The sharing economy will change everything. Get on board, or get run over.

By Mark Helfen

The sharing economy, the collaboration economy, the peer-to-peer economy. Under any name there will be big changes in successful business models. The changes in customer power will be even greater than the effects of rapid social media adoption. Companies of all sizes will either need to get on board, or get run over.

So says Jeremiah Owyang, speaker at the Monday, November 10 SVForum Marketing and Social Media SIG meeting. He is Associate Director and Founder of Crowd Companies. With both Brand Council and Innovation Network, the business helps large and small business navigate the new collaboration economy. Owyang works as a connector or catalyst, helping both large businesses and start-ups take advantage of the sharing economy.

The meeting will start at 6:30, and be held at our regular location, Detati Communications, located here. Owyang’s talk is titled How to Apply Uber and Airbnb Strategies for Your Business.

The wide adoption of new technologies, including social media, smart phones, and an always connected network has changed the company-to-customer dynamics. Customers can buy and sell to each other, not just from traditional businesses. As with social media, businesses have lost even more control of the flow of information, products, and now even money.

Some of the examples are well known – Uber and Lyft for transportation. Airbnb replaces hotel rentals. Kickstarter serves as a replacement for venture funding, at least at the small scale. The New York Times has a recent article about Uber changing, at least somewhat, nightlife in auto addicted Los Angeles.

But some of the examples he discussed were new, at least to me.

Shapeways is a service that produces objects that use advanced 3D printers. When Hasbro, the toy manufacturer noted that people were using the service to make copies of their licensed toys, they could have attempted to use copyright and trademark law to shut them down. Instead, the supplied design files to Shapeways, allowed customer to make whatever they wanted, and took a percentage of what Shapeways charges their customers.

Another example is children’s toys. Instead of buying Legos for his young daughter, Owyang rented them from a company called Just Play.

Whole Foods saw that Instacart was going through their stores to fulfill orders for same day grocery delivery. Instead of stopping and trying to run a competitive service on their own, Whole Foods cooperated and gave the delivery service access to the store’s inventory database.

Owyang has a large chart titled Framework: Collaborative Economy Honeycomb visible here. It shows an impressive number of businesses already sharing.

This is an irreversible movement, not a trend according to Owyang. The business model and supporting technology started in 2008, at the trough of the recent recession. As the broader economy has taken off, he sees the collaborative economy rapidly growing. Supporting this are behavioral changes: the value of access over ownership, the activation of idle resources, and crowd sourcing that requires the adoption of open standards.

From the point of larger companies, the collaboration economy shifts markets to be more local, disrupting global business models. It also empowers freelancers, who will be a larger fraction of all workers. The “crowd” can be a business of its own, bypassing inefficient industries – with Uber and the taxi business as an example. Companies either need to become part of the new model, or get run over.

Owyang says there are over 9000 startups in this space, with a more than $6 billion of venture funding. One example is Google Ventures, which put $258 million into Uber. This is a strategic move for Google, which is competing with Amazon, among others for delivery to customer’s homes. Google has used Uber cars and drivers allow same day delivery of shopping orders to customers. Compare that with Amazon using FedEx, or owning their own delivery network, or maybe using drones. In the end, efficiency will win out.

So come by Monday, and see if your business can be at either end of the new peer-to-peer economy.

Sign up at Meetup.

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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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LinkedIn as a platform for engagement and brand awareness

By Mark Helfen

The new LinkedIn has moved way beyond being a repository for resumes.

Well, to be fair, it was always more than that. But recent news reports about the network have noted its success in helping, or even replacing traditional recruiters. Job seekers and recruiters looking to fill positions use LinkedIn to connect with potential employers, find employees, or get a reference into a company.

It’s still the premier site for business to business networking. But they have expanded their role, becoming a platform for engagement, and now, promoting your brand or company. If you come to Monday’s SVForum MarketingSIG, you will leave with a concrete understanding of you can use this for your business.

At the next SVForum MarketingSIG, Yumi Wilson will speak on the topic How to Leverage LinkedIn to Raise Brand Awareness. We will be meeting Monday, October 13 at Detati Digital Marketing, starting at 6:30. Ms. Wilson’s title at LinkedIn is Corporate Commutations Manager. Her other title is Associate Professor of Journalism at San Francisco State, which gives some flavor of her focus.

I first met Ms. Wilson about a year ago when she conducted a class for journalists in using LinkedIn to find sources for news stories. It might not be immediately obvious, but another way of looking at LinkedIn is a very large worldwide network of subject matter experts – and potentially the perfect place to hunt for that elusive news source. In her role she started the LinkedIn for Journalists group, which currently is at close to 70,000 members.

Her job has now expanded to helping corporate communications people raise awareness and promote their businesses and brands, and as has formed a new LinkedIn group – LinkedIn for Corporate Communications. Monday night’s talk will included concrete and specific ways to use the network gain from the expanded capabilities of the network.

One example is Pulse, a new feature that allows you to write and publish a blog on LinkedIn. Your writings are available to all 100 million or so LinkedIn members, are searchable both on and off LinkedIn, and can gain you followers in addition to your network connections.  Your writings are shared with all of your connections and followers. Originally the ability to publish on Pulse was restricted, but now any LinkedIn member can use the feature. It’s always hard to get a new blog noticed, but the business focus of LinkedIn might give you an edge in connecting and engaging with an audience.

Company pages are another feature that can be used to promote and raise awareness of your brand or business. The basic company page is free, but there are also paid services to promote your posts to selected audiences.

Wilson also spends time counseling people on “optimizing” their LinkedIn profile. A more optimized profile will appear higher in search rankings. LinkedIn’s search function has become quite sophisticated, and getting found among 100 million people is a challenge.

The session promises to cover specific features and how to best use them to promote either yourself or your brand.

 Sign up on  ---->

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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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Social media is over. It's just a part of the broader digital transformation.

By Mark Helfen

Social media is over.

That doesn’t mean it’s unimportant, or not useful. But the digital transformation of businesses is happening so quickly that individual technologies like social media platforms are “embedded” in broader changes. Social media is but one piece of a larger digital revolution. It combines with technologies like mobile, big data analysis, geolocation, and an ever growing list of new ideas that together upend old business models.

How can companies respond to such radical change? One way is to create a single point that will focus strategic thinking on an effective evolution. Assigning a person the role of Chief Digital Officer, or CDO is a start.

At our August 11 SVForum Marketing and Social Media SIG meeting R “Ray” Wang will speak on the topic Demystifying Digital Transformation: Do we All Need a CDO. The meeting will be at our usual very nice location, Detati Communications, starting at 6:30.

Wang is Founder and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research. Founded in 2010, Constellation has 20 analysts serving 300 clients. They describe themselves as providing “disruptive technology research for market leaders,” helping their clients transform their business model in response to the avalanche of change. Wang promises to think “beyond the orthogonal” and to be intentionally provocative.

“The business model is changing so fast that a better product or better service is no longer enough,” said Wang. They may not even be required. The “sales funnel” is broken, the “customer journey” model is broken. Customers now hold all of the power.

Into the maelstrom of change, the CDO needs to light the way. It’s too big of a job for one person. Rather, the CDO needs to enable the rest of the organization to be digitally savvy.  He or she needs to be an evangelist, calling to action the range of CXOs, where X could be CEO, CIO, COO, CMO, etc…

There is no single background for the job. Wang’s view is that the person needs to combine quantitative skills with poetry - a balance of left and right brain. If the CDO succeeds, they could very well work them self out of a job in a few years as digital thinking becomes diffused throughout the business.

This number of C-level executives might seem far away from a small entrepreneurial startup. But Wang believes there will be opportunities for small companies to support the digital business model.

So come by next Monday, and get a view of the future of the digital business.


Sign up on Meetup:

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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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If you want to engage customers, you need to understand the profound difference between storytelling and presenting the facts..

By Mark Helfen

If you want passionate engagement with your current or future customers, you need to connect “south of their head” – where their feelings, wants, and concerns are. You can’t lead with company or product facts when customers are now in charge of the interaction.

Or so says Barry Feldman of Feldman Creative, who will speak on Kiss My Glass - How to Create Passionate Relationships between Your Brand & Buyers at the next SVForum Marketing and Social Media SIG. The meeting will be on Monday, July 14, 6:30 at our usual location, Detati Communications.

Feldman has a unique view on communicating, branding, and positioning. His experience includes 25 years as a copywriter, so while he develops strategy and assembles and leads teams, he is a “word guy,” and still does the writing. He has an eclectic view of marketing – for example he recently posted a pean to his new, old fashioned landline telephone.

He has seen and contended with the marketing power shift from businesses to customers over the last few years. Before the millennium businesses, and money, controlled the brand experience using advertising and direct mail. But now Google, web pages, and social media have moved power to the people. Before your customers ever contact you, they have done their research and formed an impression.

Feldman’s response to this change is to create passionate engagement – the kind that gets attention, gets customers to care enough interact, to share what they have learned, and eventually to buy from you.

You can’t do this with web pages spouting facts about your products. Instead you need talk to your customers interests - “south of their head” to where their feelings are, the things they really care about in their lives. An example is Red Bull – “caffeinated sugar water.” The company displays extreme sports in their marketing, rather than talking about flavor or pharmacology.

It took me a few minutes to get the “kiss my glass” meaning, but after an explanation, it became clear. Feldman has clients all over the world, some of which he has never met in person. Instead of a face-to-face relationship, they have a screen-to-screen relationship. Or maybe better, a passionate glass-to-glass connection.

Feldman has spent time studying “the art and science of engaging real people,” and he will talk about not only why you need to create engagement, but also provide how-to guidance to get your engagement strategy going. In his words, “there is a profound difference between storytelling and presenting the facts.”

He has examples of engaging marketing programs, and maybe a few that don’t work as well. If you have a favorite web site, or work for a company that you want Feldman to show and comment at the meeting please send him a note, or bring it to the meeting.

Feldman also seems to have an eye for personal branding (note the hat.) While that isn’t the topic of this meeting, it’s worth checking out a list he co-wrote titled The Complete A to Z Guide to Personal Branding.

So come by Monday night, and learn how to create passionate relationships with people you might never meet.


Be sure and sign up at the Marketing and Social Media Meetup site:

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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: www.twitter.com/mark_helfen

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Content may be King, but context is queen, and conversion is the ace

By Mark Helfen

Content is king has reached buzzword status – the “phrase du jour” for digital marketing. But if everyone is creating piles of content, how does yours become noticed and effective. Effective, meaning it results in prospects entering the sales pipeline and eventually becoming customers.

According to Niki Hall, speaker at the June 9 SVForum Marketing SIG, you can “amplify” the effectiveness of your content by engaging the key influencers in your market. If content is king, Hall will extend you thinking to “context is queen,”, and “conversion is the ace.” Context is where and how prospects encounter your content. Conversion means a customer responds to the content and moves forward in the buying process.

Her presentation is titled Playing the Influence Game – Powerful Tools to Win The Hearts of Your Customers. She will give tips and strategies to implement your engagement program, with the intention of increasing conversion. With 60 to 70 percent of customers researching on-line before contacting your company, your content strategy needs to work well.

The meeting will be at our new and very nice location, Detati Digital Marketing, starting at the usual time of 6:30.

Hall is Vice President Corporate Marketing at Polycom, Inc. Polycom makes those cool star shaped speakerphones you've probably seen in many meeting rooms. The company has expanded their product offering to a much broader range, supporting human collaboration over a dispersed geography with the idea you can “defy distance.” Her range of responsibilities is also quite broad, including brand and reputation management, content strategies, and all web marketing. Her responsibility for analyst relations reflects both her background, and the essential ingredient for multiplying the effectiveness of marketing content.

Hall will bring her own guest with her - Zeus Kerravala, principle and founder of ZK Research, to give an analyst point of view.

She created Polycom’s influencer program, which was effective enough to win this year’s Influencer of the Year Award from SiriousDecisions. The award notes how the program “can help an organization drive more valuable influencer relationships and outcomes by using unique approaches to target and interact with both traditional and non-traditional influencer types.” Exactly what she will be giving tips and tools on at our meeting.

The right influencer can help validate your product or your company’s value proposition, and amplify your message. Hall relates one case with Polycom where conversion reached 70 percent, much higher than the typical 10 percent.

“But not all influencers are created equal,” said Hall. She looks for three criteria to decide on which analysts or influencers to engage: Customer reach, share of voice, and ability to reach the financial decision makers on Wall Street.

At Monday’s presentation, Hall will talk about the difference between influencing and engaging the analysts that can help you multiply the reach of your message. Her talk will include tips and tools on finding and identifying the right influencers, how to best engage them, and how they can help your marketing effort. And for a small startup, some help in getting noticed.

Please sign up:

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

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

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The old model of selling doesn’t actually benefit buyers, or sellers. Learn a new methodology at the May 12 Marketing SIG

By Mark Helfen

Sales prospects have changed. Access to information has increased. The web of social and information interconnection has exploded. Google and other internet services, along with continuous connectivity may have actually changed the way you brain works. It has certainly changed how much information is available to a potential customer without ever contacting your company.

Your sales methodology needs to change to stay effective. Or so says our speaker at the May Marketing and Social Media SIG meeting, Adam Metz. He is the founder and sales coach at The Social Concept, and executive coaching firm that helps his clients “acquire, monetize, and retain the elusive ‘social media’ customer.” His presentation is titled Saying Goodbye To Persuasive Selling: Giving Customers What They Really Want.

The meeting will be at our still new location, Detati Communications, May 12 at 6:30. Rumor has it that in addition to our regular bill of fare, you may be able to get a glass of wine.

According to Metz, the old solution selling concept is no longer effective.  “The customer calls sales when 80 to 90 percent of the sale is done.”

Intelligent selling, dialogue, storytelling – these are the paths to be effective. You need to engage customers early and be the vendor in “column A” during their selection.

“Even technology buyers don’t like to read boring stuff,” says Metz. The shift is to selling that is cool, fun, and funny.

Research over the last 10 years has shown that the more traditional sales strategies don’t actually benefit buyers or sellers. In the social media age, you need to get customers to “that aha moment,” by being the first to engage, early in the buying cycle. The sales influencers are 80 percent sales, 10 percent marketing, and only 5 percent product – obviously a sales centered view of an effective technology business.

The route to this engagement is social media, using “friendly” marketing that doesn’t feel like you’re selling. Or as Metz describes it, “non-persuasive selling.”

In addition to direct selling, channel sales are a focus of his consulting. He described managing channel sales as the “funnest job ever.” Indirect channel sales are hard for a new startup until there has been some demand and track record created, but then it’s another path for customer engagement.

Be sure and sign up at the Marketing and Social Media Meetup site:

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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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With social media, your trade and business secrets can zip around the planet instantly. As usual, the technology is outpacing the law.

By Mark Helfen


Protecting your business’ valuable trade secrets may be more difficult than you think. In a social media world, there are lots of new ways for secrets to be quickly and widely shared, and valuable new information to be created that never existed before.

As usual, the technology is moving faster than the law can keep up.

At next week’s SVForum Marketing and Social Media SIG meeting, Paul Cowie will be speaking on the topic Not So Fast! Employment, Ownership & Privacy Concerns When Using Social Media. Our meeting will be Monday, April 14 at our very nice new location, Detati Communications.

Cowie is a partner in the Labor and Employment Practice Group at the firm Sheppard Mullin, in their Palo Alto office. His focus is on helping companies protect their valuable data in a world where LinkedIn, Facebook, and other social venues allow information to be widely and instantly shared, sometimes without considering their value and importance to the company.

What kind of valuable information? Maybe your customer list. Or possibly your pipeline of current prospects and (hopefully) future customers. Maybe the features being planned for you next release. Or a planned price change. As your employees form connections to the broader world using LinkedIn, or Facebook, or Twitter, who owns the connections, and how do you control what information gets shared? To further complicate the situation, more and more social network communication is done with mobile devices owned by the employee.

As an example of where the law is today, Cowie writes about a recent court decision. The company involved had encouraged employees to connect with customers.  “In the first trial of its kind, the court in Eagle v. Morgan held that absent a social media policy, a LinkedIn profile - and all of its connections – belonged to the individual and not the employer.”  You can read the article here.

If you’ve been in the social media and marketing world for a while, have probably heard stories of companies losing valuable connections and information when an employee leaves a company, for example taking all of their Twitter followers with them. Cowie’s view is that you need to think about these problems in advance.

A company would be “crazy” to not protect their technology with patents, said Cowie.  But trade secret information, customer lists, etc... are also valuable. The law isn’t very clear here, and you might be surprised by how little control you have over what employees do with their personal social network. But the first step is a policy, in advance of when you need it.

Another place where employee and employer interests collide are devices like cell phones or pad computers. BYOD, or bring your own device, is popular with both employers and employees. But if you build a list of contacts on your personal phone and then leave the company, who owns the list?

When I interviewed Cowie, I asked who owned the cell phone he was talking on. It was his personal phone, though it can be erased by his law firm if it was lost, or presumably if he left the firm. He predicted that “black phones” the emerging products that are supposedly secure from interception, will be the phones of choice for executives in the future, particularly those that travel outside the U.S. 

So do you need an attorney sitting in on your marketing planning sessions with your social media team? Companies need to protect their assets, but doing what’s practical may outweigh legal concerns. But the first step is a policy. So come by Monday night, and begin to learn how to balance risk and reward in the social marketing environment.

Be sure and sign up at the Marketing and Social Media Meetup site:

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

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

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There's a surplus of content, and a deficit of attention...

By Mark Helfen



The world is filled with content. In fact, it’s overfilled, overflowing. Despite this, content is still king.

Or so says Michael Brito. If you want to connect with your market, prospects, or customers you need to break through this deluge of content. At next Monday’s SVForum MarketingSIG meeting, Brito will help you start the process of creating content that engages and conquers the clutter.

We will meet next Monday, February 10 at our usual time and place – the Citrix Startup Accelerator, at 6:30.

Brito is Group Director of Media and Engagement at WCG, an integrated media company. His business includes what he described as “the full spectrum” of customer engagement – PR, social media, web development, paid advertising, and web analytics. Most relevant to his upcoming presentation is his focus on helping his clients with developing a more effective content strategy.

He lists HP and Siemens as examples of his large business clients. He also works with small startups, such as Inrix, a Seattle company that helps deliver traffic information (as in road traffic) to various users.

Brito is the author of Brand, The Next Media Company: How a Social Business Strategy Enables Better Content, Smarter Marketing, and Deeper Customer Relationships. He will bring a few copies of the book to the meeting to give away.

Despite the fact that the world is overfilled with content of all kinds, “content is still king” when it comes to engaging your market. The presentation talk about how to overcome the paradox – a flood of content, yet content is still the best way to reach your customers and prospects.

“Brands need to think like publishers,” with a content mindset and strategy to get attention, whether written, audio, video or other. If you are a publisher then content is your business, and you need to have an operational plan to generate, distribute, and maybe even get paid for your content. In other words, creating content is not a special, one-off task, but a daily part of your marketing operations.

Your brand is already a media company, even if you don’t recognize it yet.

Brito is a fan of developing an operational strategy for content development and publication. It requires an understanding of the “busyiness” of people in your target market. Social media isn’t free, and requires human thinking and time (and money.) He promises a meeting filled with actionable information – “no fluff.” Attendees will leave with a 5-step approach to operationalize their content strategy.

“There is so much going on in the world. There is a constants surplus of content, and an attention deficit.” There are automated tools that can help create content, and measure the results, but strategic thinking is needed. Sometimes this might be changing your organization to reflect the geographic requirements for different kinds of content. Another approach might be developing an editorial boards. By building your content operation, and making content generation a regular part of your marketing operation, you can generate and distribute compelling content that engages your market every day.

So come by Monday, and turn your brand into a media company.

Be sure and sign up at the Marketing and Social Media Meetup site:

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

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

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A New Years reset for Your Marketing Program

By Mark Helfen

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The start of the year is a good time to re-think your marketing. From Linda Popky’s view, it’s time to start with the marketing basics. At next Monday’s meeting, she will provide a framework to help organize your thinking, prioritize your time and money, and maybe help you find things you can stop doing that use up resources but don’t benefit your program. The presentation is titled Setting the Right Coordinates: 7 Ways to Jumpstart Your Marketing in 2014.

The meeting will start 6:30 Monday, January 13, at the Citrix Startup Accelerator, our usual time and place. Along with our usual snacks.

Popky is the founder and president of Leverage2Market Associates, Inc., a strategic marketing company that helps organizations transform their business through marketing. Her consulting clientele includes companies sized from individual entrepreneurs to large Fortune 100 enterprises.

She was a speaker at an earlier MarketingSIG, focused on your personal career development. At that meeting, she talked about her first book, Marketing Your Career: Positioning, Packaging and Promoting Yourself for Success.

But marketing programs that are successful, efficient, and effective are the core of her consulting practice. Most of her focus is on business-to-business sales. For that, she goes back to the basics, referencing markets from the beginning of civilization. The basics of marketing “haven’t changed in thousands of years. You are a farmer with too much milk, someone else has too many eggs, how do you exchange. The definition of market is a place of exchange.” 

Understanding your customers, the unique benefits of your products, how customers will value it, how to price it, and how it will reach your customers hands all need a clear understanding. The key factors need to be identified, and must be measurable to understand if you have hit the target. Her measurement strategy is focused on “external metrics,” things that “move the needle” in ways that advance your business. Like maybe more sales, or increased profit.

Interestingly, the words “social media” weren’t mentioned until I brought them up.

“Just about everyone needs that, but you don’t start there.” Social media is a tactic, based on your strategy. She sees the intense focus on social something like buying furniture for your new house before construction has started.

At Monday’s meeting, she will help you with a 7 point list to start setting the right goals, asking the right questions, and launching your “trajectory” for the coming year. A hint to her viewpoint is the working title of her next book, Stop Marketing Madness: Achieve Better Results with Less Marketing. Addition by subtraction. Not only what to do, but what you can take out and not do, to move the needle.

So come by Monday, and reset your thinking for the new year. Perhaps not the full map – that’s your job. But maybe the starting and end points.

“Start with the end, and then understand what you need to get there. A different way of approaching marketing.”



 Be sure and sign up at the Marketing and Social Media Meetup site:

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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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Marketing 2014 – what are your looming challenges?

By Mark Helfen

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And now for something completely different…..

Most months, the SVForum Marketing and Social Media SIG has a knowledgeable speaker who gives a presentation on an important marketing topic.

This month you - the audience - will be the “speaker.”

In an abbreviated unconference style, the group will list the marketing issues they will face over the next year. We will break up into groups, and brainstorm ideas. Then see what ideas seem to come up most often. Finally, we can crowdsource some possible solutions from the many years and wide expertise of the marketing experts in the room. In a single evening I think we will just scratch the surface, but the discussion can continue on the MarketingSIG LinkedIn group over the next few weeks.

The meeting will be Monday, December 9, at our usual time and place. The Citrix Startup Accelerator, starting at 6:30.

The process will be managed by Kevin Cox, Vice President of Marketing, Yeti Data. He is an expert in digital marketing, awarded BtoB Magazine Top Digital Marketers 2012 & 2011, with 17 years international marketing experience.

The real list will be generated at the meeting. But to give people a few ideas to start their brains working, I polled the MarketingSIG co-chairs for their lists. Here, in no particular order, are some ideas to begin your thinking. I have taken the liberty of summarizing and paraphrasing the contributions, so I am to blame for any errors.

- Marketing technology requires more and more IT budget – possibly exceeding other IT spending. How will Marketing justify, acquire, and manage the systems, software or services used.

-  Social listening and sentiment measurement will become increasingly important. What are the best tools

- People are becoming ever more sensitized to privacy issues and how their data is stored and used. How can marketing programs both be effective and manage customer expectations.

- The rules for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) keep changing. How to keep up.

= Is Facebook over? Do you need a presence on Google+? Is Instagram/Twitter/Pinterest the future or social marketing. What are the social media tools that will be useful for your marketing efforts in 2014.

- Marketing budgets are always tight. How to decide how to allocate your resources. How can you measure ROI for everything you do.

- Where should a new company start.

= Mobile continues to grow (or maybe explode.) News reports this last week talked about how much purchasing was done using mobile devices before Thanksgiving dinner was even over. How can your marketing program take advantage of mobile technology.

- Keeping up is a challenge – more technology, more social media channels, more options. Marketing is becoming more and more specialized. How can a marketing professional keep up. How broad versus deep should your expertise be.

- Communities are critical to success. How can you build communities, both for yourself, and for your customer base.


This is just a short list. Hopefully this will give you a place to start, to bring your own ideas to next Monday’s meeting.

And a big THANKS to the co-chairs for their help.

Be sure and sign up at the Marketing and Social Media Meetup site:

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

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

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You can pull a “PR-180,” engage highly influential people, and energize your content marketing strategy

By Mark Helfen

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What if you could engage with well-known and influential “thought leaders,” and in the process both develop a relationship and increase the credibility of your content production efforts. David Spark has a way. By pulling a “PR-180,” you can engage influencers, establish a relationship, and increase the reach and influence of your blog.

Spark is founder of Spark Media Solutions, a content production company. He describes himself as a “brand journalist,” and creates content of all kinds – video, written, podcasts, and more. He is about to produce his first e-book. His objective is building an editorial brand for his clients. Spark will be speaking on the topic Building Influencer Relations through Content at our next SVForum Marketing and Social Media meeting at 6:30 on Monday, November 11 at the Citrix Startup Accelerator, our usual time and location.

From Sparks perspective, content is an absolute requirement – see his post here. But attracting people who are well known influencers, who you might “never dream” could help you, increases your influence. In other words, you can create interesting content, increase its value, and develop relationships all at the same time.

The normal path is to contact the PR or media relations department at the company the influencer works for, and hope for an eventual interview. But Spark is more closely aligned to the Woody Allen quote – “Showing up is 80 percent of life.” So his interview strategy is to just show up. At trade shows, conferences, or wherever the person he wants to connect with will be found.

Of course, it not quite so simple. You need to be totally prepared. His example is a video interview, where you need to be able to have your equipment on and operating within 10 seconds, to show professionalism and competence.

An interview with an influencer posted on your blog or YouTube channel brings three values: It’s a great reason for engagement with the influencer; the credibility of your content goes up with the implied endorsement of the person being interviewed; and you can follow up and build a professional relationship.

I asked Sparks if this strategy is easily copied. Everyone does it and eventually the idea wears out its welcome. His reply was that after 7 years, “he’s still waiting for direct competition.”

Not everyone feels that they can walk up to someone they don’t know and ask to interview them.

“The first time is really uncomfortable,” he said. But you keep trying, and it gets easier. You learn to overcome what he refers to as the “the last three feet” problem approaching people at a trade show or meeting. You can also practice in a safe environment, with friends or within your own business.

So you can editorial brand value with the help of key influencers. Learn how next Monday night.



Be sure and sign up at the Marketing and Social Media Meetup site:

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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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YouTube has grown up – a tool for customer engagement

By Mark Helfen

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All the cute videos of puppies and babies are still on YouTube. Lady Gaga is still there too - in fact YouTube now is included in the Billboard top 100 music tracks. Hundreds of hours of video get uploaded every minute according to Google statistics, a mix of the weird, the personal, and the important.

But YouTube has also become a way to get customer and market engagement, for you, your brand, or your business. Both business-to-consumer and business-to-business marketing can benefit.

The audience is there, the analytical tools are there, and now you need to be there.

Or so says Matt Ballek, speaker at the Monday, October 14 SVForum Marketing and Social Media SIG meeting. The meeting will be at our usual time and place – 6:30 at the Citrix Startup Accelerator (map). Ballek is Director of Strategic Distribution for Magnet Media, and will be speaking on the topic Measuring Success and Engagement on YouTube. You can check out his YouTube channel here.

There are lots of people spending lots of time watching YouTube. Over 1 billion unique visitors show up every month and watch over 6 billion hours of video. Or as Google puts it, “that's almost an hour for every person on Earth, and 50% more than last year.” YouTube reaches more US adults ages 18-34 than any cable network.

Ballek points out that YouTube is now a major search engine, second only to Google’s web search. Watching his YouTube channel shows Ballek’s expertise in optimizing search results, analogous SEO for Google web search results. Similar to the web search, Google uses their own analytics to judge how much value and engagement their users place on a YouTube video and uses the results to decide search placement.

In addition to search optimization, he will talk about how to design and plan your YouTube marketing, and how to use the “excellent analytic tools” that Google provides to measure your results.

Like elsewhere, content is king. “You can’t optimize unengaging videos.”

Google measures video engagement by how long viewers watch them, how often people click through to a web page, and how often they subscribe and return. High engagement gets higher search engine placement. Because the video is actually on Google’s servers, crowdsourcing based on actual viewing can be factored in.

It’s cheap to start – your smartphone has the capability to produce a useful video, and the cost keeps decreasing. You don’t need high (and expensive) production values to engage customers. What you do need is to provide information that they find interesting or useful, and worth the time. And show up on a regular basis. One idea is to set up a schedule of status updates, so that then your business makes a major announcement your customers are already connected. You can also use YouTube’s search statistics to get an idea of what people are looking for, to give you suggestions for content.

Google+ may also be part of your YouTube engagement solution. Ballek describes Google+ as “the biggest social network you didn’t know you were already using.” Like other Google services, Google+ is getting ever more closely integrated with YouTube. It can help assure more meaningful conversations, and manage customer engagement.


Be sure and sign up at the Marketing and Social Media Meetup site:

 

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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 Science of Thought Leadership

By Mark Helfen

The words “thought leadership” may be overused, even cliché.

But Mitchell Levy has elevated the idea to a science as the first Thought Leadership Architect. In short, he is a thought leader on thought leadership.  Creating thought leaders in your business can help advance its marketing goals, increase ROI, and help compete effectively in a crowded market. Levy has the tools and strategy to help you become one.

Levy will be the speaker at the next SVForum Marketing and Social Media SIG meeting, Monday, September 9 speaking on Learn How to Turn Yourself from Expert to Thought Leader/Guru! The meeting will begin at 6:30 at our regular location, the Citrix Startup Accelerator, 4555 Great America Parkway 3rd Floor, Santa Clara. He commits that everyone who attends will gain at least on “aha moment” on promoting their business, or them self.

Mitchel is CEO of both ThinkAha, a consulting firm focused on thought leadership, and Happy About, a book publisher. The two activities are related, since publishing a book is one of the tools that he promotes to be recognized as a thought leader.

According to Levy, before your prospect ever contacts you, they have put 60 to 80 percent of their effort into internet research. There are a huge number of messages out there; a thought leader draws attention in a crowded space. They become the “go-to guy” (or girl) for reliable information, and show your business as the source of expertise.

His consulting focus is creating thought leaders larger businesses. Employees are going to be on-line anyway. With some training, they can become “activated” to be evangelists for the business. In addition to promoting your brand, you can use the thought leadership of some part of your key people to promote the company. The combined efforts of several employees will have a greater effect than just brand promotion.

Of course, not everyone can take this role. Only a selected subset of all your people might be thought leaders. But it’s also a valuable role to power other people to get recognized as experts.

Levy has several tools in his kit to get this done. Writing books, video, and blogging are three ideas. He is a big fan of LinkedIn (his profile is here: www.linkedin.com/in/mitchelllevy.) Also Google+ seems to be a rising force. 

You may not be part of a large organization, but he commits that everyone will get an “aha moment” during the evening, and come away with two or three ideas to put to use, either for themself or their business. If you want an early preview of his thinking, download a free copy of his ebooks on his web site, mitchelllevy.com.

In our conversation, Levy had an interesting take. “The thought leaders of tomorrow are curators of the data we are browsing today.” Come by on Monday and hear more.

Be sure and sign up at the Marketing and Social Media Meetup site:

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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: www.facebook.com/mark.helfen
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/mark_helfen

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By itself, mobile technology isn’t all that interesting...

By Mark Helfen

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By itself, mobile technology isn’t all that interesting.

But take data from applications, big data analytics, IT, the cloud, and social networks, and cross all the silo boundaries. Then mix with the unique capabilities of mobile devices - geographic knowledge and “at hand” immediacy – and you can delight customers and give employees the tools of efficiency.

In other words, you can create a right time experience.

Or so says Maribel Lopez, speaker at next Monday’s meeting of the SVForum Marketing and Social Media SIG. Her presentation is titled Right Experience, Right Results: Improve Profits, Engagement w/Mobile & Big Data.

We will be at our now usual place, the Citrix Startup Accelerator, at 6:30.

Lopez is Principal and Founder of Lopez Research and describes her role as an industry analyst. Her work is helping enterprises understand what technology changes mean for them, and providing guidance on deploying the changes and transforming their operations.

While she covers using technology to improve marketing, Lopez also has an operational focus on how the company’s internal function can be improved.  She has the interesting view that you should “treat employees as customers,” so that new technology not only can improve the customer experience, but also improve the employee experience. The objective is always to increase efficiency and profits.

To look at mobile just as advertising is too limiting, not to mention that people will quickly tire of having ads on their phone. But by using all of the available data and context and making mobile interaction a right time experience, and you can delight customers.

As an example, a mobile app could know from your Google mail account that you have a flight leaving at a specific time, know your current location, check the traffic patterns on the route you usually use, know how long it takes to get through airport security at the time you will arrive, and remind you exactly when it’s time to leave for the airport.

Using location based real time information combined with data from multiple sources, the mobile device provides compelling, appropriate and relevant information – a right time experience.

That doesn’t exist, yet.

Another idea is to improve company operations. If your business uses Salesforce.com, by using the phones GPS location automatically show the appropriate Salesforce information by connecting to the cloud when the rep walks into the customer office. This makes the rep’s job easier and more efficient. After the rep leaves, ask for a call report.

The idea is that mobile technology has the potential of delivering “the holy grail” of insight, but only when the technology boundaries are crossed to get a right time experience.

So come by Monday, and learn how you use right time experience to delight customers, delight your own employees, and maybe delight your business bottom line.

Security requires all to pre-register. Please do it on Meetup here. 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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Your relationship with your customers may be the one competitive advantage that can’t be copied.

By Mark Helfen

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Your relationship with your customers may be the one competitive advantage that can’t be copied.

Or so says Linda Sharp, CEO of Religence, a “customer-focused performance management consulting firm specializing in Customer Relationship Intelligence” according to the company web site.

Sharp will be the speaker at the upcoming SVForum Marketing and Social Media SIG meeting, on June 10. The meeting will be held at our now regular location, the Citrix Startup Accelerator (map here.) The meeting is titled “The Money is in Retention. Start There. Harvest GOLD in the BIG Data Blizzard,” but after my conversation, I could shortcut that to “a better understanding of your customer relationships leads to more profits from you customers.”  As usual, meeting starts at 6:30.

Sharps method is to make measurement of customer relationships as close to a science as possible, creating a metric called “Relationship Value.” The atomic unit of the relationship is an interaction between you and your customer. An interaction can move the relationship forward or backward, but you will have no idea where things stand unless the information is tracked.

Tracking, managing, and improving your customer relationship value requires a person who has this as their primary responsibility, and Sharp recommends making relationship management a separate function and assigning someone the job – a customer relationship manager. This person makes tracking relationships a deliberate and proactive responsibility. 

The task is made easier by widespread adoption of social media, along with more traditional internet connections like email. Where customer interactions were once ephemeral, possibly not recorded at all, they now form a “blizzard” of stored information, just needing that relationship manager and big data techniques to analyze and characterize all of the now collected digital data.

“The behavior of profitable customers is very different than the behavior of customers who aren’t,” said Sharp. But unless you start measuring the interactions, it’s hard to separate out the two. You may not get a precise numerical answer, but even a relative measurement can be enough. And just asking the right question can affect the value of your customer to you.

The outcome is a better understanding of your customer relationship. Analyzing interaction data can help identify patterns of behavior. Some patterns can indicate a customer that is interested in a close relationship. A different pattern can be an early warning of problems in the relationship.

Sharp has an interesting view of how relationship management, and tracking relationship value, affects marketing getting their “rightful place at the management table”: In analyzing the competitive advantages of a business, control of resources is managed by finance. The businesses economy of scale is owned by operations. Technology advantage is owned by Information Technology. But if marketing owns the customer relationship – a competitive advantage that can’t be copied – they take a full seat at the table.

So come by Monday, and learn how customer relationship data can increase your customer retention and profitability. 





Please sign up at:

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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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Email is still the “linchpin” of your marketing strategy.

By Mark Helfen

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Email is still the “linchpin” of your marketing strategy.

Or so says Elyse Tager, West Coast Regional Development Director at
Constant Contact. Tager will be the speaker at the May 13 SVForum Marketing and Social Media SIG meeting. (Remember we are now at a new location -  Citrix Startup Accelerator at 4555 Great America Parkway.)

A key part of Tager’s business development role is delivering educational seminars – specifically helping entrepreneurs and small businesses develop an effective marketing program. Given the limited time and money available, efficiency and effectiveness with a limited budget is key.

Her thinking seems well plugged in to this small business reality. Constant Contact focuses on small and mid-sized companies, including non-profits. Enterprise sized companies aren’t their target.

“It’s no surprise, most small businesses don’t know how to market,” said Tager. People who are dentists, lawyers (or software developers) “didn’t wake up in the morning to be marketers.” They spend their time on their specialty, the thing that makes their business successful, and need tools to help develop a marketing program. 

If the basics of marketing aren’t difficult enough, new communication channels keep appearing. Some may be useful, some not. A marketer needs to “keep their radar open” to see how the environment is changing, while building an effective program.

Tager’s presentation will give a top level review of the growing number of options. From her perspective, mobile is “here yesterday” and should already be part of your marketing mix. Video, Pinterest, Instagram could all be useful. At the same time, you shouldn’t be “seduced” by all of the “crazy stuff” that is appearing.

“Were not all wearing Google Glasses.” Yet.

The old style of marketing – sending out messages to your customers, needs to be replaced. The new social tools need to engage customers and prospects in a two-way conversation.

Tager views email as the core of an engagement strategy – the linchpin. Combined with social tools, it forms a loop that “exponentially increases your reach and engagement.”  Social tools like Facebook are a way of attracting people, but email is under your control, and allows you to control communications. All of this counts on creating content that is compelling and interesting to your current and future customers.

So come by Monday, learn how your small business can develop and effective marketing program within your limits of time and money.

BTW, if you occasionally slip and refer to Constant Contact (the cloud based marketing company) as Constant Comment (the flavored tea) as I did once in my interview, you will be forgiven. Tager said this has happened to her a few times…

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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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Sign up on:

Everything you’re doing today is wrong - come by the April Marketing and Social Media SIG and learn why

By Mark Helfen

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When it comes to your customers digital experience, “everything you’re doing today is wrong.”

Or so says Kelly Dempski, speaker at the Monday, April 8 SVForum Marketing and Social Media SIG .

NOTE – we are again at our new home, Citrix, the same as our March meeting, but a change from recent months:

Citrix Startup Accelerator
Map
4555 Great America Parkway 3rd Floor, Santa Clara
http://citrixstartupaccelerator.com/find-us/

Dempski is Managing Director for Accenture Technology Labs, Silicon Valley. He has one foot in the latest innovations in the valley, and the other in explaining the future to Fortune 50 companies who usually move at a different speed. His lab looks three years into the future, with the objective of both optimizing and enhancing change – from his perspective the more of his clients that adopt new technologies, the faster they will develop. He helps his client companies, buried in the avalanche of technology information, distinguish between what is just a “shiny object” and what is a valuable trend that needs action.

His talk is titled SLoPe (Social, Local & Personal) as the New SoLoMo. SoLoMo is a widely used acronym standing for Social, Local, and Mobile – a new way of relating to customers. Dempski chose his contrasting version to emphasize that it’s not mobile (the technology) that counts, its personalization – the unique connection with the individual that makes the difference.

The objective of SLoPe is to “craft more engaging, useful, and pleasant” digital experiences that are “deeply personal.” His presentation will “deconstruct” current practices, which focus on “social media mechanics” – the specific tool or platform like Facebook or Twitter, over connecting, communicating, personalizing and influencing consumers.

He has an interesting take on mobile. The point isn’t that devices are mobile. After all, your laptop is mobile. The idea is that handheld devices are always within a few feet, connected, powered on, and available for use. It’s less about the mechanics of a mobile device, and more about digital experience and engagement using a ubiquitous device that’s always at hand.

The digital world is limited by old design choices. Like the phone systems which still works with people dialing ten digits. The system of TV channels was designed in the 50s. If it was redone today, it would be entirely different. Businesses need to break out of the mold

Dempski’s viewpoint gives a unique bridge connecting the high speed innovation of the valley tempered by the reality of how fast large companies can move. You may view your small startup as moving at a light speed, but in the end you need to sell your products to someone, and large businesses can be good customers.

So come by Monday night, and learn why “everything you’re doing today is wrong” – at least in terms of digital interaction with your customers.





Please sign up at:

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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Get ahead of 99% of social media and on-line marketers at next Mondays SVForum MarketingSIG.

By Mark Helfen

With some on-line education, you can be ahead of 99 percent of other marketers in effective social media and on-line marketing. Or so says Aaron Kahlow, CEO and Founder of the Online Marketing Institute and speaker at the March 11 SVForum MarketingSIG.

And SIG attendees can get their first week of education free.

NOTE – starting with the March meeting will be at a new location (again!)
Citrix Startup Accelerator
4555 Great America Parkway 3rd Floor, Santa Clara


Kahlow started out around 15 years ago in the back of a dental office as a digital ad agency, designing web pages and optimizing search results. The Institute is now a $10 million a year business that specializes in bridging the education gap between traditional marketing and newer models of social, video, and on-line. The sound of drilling is long gone.

At Monday’s presentation, he will talk about a philosophy of social marketing – how to think about your marketing strategy. His talk will include real-world, global stories of strategies that worked. Kahlow is big on analytics and attribution – having a clear understanding of which social channel actually brings in business, and using this data to guide future investment.

And to prove his belief an attribution, the stories will include links to original materials that were the basis of his examples.

While social means Facebook, Kahlow also emphasizes video. There is more time spent each day watching video than on Facebook, and a “good video strategy” is critical.

The Online Marketing Institute is a subscription based service with classes in social media marketing, email marketing, content marketing and many others. Kahlow described the courses as having “high value and high impact,” and agreed to give MarketingSIG attendees a free week of access.

OMI also offers certificates in a variety of social media marketing. These are recognized by major marketing associations - DMA and IAB were two examples named by Kahlow. By completing the certificate, you will “have a clear differentiation from other people” who do digital marketing, and will know more than 99 percent of them.

True to his social media nature, he invites connections, on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter. Just search for his name.

So come by next Monday, and start your social media education.

Sign up on 


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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 New A-B-Cs

By Mark Lewis


In sales lingo A-B-C means, “Always Be Closing”.  For those not in sales, the new A-B-Cs should stand for “Always Be Connecting”.  I am always surprised by the unexpected things that come from connecting with people.  And I hear so many people say, “…you never know…”.  That is more true today than in the past, you never know where your next lead, deal, opportunity, etc will come from. 

The challenge that so many people have is that they know they should be doing a better job with networking and connecting with people – with existing contacts as well as making new ones.  They don’t however make it a regular practice until they need something.  I won’t say that then “it’s too late” because people are generally helpful especially if they have been a close contact in the past but it is certainly easier on everyone if it is a contact that has been nurtured in some way.  Email and even social media are all fine ways to keep in touch with someone and at least stay on each other’s radar.  Phone and in-person are by far better.

The old adage is partially true, “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”.  Certainly you still have to know something but it is definitely true that who you know is important.

Get out there and re-connect with people that are in your network then branch out to connecting with new people – wherever you are remember the A-B-Cs; Always Be Connecting.

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Mark Lewis is a marketing executive with hands-on experience across the marketing mix.  He can be found at linkedin.com/in/markelewis/ and he is always interested in connecting with new people.




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Content marketing turns your customer acquisition strategy around 180 degrees

By Mark Helfen

NOTE NEW MEETING LOCATION-
We are now meeting at:
Silicon Valley Innovation Center
3200 Coronado Drive. Santa Clara, CA 95051
Map: http://goo.gl/maps/qE7Xl


Content marketing turns your customer acquisition strategy around 180 degrees. Instead of using advertising to find customers, create valuable content so customers will find you.

Or so says Barry Feldman, speaker at Monday’s SVForum MarketingSIG, February 11. Feldman “creates compelling content by telling stories” at his eponymous business, Feldman Creative. The idea is that by creating content of value to your future customers, they will start down the path of being current customers.

The dynamics of marketing communication have changed, putting customers in control, making an advertising strategy much harder. People don’t like being sold to.

“We all have our media filters on,” said Feldman. “We consume as little advertising as possible.”  In creating web contents, you need to “ditch the pitch,” treat the reader as a friend, and create content that is valuable. He recommends a “journalistic approach.”

Some people have described content marketing as a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. By having “real” content using lots of the right words, search engines (meaning Google) will consider your page as valuable to their search customers, and it will appear higher in Google’s results.

But Feldman recommends against this, saying is compromises the quality of your content. Don’t write for a robot - create value for your customers. You need to be aware of how Google ranks pages, but it can’t be the driver. Besides, as Google’s engineers keep improving their ranking it’s getting harder and harder to fool their search algorithms.

So, are you ready to create invaluable content? The presentation will include a 7-step list for getting started, including a number of potential topics to cover in your writing.

Feldman practices what he preaches, and is clearly a prolific writer. You can see examples of his work here:

Your Site is the Mousetrap, Your Content is the Cheese

Why You Shouldn’t Do Content Marketing

Do You Have the Skills to Cut It in Content Marketing?

And most recently:

Only Birdbrains Bet $4,000,000 on the Super Bowl

And for some more help in getting started, Feldman recently published an ebook:

The Plan to Grow Your Business with Effective Online Marketing available here.

But maybe you don’t think you’re a writer at all. Some people are “writer phobic,” caused in some cases by “perfection paralysis.”

Well, you don’t need to be a great writer, as long as you’re knowledgeable on your subject and understand what your customers want. But if you can’t write, speak (or as Feldman puts it, “yakk”.) Talk into a camera, telling a compelling story using your knowledge and enthusiasm, and use the resulting words as a basis for you or someone else to write content based on what you say.

So come by Monday, and get started with getting your customers to come to you.




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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