation's leading authority on non-profits, The Foundation Center's site is one of the first places you should investigate.
The third site that sends the most visitors to my site is the US House of Representatives. Somewhere among the its many pages there has been a link to my site for several years. Except I don't know where it is, and oddly enough the link is to my Guestbook. I've never taken the time to try to figure out how people get to my site from this site.
#9 on the list is the University of Michigan's Proposal Writing Help Page, which of course contains info and links on proposal writing.

In addition to Google Analytics, I use Google Webmaster Tools to find out how many other sites have links to mine. At present, Webmaster Tools shows that there are over 4,100 external links from other sites to the various pages on my site. But this number seems to include quite a few dupicates, so it's hard to tell what the real number is.

Nevertheless, I'm pretty satisfied.

(03/06/08 09:01 AM)

Red Teams.

I never heard the term "red team" until several years after I began my proposal writing career. My employers never used them and it wasn't until I started working on my own that I encountered organizations that used red teams on certain proposal efforts.

Basically, a red team is a team of outside reviewers that a company brings in to review a proposal once the final draft is completed. Many organizations don't incorporate a red team review process because: (a) it can be expensive; (b) they can't spare the time; and (c) the idea has not occured to them. But if you are preparing a proposal that is very important to your firm, using a red team can be a valuable and worthwhile activity.

In a nutshell, the process works like this:

Your company identifies people (perhaps 4 or more) to serve as red team reviewers. These people should not have been involved in the proposal in any way, and in fact it's best if they are outside your organization. You will probably need to pay these reviewers a consulting fee for their time. Depending upon the size and complexity of the proposal, the red team review can take from one to several days.

Before the red team begins their work, you'll need to prepare for them. They will need a packet of materials, including the RFP, your final proposal draft, the proposal outline, checklists, instructions, and other relevant materials. These can be put in binders that are distributed to each reviewer. The red team will also need a conference room or other space where they can read and meet.

Once the red team assembles, the Proposal Manager or another member of your proposal team may give a verbal presentation on the proposal: what it is about, some background on the issues, what problems have been encountered in developing the proposal, etc. The Proposal Manager also goes over the instructions with the review team. These instructions should be as specific as possible -- they should tell the red team reviewers what you want them to look for. For example: Is the proposal theme clear and consistent? Are the benefits of your approach desirable and clearly stated? Does the proposal address all of the RFP requirements? Is it convicing? How can specific problem areas be fixed? How could the overall proposal be improved? Etc., etc.

The red team begins its review, first working individually to read the materials and document their comments and impressions. Once this is done, they meet as a group to discuss their findings and to prepare a set of recommendations. When the review is completed, the red team presents its comments and recommendations to the proposal team, which then incorporates the reviewers' suggested improvements.

Besides red team reviews, there are also pink team reviews. But that's a topic for another day.

(02/21/08 09:01 PM)

Future of Online Retailing -- Four Predictions. Forrester and Jupiter report that more than 70% of online shoppers seek out user reviews before making a purchase decision. MarketingSherpa reports that 84% of consumers prefer the opinion of other consumers vs. experts. Hundreds of retailers including WalMart, Best Buy, HP, and the Home Depot have followed Amazon’s lead by allowing their consumers to review products in the online channel. Consumers demand social commerce solutions and retailers are driving measurable results. As consumers are presented with increasing choices, channels, and messages, they will continue to turn to peers to discover, research, and make decisions about products and services. Retailers will need to utilize technology and best practices to provide authentic, relevant, and effective social commerce solutions to retain their customers into the future. 1) SOCIAL CONTENT IS GOING MULTI-CHANNEL The future of reviews and social content is going beyond the product page and into other channels such as mobile phones, kiosks, print collateral, online advertising, and social networks. It is clear that consumers rely on social content to make purchasing decision. They will expect to be able to access to this content regardless of channel in order to inform their purchasing process. The retailers that provide this multi-channel access will develop competitive advantages in their markets to attract and retain consumers. Additionally, more retailers will see the value of integrating social commerce with CRM and other “back-end” channels. Retailers will start to leverage social content as a key input into driving decisions in marketing, sales, advertising, customer support, and... (12/09/07 09:01 PM)

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10 Elements of Sustained Greatness. Last week I attended and spoke at the Word of Mouth Marketing Summit hosted by WOMMA in Las Vegas (get the presentations here). The conference this year had great energy. Keynotes by Richard Tait of Cranium and Jeff Bell of Microsoft Xbox were inspirational. And it was much more executional-focused than previous years’, perhaps because of the focus on social technologies / online. Many conversations -- which I get very interested in -- were around the cultural aspects of word of mouth. What does it take to succeed years beyond ‘the launch’? One night, in the Rio hotel room, I watched a documentary on Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini (boxer), a champion boxer. He said, “It is very hard to get to the top, but it is even harder to stay there.” I would assert that the hype of ‘being on top’ or the ‘coolest new thing’ for a person, topic or company usually lasts no more than 2 years. Toys is the best example. Think of Cabbage Patch Dolls, Pet Rock, Tickle Me Elmo…the hype for these lasted less than two years. It is the rare entity that can sustain greatness. But it happens for companies like USAA and Costco who keep a watchful eye on customer satisfaction. Or for entertainers, like Madonna, who sustain their visibility and music through reinvention every two to three years. Or books like Blink and Good to Great stay on the best sellers list because of their timeless wisdom and application. The ingredients to... (11/19/07 09:01 PM)

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Social Media for Small Business? Try Online Review Sites.

Last week a posted an article on the Perfect Patients blog on "Getting Your Practice In To Online Review Sites." This Tuesday during a presentation to the Milwaukee AMA I was asked about some of the quickest and easiest ways that small business customers can deploy social media (and leverage the power of their customers to help market their business).

Try asking your customers to review you online. Huh? How? What?

It's pretty straightforward. Here's a _ action plan.

1. Find out which websites that list local businesses in your area have review capability. This is easily done by searching for something like "cityname profession" such as "Green Bay Chiropractor". That will give a good look at what directories rank well for your city. (you'll usually see their results on page 1 or 2 of the results) For our local Green Bay, Wisconsin market, the breakdown looks like this:

Google Local

Yahoo Local

Switchboard.com (user reviews sourced from Judy's Book and Insider Pages)

Judy's Book

Insider Pages

Superpages.com (Verizon's yellow & whitepages site)

Citysearch.com (Green Bay version linked to)

2. Make up simple cards (postcard or index card size) with the URLs of the most popular review sites on one side an a couple quick points of instruction (like...visit the site, look for the "review" link, post your comments, save) to keep at your counter and to send out with all bills, statements, invoices and the like.

3. Link to the review sites (and perhaps mention a glowing review, with permission of course) in your e-newsletters that you send to customers.

4. Enjoy the positive word of mouth and energy that comes from having a great online reputation and a bushel full of great reviews!

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New Social Media Presentation Released.

I'm just putting the finishing touches on a new Social Media/TechnoMarketing presentation that I'm pretty excited about. For those organizations that make the distinction between a 'client' (long term relationship) and 'customer' (transactional relationship), I've developed a program that illustrates how to put the latest tools & technologies in play for your service organization.

Want more info? Drop me a line!

Social Media for the Service Industry Enterprise

Today's service industry organizations depend on deeper and more relevant customer connections to drive loyalty, retention, referrals and reactivation within their coveted client base. These companies don't just need technology; however, they need a systems perspective on how to integrate the ever changing world of social media, social networking and Web 2.0 into their core business infrastructure to meet their customers in their medium, now and in the future.

This program will provide a focused, service-organization perspective on:

What are the relevant marketing & customer service technologies that today's leading service organizations employ to connect with their customers. This includes an overview of tools from social networking via Facebook, organic corporate networks, and customer community programs to communication vehicles like blogs, online video and podcasting.

How do these integrate with existing common customer loyalty, retention, referrals and reactivation initiatives?

What are the benefits and risks associated with these techniques and technologies such as lower cost to service and increased referrals vs. loss of central control and the increasing customer control of your brand reputation.

Who's doing this already (examples) and how is it working for them. We'll look at a myriad of case examples with learning's and action items than any organization can apply.

Want more info? Drop me a line!

Check out my marketing speaker page more info on my other marketing related speaking engagements & programs.

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Brand Management Position Available in Eau Claire, WI. Hey Folks, I recieved an email today seeking some referrals for a brand management position in Wisconsin. The role is based in Eau Claire, WI If you're interested, please contact: Leasa Sanders McIntosh leasa [at] shouldbeskiing.com 303-757-4103 Position Details:

Develops marketing strategies and programs to drive corporate revenue and communicate corporate vision/strategy.
Leverage market knowledge, customer understanding, marketing research, competitor assessments, and analysis to develop clear customer acquisition, retention and recapture strategies.
Partner effectively across the organization, including corporate sales, development, operations, technology, and finance.
Manage multiple projects simultaneously with attention to detail, tenacity, and a focus on results.
Identify new product and market opportunities and develop/execute plans to realize revenue goals.
Analyze program results using qualitative and quantitative techniques.
Develop and manage marketing budget.
Works to build and maintain relationships with all internal management team members to provide the highest level of service to our clients and their consumers.
Provides feedback, including appropriate reporting to key management personnel in order to identify continuous quality improvement opportunities.
Develops sales support materials, including presentations, brochures, and proposals.
Develops materials to support internal communications and strategies.
Develop client communications and strategies.
Performs other duties as assigned.

(10/04/07 09:01 PM)

3 More Dates Added for the AMA HotTopic Series | Beyond Marketing 2.0.

Thanks again to all of your who were in New York on the 20th! Due, in large part, to the super-positive feedback that we received from the event, Toby, Bill and I will be doing a total of six events, with the three in 2008 as the latest additions to the mix.

But, before we get to the dates, don't take our word for it, look at what one of the attendees from New York had to say:

I wanted to thank you, Toby, Bill and Dana for a fabulous conference. It was truly the most valuable professional development conference I have ever attended. I really appreciated the thoughtful presentations, specific case studies and valuable insights that all the presentors had to share. And the small group setting really allowed for dynamic and interactive discussion that made it possible to apply the learnings to your own work.
Please keep me on the list for any future web 2.0 professional development conferences that you give, and similarly I hope that Toby, Bill and Dana will keep me in mind if they are ever doing conferences (especially in the washington, dc area).

Thanks to everybody,

Kim Callinan
Senior Vice President

Friday, October 26th in Chicago
Friday, November 9th in Las Vegas
Friday, January 11th in Miami
Friday, February 22nd in San Diego
Friday, March 28th in Chicago

You can learn more about Beyond Marketing 2.0: Harnessing the Power of Social Media for Marketing Campaign Results by visiting the AMA website. Here's a brief rundown of the event agenda.

7:30 ... 8:15 a.m. Registration and Continental Breakfast

8:15 ... 8:30 a.m. Setting the Stage

8:30 ... 9:00 a.m. Social Media Defined

9:00 ... 10:00 a.m. The State of the Industry: Where Do You Stand?

10:00 ... 10:15 a.m. Break

10:15 ... 11:15 a.m. The Social Media Landscape

11:15 ... 12:15 p.m. RSS, Widgets and Social Syndication

12:15 ... 1:15 p.m. Lunch

1:15 ... 2:30 p.m. How Do We Measure This Thing? Social Media Metrics & ROI

2:30 ... 2:45 p.m. Break

2:45 ... 3:45 p.m. The Social Media Marketing Plan & Social Media Process

3:45 ... 4:45 Marketing Makeover: Applying Social Media in Two Parts

After several hours of exploring the ins and outs of Social Media and Web 2.0, now it's time to put our education into action!

Finally, we'll conduct a series of 'marketing makeovers' with willing participating companies in the audience. We'll dive deep into specific, emerging or hypothetical marketing challenges where Social Media tools and tactics will provide a competitive marketing edge, illustrating precisely how the Social Media tools discussed throughout the day can be applied to your individual marketing challenge.

(10/04/07 09:01 PM)

Got Logitech? I have to have one of these!.

During group speaking engagements like our most recent "Beyond Marketing 2.0" event in New York on Friday with Toby and Bill, I usually pass around my trusty Keyspan presentation remote, recommended by Ben McConnell back in 2004/5 (thanks Ben, this this has been a lifesaver!)

Did I mention that I'm also selling a well used and cared for Keyspan presentation remote? I'm going to need that cash to pay for my newest desire, a Logitech Cordless Presenter! Precipitated in large part by the 'timer' feature that Flitter pointed out on his shiny new Logitech 2.4 GHz Cordless Presenter. In spite of that great timer feature, we still managed to run over a bit on some sessions, but wow, what a great remote!

Thanks Bill. I'll be picking this up soon! ...as soon as my Keyspan sells on eBay!

(10/03/07 09:00 PM)

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It's 2007, do you know where you local Internet listing is?.

Being involved in a business that deals in what I call 'intensely local' websites (many of our customers pull from a radius of less than 20 miles, some have business jurisdictions that are fractions of that). When you look at the accuracy of your average Google Local or Superpages search, it's not bad, but I'm amazed on a daily basis how many businesses simply haven't taken advantage of putting their URL, or even correcting their business information in Google or any of the other online directories.

Imagine my surprise when I was doing some research for an upcoming seminar, trying to highlight our local Internet prowess, only to find out that our own Chamber of Commerce has one major flaw with it's Google Local listing... It's LINKED TO ANOTHER WEBSITE! Now, it's not all bad, at least the link goes to the local newspaper, and the chamber listing does show up in the organic search as the first listing (one would hope that it should), but nonetheless, the URL is wrong in the listing.

Don't bother contacting them, I already have. However, it will be interesting to see how long it takes them to correct it. This reminds me of a presentation I saw recently over at MarketingProfs where Stephan Spencer and Brian Klais of NetConcepts mentioned a local hospital which has some material that was commented out which said something like "Jack designed this website with a swiss-army knife and a pack of gum" or something like that... The point is, you can't put your 'stuff' out on the Internet and then go on vacation.

ACTION ITEM: Go Google yourself. Then, check the local directories. If anything about your information is incorrect or incomplete, get it corrected. If your URL is not listed, but it could be, get it in there...
> Google Local
> Superpages.com
> Yellowpages.com
> Yahoo Local
> Your listing on websites in your local area...

(10/03/07 09:00 PM)

3 More Dates Added for the AMA HotTopic Series | Beyond Marketing 2.0.

But, before we get to the dates, don't take our word for it, look at what one of the attendees from New York had to say:

I wanted to thank you, Toby, Bill and Dana for a fabulous conference. It was truly the most valuable professional development conference I have ever attended. I really appreciated the thoughtful presentations, specific case studies and valuable insights that all the presentors had to share. And the small group setting really allowed for dynamic and interactive discussion that made it possible to apply the learnings to your own work.
Please keep me on the list for any future web 2.0 professional development conferences that you give, and similarly I hope that Toby, Bill and Dana will keep me in mind if they are ever doing conferences (especially in the washington, dc area).

Thanks to everybody,

Kim Callinan
Senior Vice President

Friday, October 26th in Chicago
Friday, November 9th in Las Vegas
Friday, January 11th in Miami
Friday, February 22nd in San Diego
Friday, March 28th in Chicago

You can learn more about Beyond Marketing 2.0: Harnessing the Power of Social Media for Marketing Campaign Results by visiting the AMA website. Here's a brief rundown of the event agenda.

7:30 ... 8:15 a.m. Registration and Continental Breakfast

8:15 ... 8:30 a.m. Setting the Stage

8:30 ... 9:00 a.m. Social Media Defined

9:00 ... 10:00 a.m. The State of the Industry: Where Do You Stand?

10:00 ... 10:15 a.m. Break

10:15 ... 11:15 a.m. The Social Media Landscape

11:15 ... 12:15 p.m. RSS, Widgets and Social Syndication

12:15 ... 1:15 p.m. Lunch

1:15 ... 2:30 p.m. How Do We Measure This Thing? Social Media Metrics & ROI

2:30 ... 2:45 p.m. Break

2:45 ... 3:45 p.m. The Social Media Marketing Plan & Social Media Process

3:45 ... 4:45 Marketing Makeover: Applying Social Media in Two Parts

After several hours of exploring the ins and outs of Social Media and Web 2.0, now it's time to put our education into action!

(10/03/07 09:00 PM)

Got Logitech? I have to have one of these!.

Thanks Bill. I'll be picking this up soon! ...as soon as my Keyspan sells on eBay!

(09/22/07 09:01 AM)

Presented By.

(09/20/07 09:02 PM)

Thirteen Ways to Establish and Build Credibility. I meet up with an amazing group of women business consultants periodically. Recently the topic was on ways to build credibility. I love the thirteen points that the group came up with: · Keep your word. · Present your materials... (09/18/07 09:00 PM)

Glide Mobile Lets You Check Out PowerPoint Slide Shows on Your iPhone. While Google (GOOG) is still supposedly fooling with the finishing touches to its Web-based version of PowerPoint, one startup already has it working on a mobile phone. Transmedia out of New York City is finally bringing PowerPoint presentations to the iPhone and other mobile devices with it's Glide Mobile service. One of the sorely missed features of the Apple iPhone is full compatibility with Microsoft Office. Out of the box, you can read Word documents on it, but you can’t edit them. And don’t even think about running a PowerPoint slide show. But starting later today, Transmedia CEO Donald Leka tells me, Glide members will be able to go over to glidemobile.com on their iPhones (or Blackberries or Treos or Nokias) and show people slide shows that they’ve uploaded to Glide. They can even edit them or create new ones from their iPhone (assuming they have a lot of time on their hands). They can also type away on Word documents to their hearts content—a feature that was implemented a few days after the iPhone hit stores. If a small startup in New York City can make Word docs and PowerPoint slides work on the iPhone, why can’t Apple (AAPL) or Microsoft (MSFT)? (09/17/07 09:00 AM)

John Moore's Marketing Lessons from Starbucks. Last week was the first event of this year for Texchange (my first as President). The speaker was John Moore, author of Tribal Knowledge and top marketing blog, Brand Autopsy. The title of John's presentation was "Business Wisdom Brewed from the Grounds of Starbucks". John was a senior marketing guy at Starbucks and Whole Foods. I told him Texchange was an audience of (mostly) B2B entrepreneurs and executives, yet his seemingly B2C message didn't disappoint. The lessons learned from Starbucks are applicable to any company. Essentially your employees are your marketing. The culture and passion inside is what becomes visible outside. John calls it inside out marketing. Another point I should make, that I brought up to my discussion table. In order to create a brand like Starbucks, or any great brand, the key is to decide what NOT to do. Again, what NOT to do. Strip away activities, messages, and resources from anything not core to your core. He presented several principles to the audience. Here are the two I liked most:Building the Business Creates the Brand GIST: Starbucks was too busy building a business to worry about something as nebulous as branding. Because Starbucks was busy working in and on the business, the by-product was the creation of a powerful brand which connects on so many levels with people around the world. Rarely, if ever, can you sprinkle magical branding dust to create an enduring and endearing brand. Starbucks Tribal Knowledge tells us you cannot create a brand... (08/23/07 09:00 PM)

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Live for the last time: 8 Critical Success Factors for Lead Generation. If you haven't heard my live presentation on the 8 Critical Success Factors for Lead Generation now is your last chance. I've got new plans so just like they do in sports, I’m retiring this presentation while it’s still on... (04/26/07 09:01 AM)

6 C-Level Questions for Your Idea. I was reading a great blog entry today called How to Sell an Idea. Within the article there was a hot tip highlighting questions C-level execs will ask. I think that part alone deserves highlighting. Remember that any idea that ultimately rolls up for approval at the C-level should START with a primary points that meet the objective and challenges of the C-level audience. This is a helpful checklist to run any presentation or idea through: Chief Executive Officer: Will it increase the value of the firm? Chief Financial Officer: Where's the return on investment? Chief Operations Officer: Can we execute on this plan? Chief Information Officer: Will it run on our systems? Chief Marketing Officer: Can the world understand it? Chief Sales Officer: Will our customers buy it?... (04/22/07 09:01 PM)

Do you give good PowerPoint?. Do you have a great PowerPoint presentation? Slideshare is hosting The World's Best Presentation contest. My father, Bert Decker, and friend, Guy Kawasaki, are two of the four judges. As such, I don't think I can enter...but you can! Just upload your best PowerPoint presentation and you could win an Alienware PC. Of course, for the Mac loyalists who know guy that aren't excited about Vista, you can hope for 2nd or 3rd prize...an Xbox. This contest does not give you the benefit of sharing your verbal presentation with the slides. IMO, a PowerPoint contest isn't a presentation contest, it's a slides contest. Notwithstanding, here are three suggestions that might help you win...and create better slides in the future... Read Guy's PowerPoint tips. Read Garr's tipsRead my father's tips (dispersed throughout his blog)... (03/20/07 09:00 AM)

Career Tiip #14: Show and Know Metrics. Once I was in a meeting at Dell, and someone said the company could stop on a dime. A colleague retorted, We’d stop because of a dime!” As funny as that is, this kind of agility is only possible in a metrics-oriented culture. Friends who have left Dell for new companies are amazed at how metrics-deficient their culture is. They are shocked how employees don’t understand the basics of a PL, and so they work to add KPIs into the business that feed the PL. As a result, these new employees are MVPs to executives because they speak their language. A little over a year ago I visited my undergrad college, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and met with the Dean of Business Marketing. I told him marketing graduates need to be more analytically-capable and trained than they were when I went to school. He agreed, and in fact they were in the midst of planning restructuring of the curriculum to focus on analytics. Demonstrating focus and proficiency in measurement will help your career. By showing a command of measuring your activities, you will appear in much better control of your area…and thus be given more responsibility. Executives will have more confidence in employees who can manage and measure, and are comforted by employees who can speak and present in their language. However, don’t make the mistake of getting stuck on the guard-rail of internal measurement. Balance your perspective with customer feedback, customer measures, and creative thinking. Make some principle-based... (01/23/07 09:01 PM)

Career Tip #13: Answer First. Answer First means that in any communications setting you should give the answer first (your point of view, recommendation, conclusion, finding, etc.) and then follow with details. This is applicable when you come into your manager’s office to propose an idea, or when you’re presenting a proposal to a group, or if you’re in a 1x1 with a peer talking about a new direction. Many people do it the other way around – build up the background, details of decision criteria, lay out all the options, and eventually they get to the recommendation or decision is. When you load someone up with a bunch of words before you get to the point, you’ve diluted your point. Presenting answer first is also the right way to write press releases and typically how newspaper stories are written. The gist of the story is usually found in the first two paragraphs, and the rest of the article is details. Why answer first? Executives communicate that way, and they want to be communicated to that way (in 1x1s or in a presentation). Why would an executive promote someone who rambles or seems indecisive? Answer first forces you to communicate your point or decision early in a conversation, and that portrays authority and confidence. Giving the punch line in the beginning causes people to pay attention to the details, if they are needed. And if they aren't needed, and the executive or audience approves of your 'answer' or decision, then shut up! Because ‘less is... (01/21/07 09:00 PM)

16 Insights from Ted Leonsis (Word of Mouth Marketing Association Keynote). I’m in D.C. presenting at the Word of Mouth Summit. I wanted to share my notes from today's keynote by Ted Leonsis, Vice Chairman of AOL(and owner of several Washington sports teams). Mr. Leonsis shared tremendous insight and perspective on how marketing has changed, and he presented it with disarming humility and sincerity. It was great to hear someone at his level ‘get’ what has happened to the market and marketing with such clarity, presented with simplicity. Here are some of the points I captured from his presentation… Give customers the opportunity to create, share, and self-express. It’s why there are 55 million blogs. Typically corporations want executives to ‘stay on message’ and to ‘be handled’…but that doesn’t pass customers’ sniff test. Mr. Leonsis, for example, typed his responses in chat room QA…typos and all. Their job at AOL was to surrender to the audience. To hold the mirror up to the audience. Fastest growing markets: Latino, African American, Boomers, Youth. Youth is an entirely different market (note: search Millenials on Google). He encourages kids to study Mandarin and Math. China is producing 260k college grade in Math. U.S. is producing 22k, 10k are foreign students. In a happiness study, factors of happiness are: Relationships, Community, Self-Expression, Giving Back, Pursuing a Higher Calling. Online can help these things. Book recommendation: “The Great Third Places” Ad spend is 8% online, while time per person per day is 17% online and growing. Shift in spend will follow. Early in his career he... (12/12/06 09:00 PM)

Three Parts to a Sales Presentation. You’ve prepared, and done your homework. Finally you are about to sit down with your prospective client – or perhaps do a group presentation. Think of three parts to the presentation, and it will make things much easier and smoother.... (12/12/06 08:47 AM)

Red Teams.

In a nutshell, the process works like this:

Your company identifies people (perhaps 4 or more) to serve as red team reviewers. These people should not have been involved in the proposal in any way, and in fact it's best if they are outside your organization. You will probably need to pay these reviewers a consulting fee for their time. Depending upon the size and complexity of the proposal, the red team review can take from one to several days.

Before the red team begins their work, you'll need to prepare for them. They will need a packet of materials, including the RFP, your final proposal draft, the proposal outline, checklists, instructions, and other relevant materials. These can be put in binders that are distributed to each reviewer. The red team will also need a conference room or other space where they can read and meet.

Once the red team assembles, the Proposal Manager or another member of your proposal team may give a verbal presentation on the proposal: what it is about, some background on the issues, what problems have been encountered in developing the proposal, etc. The Proposal Manager also goes over the instructions with the review team. These instructions should be as specific as possible -- they should tell the red team reviewers what you want them to look for. For example: Is the proposal theme clear and consistent? Are the benefits of your approach desirable and clearly stated? Does the proposal address all of the RFP requirements? Is it convicing? How can specific problem areas be fixed? How could the overall proposal be improved? Etc., etc.

The red team begins its review, first working individually to read the materials and document their comments and impressions. Once this is done, they meet as a group to discuss their findings and to prepare a set of recommendations. When the review is completed, the red team presents its comments and recommendations to the proposal team, which then incorporates the reviewers' suggested improvements.

Besides red team reviews, there are also pink team reviews. But that's a topic for another day.

(12/12/06 08:42 AM)

RFP Delays.

The government RFP you've been waiting for has been announced in FedBizOpps. The announcement isn't the actual RFP -- rather, it's what's called a "synopsis." Basically, the synopsis contains the RFP number and title, a short description of the project and, most importantly, the expected RFP release date and due date. It's an advance notice that the RFP is coming, which hopefully gives you a little time to do some pre-planning and scheduling for your upcoming proposal.

But the anticipated release date comes and goes with no sign of the RFP. Days or even weeks may pass and still no RFP. What's going on? You call the Contracting Officer whose name and number appeared in the synopisis and ask him or her when the solicitation will be released. Sometimes they'll give you a new release date; often they'll tell you that they are "still working on it." So now all your pre-planning and scheduling has gone to hell in a handbasket.

This happens more often than you might think. Right now, two of my clients are waiting for RFPs that are critically important to their businesses. The synopsis for one of these RFPs appeared in May; the other RFP was scheduled to be released on June 30. Neither of them have arrived. Not only does this create havoc with my clients' schedules, it presents problems for me (and other consultants' schedules as well). We are all sitting around in limbo because the government doesn't have its act together.

Most experienced contractors have gone through this waiting game any number of times. The real question is: why? The answer is ???

(12/12/06 08:42 AM)

[Conference Calls Unlimited] Zane's 10 Rules for Creating EMPLOYEE Evangelists. http://zane.typepad.com/ccuceo/2005/04/zanes_10_rules_.html I loved Guy Kawasaki's 10 Rules for Creating Customer Evangelists. They were crisp, concise; His presentation of these rules at WOMMA Summit was engaging, smart, inspiring. But who carries out your mission to "Make Meaning"? Or who "Localizes... (12/12/06 08:04 AM)

[Sociable Media] The First Five Slides: Unlocking the Story Buried in Your Presentation. http://www.sociablemedia.com/articles_first_five.htm... (12/12/06 08:04 AM)

How to Buy Presents Strategically. When you have kids and have gone through a series of Christmas seasons, you realize that sustainment of happiness from a present is usually longer in the mind than it is in reality. Sometimes, especially with toys, the euphoria ends on December 26! This season I'm taking a different approach. I'm approaching present-giving like capital investment. In business good strategy requires allocation of resources towards areas of growth. Capital is invested towards something that has long term ROI, and aligns with the strategic goals of the business. Apply this concept (loosely) to presents. So, for your gift receivers (kids, spouse, family), what gift will help have sustainable enjoyment? And, what gift will help the person and/or your relationship with that person grow? I want our kids to learn experientially. So, I will buy gifts that will teach them new things they would not learn in books, but still enjoy. Example: I recently bought them SIMS City, Zoo Tycoon, and Rossetta Stone. I don't have as much time as I'd like to give to our family. So any gift I receive or give them should be accretive to quantity and quality of time with the family. Anything that builds family memories is good, like a camera for the kids so they can take pictures of the family and our life. A book for me on raising my kids (instead of my typical marketing / management books!). Family games that aren't boring would be a good thing. Gift certificates to dinner or... (12/06/06 09:00 AM)

Future Marketing Thoughts From Forrester's Consumer Form. A couple weeks ago I spoke on a Word of Mouth panel at Forrester's annual Consumer Forum in Chicago. Attendees were senior marketers, online/ecommerce executives, and CMOs. The theme was Humanizing the Digital Experience. The tracks were: Experience-based Differentiation Devices Everwhere Next Generation Branding Social Computing I don't really like Social Computing...but you can pretty much pick the term you like: Long Tail Folksonomy Word of Mouth Crowdsourcing Prosumerism P2P Marketing C2C Marketing Listenomics Social Media Social Computing Social Networking Citizen Marketing Open Source Marketing User Generated Content Customer Created Content Consumer Generated Media To me all these underscore the same theme: Consumers are in more control than ever (their voices are amplified) and they are taking a bigger role in creating the consumer experience and content. As part of Forrester's follow up they posted all of the presentations here, host a blog here (here's the summary of my panel), and are hosting an open Wiki here. Here are some of the themes from the conference, a la their wiki: YouTube things are going to happen. How do you set standards that define your brand as you want? The product must speak for itself. Listen to what’s out there and understanding the negative and positive. Research cost benefits, insight methods. Blogs as a tool for brand analysis. Chance to engage pissed off customers. Chevy Tahoe Apprentice—create your own ad. Environmentalists were creating bad ones. The world didn’t end.It blew over. Most of the discussion about the brand is actually positive... (11/06/06 09:00 AM)

FREE Snippets from "Word of Mouth Marketing". My friend Andy Sernovitz (Director of Word of Mouth Marketing Association) was kind enough to send me a draft of his upcoming book (November 1) Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking. Guy Kawasaki recently submitted a book preview on his blog and 10 snippets from his book. I'll one up that with this blog title that I hoped would get your attention! Andy's book is broken into two parts: The Essential Concepts and How to Do it. His writing style is very easy to read and follow. Andy brings in many examples (some presented in Guy's review). The most important thing I can say of this book is it clearly articulates why Word of Mouth is big now and what to do about it. Andy presents a clear case to present to any CEO or CMO on why they should think differently about their marketing...and most importantly, their customers. Then he follows with practical tips and strategies (including 16 Sure-Thing, Must-Do, Awfully Easy Word of Mouth Marketing Techniques). I can't think of anyone better to write this book than Andy, who is always passionate and practical. Here are some of my favorite snippets from the book:Definition of WOM: Giving people a reason to talk about your stuff and making it easier for that conversation to take place. +++ Earn the respect and recommendation of your customers, and they will do the rest. Treat people well; they will do your marketing for you, for free. Be interesting,... (09/07/06 09:00 AM)

Applying for an SBA Loan. From the Small Business Administration When applying for a loan, you must prepare a written loan proposal. Make your best presentation in the initial loan proposal and application; you may not get a s ...

(08/26/06 09:02 AM)

Buying a Replacement Car: New or Used?. How satisfied are you with your present vehicle? Unless additional safety features, increased fuel economy, or other compelling reasons really justify the cost of a newer model — or you're sick ...

(08/24/06 09:00 PM)

Using the AutoContent Wizard to Create a Basic Presentation in PowerPoint 2000. The easiest way to create a new PowerPoint 2000 presentation, especially for novice PowerPoint users, is to use the AutoContent Wizard. This wizard asks you for some pertinent information, such as yo ...

(08/21/06 09:00 PM)

How to Present to Investors. "On Angel Day each startup will only get ten minutes, so we encourage them to focus on just two goals: (a) explain what you're doing, and (b) explain why users will want it. That might sound easy, but it's not when the speakers have no experience presenting, and they're explaining technical matters to an audience that's mostly non-technical." (08/08/06 09:02 AM)

Marketing Bullseye 3: Hit Goals with Workback Waterfall. I once gave a presentation to an industry group called Rivers of Revenue: How to Build a Marketing Machine. In that presentation, I showed an approach to 'processize' your way to achieve a quantifiable goal. I call it a Workback Waterfall. It's nothing revolutionary...but many things that hit the marketing bullseye are not spine-tingling. Essentially it requires you determine what you want to accomplish, then define the steps to get there and then work backwards and determine the 'waterfall' of variables that measure the success of each step. More specifically: Start with the goal in mind, and work back the steps necessary to achieve the goal. Then play with the variables that are necessary to achieve each step towards the goal. Track progress and success of those steps so you can measure actual results of those variables. Adjust variables to forecast future progress. Optimize each step and the process to reduce effort to achieve each step...and reach the goal. As an example, here's how it works for achieving a sales goal: By starting with the goal in mind and working back the steps and measures along each way you can identify the activities and behaviors to hit the goal. And, most importantly, you measure the true effectiveness of each step and identify ways to improve productivity for each one. You could double or quadruple impact. For a sales process, you might measure the impact of optimizing how you execute the sales call process, improving each step of the process: Making... (07/29/06 02:28 PM)

How to get Word of Mouth (internally) for Word of Mouth. Today I presented at WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association), which is growing like a weed. Tivo recently joined which was the 300th member of this toddler association. A couple interesting notes from the conference (I may share more later)... Andy Sernovitz kicked off the conference with a passionate plea to maintain the ethics in the word of mouth industry. I'm very happy WOMMA is pushing this so hard. Although it's not a sexy topic, it is critical to maintain the authenticity of true customer evangelism. Schills will ruin the authenticity and credibility of word of mouth. He also warned that we (those who drive and practice word of mouth marketing) can be seen as Marketing Innovators or Wackos. I think this rang true for me because I always went through a phase of being a wacko before I convinced people that a new program was 'innovative' and impactful. As part of my presentation, I addressed the need to get buy-in from the organization to embrace new forms of marketing. You can assume others won't 'get it', because they are coming from a different perspective. They are buried in their own day to day operational processes and measurements, and they don't see the connection to a word of mouth program. Part of the solution is to connect any new marketing program, including word of mouth, to their objectives. Outline the 'what's in it for me' question -- as relevant for customers as it is for colleagues and employees. It's all... (07/29/06 02:28 PM)

Exhibitor U. and TS2 (look, a rhyme). I went to Reed Exhibitition's "Exhibitor University" program yesterday, held in Chicago at the TS2 trade-show trade-show. Well worth the three hour drive each way!

The presentation was by exhibitor 'turn-around artist' Jefferson Davis. He knows his stuff and is a great presenter. His material didn't cover the nitty gritty of how to do the tactical stuff, but I'm hoping that Reed puts on future programs to do this.

Anyway, I'll be likely putting up a series of posts based on his materials.

TS2 was an interesting show to walk during our long lunch break. It was an interesting mix of exhibitors who would be trying to sell to people like me, and others targeting the exhibition trade. While there was much to comment on, here are two:

The Skyline rep offered me an industry-focused white paper on exhibiting. He walked me over to where they had five different white papers guarded by a plexiglass cube. Apparently they did this to make it clear that you needed to 'get swiped' in order to get one in the mail. Seemed a little preposterous.
The coolest find was a guy offering animated electroluminescent signs. Their website attempts to duplicate the effect, but in person they are show-stopping.

(07/29/06 02:28 PM)

More on the Marketing Bullseye: What does it look like?. Have you ever been asked to launch a strategy, project or campaign that you knew wouldn't make a big impact to the business? I have, many times over. Why does this happen? Do these scenarios sound familiar? The CEO saw an idea work in a previous company and wants you to do the same thing. The sales leader insists a certain strategy is required to close sales A meeting created momentum for an idea, which came out of nowhere. Consultants have come in and presented their strategy (enough said) There’s pressure to copy what competitors do If you’ve been pulled off course from prioritizing the most impactful activities to drive business, you’ve shot an arrow and missed the bullseye. Hopefully your actions impacted something relevant to the PL…otherwise you missed the target all together. I’m not suggesting ideas and initiatives from these origins are doomed to failure, but in a world of limited resources, you have to separate truly impactful ideas from the rest. And usually the sources of many ideas don’t have the measurement, wisdom or rigor to determine if it’s a “bullseye” idea. And by “bullseye” I mean impact to the income statement – revenue and margin dollars. Not advertising awards, not making the CEO happy, not looking like the competition, or checking a marketing tactic box. The bullseye is reserved for marketing strategies and tactics that make the biggest impact to the business, before all overs. And if also proven as such, you will make the CEO... (07/29/06 02:28 PM)

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