Do you want to be a movie star?

By Mark Helfen

Do you want to be a movie star? Or more precisely, to star in your own video. If not you, how about your company’s products?

According to the two speakers at next Monday’s SVForum MarketingSIG, video should be a part of your marketing mix, an effective way of getting noticed, telling your story in a compelling way, and even getting new customers at a reasonable cost.

The presentation titled Video Marketing: Getting More Value Without Breaking The Bank will be at our usual location, EMC on December 10. (Note - starting with the January meeting we will be at a new location, the Silicon Valley Cloud Center in Sunnyvale. More details later.)

Our two speakers work as a team in producing video marketing. Judy Blair is a videographer and owner of KeepsakePix. Her expertise is in producing quality videos, formatting them for web display (mostly YouTube), and getting them indexed on Google and other search engines.

Dana Marks is the verbal part of the team, the “perfect radio voice” to supply the narration for your video marketing. With his marketing background in technology, he can help you formulate the message, in addition to speaking it.

The idea is to put together video lasting 30 to 60 seconds that people will actually watch. According to Blair, you have about 10 seconds to catch people’s attention.  Like all marketing, you need to start with a strategy, have a clear message, and in this case write a script that tells a story that customers or prospects understand.

You can produce your own videos. Our speakers will show some samples of videos with good production values, and some that you will have trouble sitting through for a full minute. The presentation will include some tips on creating a professional result yourself.

You can also use experts who have the equipment, software, and knowledge to create a higher quality result. Some expertise in SEO is also useful, especially if you post your video on YouTube, since it’s owned and indexed by Google.

It’s not only the video production value, the vocals count also. Marks believes in “audio branding,” the idea that all of your verbal communication with customers, from videos to your companies telephone voice response system all use the same voice to show a clear identity and brand.

The result can get your company or product noticed, communicate your marketing message, or provide valuable information for customers or prospects.  Presenting your message as a combination of voice and image – a video – is much more memorable than printed words or an ad, according to Marks.

So come by Monday, learn some of the basics of video production, and start your life as a video star.


Please sign up on our meetup page:

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Mark Helfen is a freelance writer, journalist, and marketing consultant.

He can be reached at: mhelfen@wordpixel.com
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/markhelfen
Facebook: facebook.com/mark.helfen
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/mark_helfen

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The core elements of marketing have never really changed.

By Mark Helfen

If you want a product to succeed in the market, you need to focus rigorously on segmentation, create a value proposition, and communicate with your market. Which means that you need to understand your customers.

Or so says Guy Smith, Principal at Silicon Strategies Marketing, a consultancy that helps companies that “reduce the risk of failure and maximize market penetration.” His focus is on “everything to the left of go-to-market,” and keeping his clients from making “classic, colossal mistakes” – not understanding the value of their product to potential customers.

Smith will be speaking at the November 12 SVForum Marketing SIG with a talk titled Start-up CEO’s Marketing Myopia – How to lead marketing without being a guru.

He is the author of the Start-up CEO's Marketing Manual, and will have a few copies with him that he will give away for the best questions asked.

A lot of product developers believe in the “better mousetrap theory,” the idea that a cool piece of technology will sell itself and be used by “everybody.” Smith doesn’t buy into this, and instead preaches the “rigors of segmentation" – clearly identifying your customers, understanding their needs and interests, and how your product will make their life better. To do this, you need to talk to customers and go outside your perceptions.

(As an aside to this, your blogger recently heard a presentation from Daniel Russell who is the “Uber Tech Lead” for Google search. He explained that it’s impossible to find the kind of average or typical user that Google needs as test subjects for their newest developments here in the valley – they need to go to such exotic locales as Stockton or Modesto to find more “normal” people. )

“Most founders don’t understand most of the value of their product,” said Smith.

He has sat on both sides of VC pitch panels, and claims that many entrepreneurs are missing fully half of everything they need to start and have a chance of succeeding.

There are three key items to give your startup a chance – money, a realistic plan to reach your market, and time to execute your plan.

The plan starts with a value proposition – back to the marketing basics – and the evening will give some guidance into creating one. You don’t need to be a “marketing guru,” you need to understand what you know and don’t know about marketing discipline.

So given the current thinking how does social media help in this? It can certainly help with communications, but “there’s no magic,” nothing happens by itself.

So come by on November 12. You might win a book. And some guidance in how to start a process of market segmentation and developing a value proposition.

The core elements of marketing have never really changed.







Please sign up at our meetup site to help us get an accurate count for the eventing - thanks.

 

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Mark Helfen is a freelance writer, journalist, and marketing consultant.

He can be reached at: mhelfen@wordpixel.com
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/markhelfen
Facebook: facebook.com/mark.helfen
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/mark_helfen
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How to get your product elected…

By Mark Helfen


If you can fog a mirror, you can’t miss the election going on. Ads, news reports, speeches, and all the other campaign stuff form a deluge – much more so in so called “swing” states than here in California.

So what does that have to do with marketing and selling technology products?  Maybe quite a bit, according to the speaker at this month’s (October 8) SVForum MarketingSIG, Giovanni Rodriguez. His presentation is titled Social Technology and the Presidential Election: An Insider's Perspective.

Rodriguez is co-founder and CEO of SocialXDesign, a consultancy focused on “social business” and consumer engagement. Social business isn’t social media – meaning tools like Facebook or Twitter, but rather connection and engagement with customers, users, and citizens.

His background includes time as Chief Marketing Officer at Broadvision, a stint with Deloitte consulting, and founding his current company. SocialXDesign works with technology businesses, retail, and also government, including the current White House, where he works with the “Office of Public Engagement,” in getting Hispanic and Asian to be more closely engaged with the administration. Thus his well-informed position in seeing the similarities and connections between how political campaigns and marketing campaigns are alike.

Rodriguez said he will describe the strategies of both the Obama and Romney campaigns, and use them to explain what works well and what doesn’t work. The lessons that are learned can be applied to technology and other product marketing.

Both politics and marketing are most successful when you connect with people, usually in person. Finding people who will speak on your behalf – surrogates in his parlance – can multiply your marketing efforts. This is not fundamentally technological, though tools like Facebook can help the effort, and keep your network communicating. In his work with the White House, he formed groups that met in person, as a core of broader engagement.

Social media by itself “is not the stuff that wins.” An effective marketing program needs to invest in actual humans – in meeting potential customers, and in training employees on how to market your products.

“You need to invest in your people to carry your message.”

The fundamentals of marketing still matter, and the two presidential campaigns can serve as object lessons. Because of the high stakes, the large amount of money spent, and the pressure of limited time they can serve as crucibles, quickly and intensively testing different marketing ideas over a limited time to see what works.

So come by, and see how you can get your products elected.



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Mark Helfen is a freelance writer, journalist, and marketing consultant.

He can be reached at: mhelfen@wordpixel.com
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/markhelfen
Facebook: facebook.com/mark.helfen
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/mark_helfen

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Don't think - the key to engaging presentations

Don't think - the key to engaging presentations...

By Mark Helfen

The key idea to an effective presentation is that you don’t want your audience to think.

Or so says Fabian Venter, who will be speaking on Presenting in a “Wired” World at the next SVForum MarketingSIG, on Monday September 10, at our usual EMC location.

I spoke to him a few days ago about his upcoming presentation.

Venter is founder of Presentography, a consulting firm that helps people who deliver presentations  to quickly get to “yes.” His peripatetic past includes living (in alphabetical order) in Asia, Australia, Europe, and now the United States. South America is in his sights. So his experience is broad both in terms of successful presentations and in geography.

Given the deluge of information coming at people, or at least the fire hose of distracting data, people are pretty quick to tune out one more listing of bare facts. His definition of a presentation includes not only the sales person speaking to a group, but just about any meeting where you want your message to be remembered.

The problem is that the high volume communications age has re-wired people brains with a shortened attention span. If you have ever taught a class where all of the students have an open laptop and a Wi-Fi connection, you’ve seen the effect – people drift away very quickly.

Venter’s methodology is designed to overcome this modern “attention deficit,” by engaging your audience’s emotional brain with a narrative – a story with a beginning, middle and end. By “softening” your data, you can get your message into the “long term” parts of your audience’s brain where it is more likely to be remembered.

Your talk should “not be data driven, but emotionally driven,” according to Venter. That’s the idea behind “don’t think.” The objective is to engage your audience, bypassing the factual, rational left brain. Your listeners enter an “altered state” hearing your narrative.

According to Venter, anyone can present, even if you’re shy or scared. “Everyone has the ability to share a story.”

 “There is no formula for success,” but you will learn some tricks and techniques to help increase engagement and minimize your audience’s drifting attention.

So come by Monday, and learn how to tell your story.

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Mark Helfen is a freelance writer, journalist, and marketing consultant.

He can be reached at: mhelfen@wordpixel.com
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/markhelfen
Facebook: facebook.com/mark.helfen
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/mark_helfen

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Is Pinterest the next marketing channel?

By Mark Helfen

And Now Comes Pinterest…

Social sites seem to have a short if happy life. Myspace, Digg, Delicious, probably others were once the new-new thing, and aren’t anymore. I’m in no position to forecast business model success, but it’s impossible not to see that things change fast.

At Monday’s (Aug 13) SVForum MarketingSIG meeting, Natascha Thomson, Owner & Founder of MarketingXLerator discussed the next new-new thing, Pinterest. According to Bizjournals.com (publisher of the San Jose and San Francisco Business Journals, among other cities) Pinterest was the 4th most popular social media site in July, with more than 24 million visitors per month, starting at zero in early 2011, and on a steep ramp up.

With all those clicks and eyeballs, there must be a marketing opportunity, and that was the focus of Thomson’s presentation (copy on Slideshare here.)

Pinterest is much easier to understand by seeing, as opposed to description, since it’s a visually oriented site. Users “pin” pictures they want to share, either uploaded from their own camera, or from other web sites. Since it’s free, it’s worth signing up to try out.

Like most other social sites, it represents curation over creation, but helps to create communities of common interest. Thomson described it as “scrapbooking for adults,” and added that “it’s strangely rewarding.”

The demographics represent a very specific slice of the market. In the U.S., 80 percent of the users are female. Interestingly, in the U.K., the majority are male. When I signed up for Pinterest (and saw the U.S. site) the majority of images seemed to reflect this. Not to stereotype, but overwhelmingly I was presented with pictures of cats and dogs (all really cute,) shoes, jewelry, furniture, hair styles, and clothing – lots of wedding dresses. Unfortunately I no longer have enough hair for the braid and ribbon instructional photos. And looking around my office, it’s clear that the room decorating ideas are wasted on me.

So what’s the marketing opportunity? I think it would be fair to characterize Thomson’s message with two parts. First, nothing about Pinterest changes the basics – you need a clear set of marketing objectives, a strategy to reach those goals, and a way of measuring results. Second, Pinterest is a new land, yet to be charted. If you get there now, you will be among the first.

At least a few companies have used Pinterest to present concepts about their business, for example IBM and GE. Consumer companies have gotten click through purchases when their customers pin product images from the company’s e-commerce site - clicking on the picture can direct a browser back to the site where the image originated. There is also a SEO opportunity, as Google indexes the text associated with photos and increases page rank based on the number of Pinterest users who “like” an image.

Pinterest seems to be new channel for marketers, with the instruction book yet to be written. Sign up and check it out. And thanks to Natascha Thomson for leading the exploration.



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Mark Helfen is a freelance writer, journalist, and marketing consultant.

He can be reached at: mhelfen@wordpixel.com
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/markhelfen
Facebook: facebook.com/mark.helfen
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/mark_helfen

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It’s too late to start marketing your product when it’s ready to ship.

By Mark Helfen

It’s too late to start marketing your product when it’s ready to ship. You should develop a trusted relationship as a domain expert long before then.

“Build trust before you sell,” said Steve Farnsworth, by regularly communicating useful and valuable information to your market. When your product is released “your future customer already sees you as trustworthy.”

Farnsworth will be the speaker at the next SVForum MarketingSIG meeting on June 11. The topic will be Lean Startup Marketing, Social Media, and PR. He promises that the evening will be less about theory, and instead focused on practical steps to let a startup or small business develop the market for their products.

Farnsworth is the Chief Blogger at the @Steveology blog, and is included in Forbes recent listing of the Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers. He frequently advises Silicon Valley Technology companies on their marketing strategy, but he told me that there is nothing they do that a motivated startup entrepreneur can’t also do. It’s not about money, but it does take time to communicate a marketing message.

The idea is to build trust with your audience, and establish yourself as a domain expert. Farnsworth doesn’t focus on any specific method for doing this – he didn’t mention Facebook (clearly the word of the hour) until I had asked him. His model is to develop the message first, and then decide on the most appropriate tool to communicate with your target market. It could be Facebook, a blog, or even an email newsletter. Your audience should be able to choose the path to get this information that they prefer.

Facebook, Twitter, are all “just tools.” First develop the message, compelling content. Then figure out the platform.

The hard part? “There is no short, easy way to do this,” he said. Communication and developing trust takes time.

Monday’s presentation will be short on theory and focus on the practical, promising “step-by-step actionable ideas.”

 Drawing on ideas from his client base, you should walk out of the room with specific steps to get started. The tools he will recommend are either free or at least cheap, leaving time as the most expensive resource required. Large companies divide these activities across several departments, but a little company can still be effective.

Farnsworth says he tells his clients that they can’t wait until the end of the product cycle to start marketing - it takes longer than they expect. They agree, say they believe him, but then “de-prioritize” the work and just never get started. Perhaps after Monday night your startup won’t make the same mistake.


PLEASE REGISTER IN ADVANCE for Lean Startup Marketing, Social Media, and PR.

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Mark Helfen is a freelance writer, journalist, and marketing consultant.

He can be reached at: mhelfen@wordpixel.com
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/markhelfen
Facebook: facebook.com/mark.helfen
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/mark_helfen
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You would be surprised how much bad marketing there is. After a while you won’t be able to go anywhere without seeing it.

By Mark Helfen

“You would be surprised how much bad marketing there is. After a while you won’t be able to go anywhere without seeing it.”

By focusing on what your readers (or prospects) want to read instead of what you want to say, you can make your marketing program more effective, either getting more results from the same investment, or spending less.

So says Paul Gustafson, President of the TDA Group, a marketing communications company. Or perhaps more precisely, a content production company. Gustafson’s background includes both an engineering degree and experience as a journalist.  Over his career his experience equipped him to act as the engineering, sales, and marketing go-between. Writing was one of his strong points. 

Gustafson will be speaking at the next SVForum MarketingSIG meeting on May 14, at our regular EMC location. (Please sign up in advance at our Meetup page.) His talk is titled Content Matters: Getting Your Audience to Listen.

Content can sometimes have the connotation of creating information of little value with the sole objective of maximizing search engine positioning, but in TDA’s case Gustafson’s target is to write information that closely matches what readers want to see – describing his company as the intersection of technical competence, communications professionalism, and marketing, focused on business-to-business marketing.

Of course, marketing departments and consultants have been producing “content” for a long time, and in large volumes, before it was called content. But social media has changed the equation, putting the reader more in control. As content has become integrated with the social media world, people choose what they read based on their social connections, colleagues, friends, and professional connections. The model has changed from getting “stuff I don’t want” to choosing “stuff I want.”

When people first begin to get technical and product information through social connections, they sign up for a lot. After a while they prune down the list, and you want to be sure that your brand is left as part of the mix. This demands that marketing writers deliver a “higher standard for reader service,” clearly understanding what readers, and potential customers, want to read or learn.

There is also a change in the audience. At one time, technology and business executives were different people. But the differences are disappearing, at least among leading companies. From Gustafson’s perspective every company is now a software company, and every company is now a media company. Your marketing material needs to adjust.

At the meeting, he will outline three strategies to deal with creating content that gets noticed.

- You need to better understand you reader (and proposed customer,) by surveying, or somehow getting feedback.

- You need an outside viewpoint. He uses the example that you can give yourself a haircut, but it doesn’t usually come out very well. To get a clear vision of how others respond to your material you need someone outside your organization to do the evaluation.

- You need a regular production process or workflow. He will outline the process used at TDA to give a working example of how to product content people want to read.


PLEASE REGISTER IN ADVANCE for Content Matters: Getting Your Audience to Listen on our meetup page:

 


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Mark Helfen is a freelance writer, journalist, and marketing consultant.

He can be reached at: mhelfen@wordpixel.com
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/markhelfen
Facebook: facebook.com/mark.helfen
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/mark_helfen

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Develop Your Start-Up's Social Media Persona

By Mark Helfen

Social media marketing isn’t just for the big guys. At Monday’s SVForum MarketingSIG (Develop Your Start-Up's Social Media Persona with FB Bus. Pages, Tweets, & Blogs,) you can hear how small businesses from individuals to startups can use social platforms to advance their business.  The idea is to become “inspired,” and to get started now.

The meeting includes a panel of three experts in the key social platforms – Twitter, Facebook, and blogging. Carol Stephens, New Media Consultant at Your Social Media Works focuses on Twitter. Nigel Ohrum is founder of Social Toppings, and will focus on Facebook. Fran Hylinski is founder of Footprint 2.0, will speak on blogging.

I spoke briefly to all three panelists, and some common themes emerged. Your social media strategy needs to engage the audience. It’s not broadcasting - it’s a conversation with two way communication. And you need to get started now. Everyone is an expert on some topic – start now and learn by doing.

Stephens focuses on Twitter. Within the limitations of 140 characters you can show your expertise, engage people (and not just people who already follow you) and extend your network, starting conversations across the twitterverse. She says she has gained new clients through her tweeting.

Ohrum focuses on Facebook. Another way of engaging people, he says that Facebook is a great start for social media beginners. A way of having a conversation, and supplying useful information for people. He talked about the difference between your profile, and the multiple business pages you can manage.

Mobile also needs to be part of your social, and web strategy. According to Ohrum, 53 % of all internet traffic now goes to smart phones.

Fran Hylinski focuses on blogging, and Wordpress as a blogging platform. He believes that blogging is also part of your social media strategy.

For many people, the difficulty of blogging is knowing what to write about. Blogs with a single entry are a frequent internet story. He believes that the things you need to cover include the knowledge and experience you already have – things that are already in your head. Your blog is about you. He lists a foundation, commitment and structure as the requirements for a successful blog. Commitment means to show up and write.

But mostly, “just get started,” said Stephens. You will make a few mistakes, but learn as you go.

“Every single person is an expert on something.”







PLEASE REGISTER IN ADVANCE for Develop Your Start-Up's Social Media Persona with FB Bus. Pages, Tweets, & Blogs by signing up at our Meetup page:

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Mark Helfen is a freelance writer, journalist, and marketing consultant.

He can be reached at: mhelfen@wordpixel.com
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/markhelfen
Facebook: facebook.com/mark.helfen
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/mark_helfen

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A flood of VC money... now's the time to turn your idea into a business

By Mark Helfen

If you have a great product idea, now is the time to get started, and get venture funding.

Or so says next week’s panel moderator Ed Lohmann. The next SVForum MarketingSIG meeting will be at our regular place, EMC, on March 12.

The panel is titled “Mobile Social Networking: Achieving Best Practices and Ongoing Engagement,” but in my interview it seemed clear that Lohmann has a broader agenda.

Venture funding is about to explode in the valley. “It’s a very exciting time” to be starting a business.

His logic is that as social media businesses go public, local fortunes are created. All that money creates “plenty of angel investors,” who start “like or aligned businesses,” meaning in the search, social, or mobile area. He lists recent IPOs like LinkedIn, or Yelp as sources of investors. And of course, the upcoming big one – Facebook.

The larger venture funds follow the angel investors. Lohmann predicts a “major flood” of VC funding into the Bay Area

The geography also plays a part. Businesses start where there are an educated work force, close proximity to cultural offerings, low taxes, and access to ports – airports and sea ports. Silicon Valley (Lohmann specifically lists Palo Alto) has these qualities. OK, maybe not the taxes. But enough positive factors so that close to half of all recent venture funding ends up around here.

And the amount of funding is increasing. A Price Waterhouse survey showed that VC funding had significant growth in 2010-2011, with more forecast this year.

The members of the panel are “very capable people” with expertise in the search, social, and mobile market, along with business development and successful technology startups.

So if you have a good idea, don’t wait.

“It’s an exciting time to be in the valley.”


PLEASE REGISTER IN ADVANCE for the MarketingSIG meeting at our Meetup page:

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Mark Helfen is a freelance writer, journalist, and marketing consultant.

He can be reached at: mhelfen@wordpixel.com
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/markhelfen
Facebook: facebook.com/mark.helfen
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/mark_helfen

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Who do you trust? Using reviews to turn browsers into buyers

By Mark Helfen

NOTE: AFTER OUR ONE MONTH CHANGE, WE ARE BACK TO OUR REGULAR LOCATION.
If you go to where we were last month, you will miss all the pizza. 
And the cookies……


Who do you trust?

It’s not an idle question, according to our upcoming speaker. Pehr Luedtke will address the topic Social Commerce: Are There Sales in Social? at our February 13 meeting.

According to Luedtke, there is a “trust ladder” for retail consumers, with manufacturers at the bottom (least trusted) and customers at the top. If you have purchased from Amazon, or at least checked out a product, think of the relative weight you give to the reviews of other customers, compared to the product description supplied by the manufacturer.

Luedtke is CEO of PowerReviews, which supplies a “white label” ratings and review service. Companies such as REI, Toys”R”Us, and Staples incorporate the system on their commerce site to allow customers to review and comment on products. PowerReviews products provide data and analysis of how customers are responding.

This is all part of the ongoing move of power from sellers to customers. There is an “explosion” of social tools that allow customers to respond and discuss what retailers sell. By supporting this discussion on their web sites, retailers can turn “browsers into buyers,” or at least that’s the objective.

Your Personal Marketing Strategy for 2012: It’s Time to Occupy Your Brand

Your Personal Marketing Strategy for 2012: It’s Time to Occupy Your Brand

by Linda Popky

Last month I spoke to the SV Forum Marketing SIG about the importance of managing your personal brand in a social-centric world. We talked about how important it is to apply the basic principles of Marketing to your own situation: You are the brand, and you need to position and promote yourself accordingly—whether you are employed by a company, looking for a position, or running your own business.

A number of people told me after the presentation they were going to become more actively involved in marketing and branding themselves. This is great news, but it doesn’t go far enough.

It’s time to take a lesson from the protest movement that has spread across America over the last several months. It’s time to Occupy your Brand.

The Product is You. Managing your Career in a Social-Centric World

By Mark Helfen

PLEASE NOTE: THIS MONTH THERE IS A ONE TIME CHANGE IN MEETING LOCATION. 

Our January meeting will be at EMC on 2441 Mission College Blvd in Santa Clara. This set of buildings is on the other side of Great America Parkway from where we normally meet, right near the Marriott. Back to normal next month......
 

The more things change, the more they stay the same. At least in terms of the core elements of your marketing strategy. Some people think that technology, particularly social media, has changed everything, but these only changes the tactics. The key questions - what makes your product better, and who will care - still need clear answers.

At next Monday's SVForum MarketingSIG meeting, the focus won't be on marketing systems or software, instead the product will be you.

Linda Popky will speak on the topic Marketing Brand You: Managing Your Career/Business in a Social-Centric World. Popky is founder and President of Leverage2Market Associates, a marketing consultancy that helps companies of all sizes, startup to Fortune 500. Part of her business is to help and mentor individual consultants in improving their personal brand and business marketing - she is a Certified Master Mentor. In addition to her consulting practice, she is an instructor in marketing as Cal State San Francisco, and was part of the team that designed a new certificate program in Social Media Marketing.

Her 2009 book is titled Marketing Your Career: Positioning, Packaging and Promoting Yourself for Success, which would seem to be about her topic on Monday. Available here or here.