By Alexandra Reid
As a regular weekly feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of some of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are Copyblogger, GigaOm, The Flack and GeekWire.
20 mistakes that will undermine your call to action and cost you sales
As content marketers, we spend a lot of time obsessing over increasing traffic. It’s the sexy thing to do. However, the number of leads fails to match our expectations because we don’t spend enough time creating a killer call to action. There are dozens of call-to-action mistakes that can doom your efforts to convert traffic into leads or sales. Copyblogger shares 20 of the most common.
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By Alexandra Reid
I shamelessly adapted the title of this post based on the original Fast Company article, Anything they can do you can do better, which explained that when it comes to designing new products, companies must aim to build them better than their competitors.
On the surface, this advice seems obvious. But it becomes more complex when you consider how fine the line really is that separates a pioneer and a “me too,” and what it takes to differentiate and improve your product enough for people to take notice.
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By Alexandra Reid
As a regular weekly feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of some of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are Business2Community, Financial Post, VentureBeat, eMarketer, and TechVibes.
‘Looking big’ is not an effective B2B marketing message
It’s not rare to see B2B companies sucked into the distorted reality that they must market themselves as larger companies to woo their prospect bases. The traditional logic is that if you are selling to larger companies, you should act larger in an effort to appeal to them. Author Brian Jameson explains that B2B marketing is not a boxing match where fighters fall into weight classes.
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We covered lots of new and interesting subjects on our blog last month. Contributor Caroline Kealey discussed the importance of measurement for communications people. Terry Lavineway shared important information on business incentives in the federal budget. David French further explored the world of patents and explained how get value for your money. Our Francis Moran covered recent developments in Waterloo and shared counsel on the importance of having a good startup team, while Alexandra Reid examined the importance of social media images and interviewed startup champion Victoria Lennox on Startup Canada’s cross country tour and launch, happening this week in Ottawa. Plus, we had our regular monthly check-ins with startups Genevolve, Screenreach and NanoScale.
These topics merely scratch the surface of our coverage last month. If you missed any of our posts, here is a handy roundup.
April 3: Getting ready for the big show by Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette
April 12: Learning how to deal with the unexpected by Francis Moran and Alexandra Reid
April 25: Do you know how to dance with angels? by Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette
And on a related note…
In addition to our series, our associates and guest bloggers were also busy writing on a great range of topics. Here are our other posts from April, as ranked by the enthusiasm of our readers:
April 19: What’s going on in Waterloo? by Francis Moran
April 24: There is no magic recipe for a successful company, only good cooks by Francis Moran
April 16: Innovation and the budget by Denzil Doyle
April 23: Tales from the trenches: New associate joins our team by Jeff Campbell
April 17: Social media strategy: Why meeting in the ‘real world’ matters by Alexandra Reid
April 2: Making measurement work for communications professionals by Caroline Kealey
April 5: How to municipimp your municipality by Alexandra Reid
April 18: What an entrepreneur can learn from a literary conference by Leo Valiquette
April 30: From whiteboard to customers: a perspective from the startup world by Jesse Rodgers
April 9: Are we getting value for all the money we’re spending on patents? by David French
April 4: There were other business-related incentive tidbits in the federal budget by Terry Lavineway
April 26: Victoria Lennox: Startup champion by Alexandra Reid
April 13: The importance of developing a social media image strategy by Alexandra Reid
By Alexandra Reid
“A million people walk into a bar in Silicon Valley. Nobody buys anything. The bar is declared a huge success.”
Harley Finkelstein, CPO of Shopify, shared that illuminating joke during the panel discussion at Startup Canada. It seemed to resonate with the audience because, aside from it being funny, it identified a serious problem in the way many entrepreneurs run their new companies.
The lesson is that startups will fail if they can’t see past the hype and generate sales consistently. Yet there is a common perception that if a new company garners attention, whether that is through media, word-of-mouth, or otherwise, it will automatically be successful.
While attention and success can support one another, this isn’t a business model on which startups should bet their livelihoods. The focus of attention must always be the needs of the customer.
“Need is the mother of all invention,” declared serial entrepreneur Sir Terry Matthews during his speech. It is identifying need and positioning a product to solve it that enables startups to go to market quickly, beat out any competition and ultimately be successful.
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As a regular weekly feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of some of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are Copyblogger, GigaOm, The Flack and GeekWire.
