Thank you for being with us for the first month of our new blog. In case you missed any posts, here is a recap, beginning with, in chronological order, our special report on getting technology to market, The Commercialization Ecosystem, which continues this month.
By Alexandra Reid
Throughout his career, both in Canada and the U.K., Bryan J. Watson has been a champion of entrepreneurship as a vector for the commercialization of advanced technologies. As demonstrated by his concurrent roles as executive director of a number of non-profit emerging-growth venture-fostering organizations including the National Angel Capital Organization, CEO of Fusion and a director of Precarn Inc. and the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance, Bryan takes an active role in the entire entrepreneurial spectrum from idea-generation to financing to liquidity event.
How are entrepreneurs currently using social media to get their startups noticed by angels?
In general, entrepreneurs are using social media such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook for outreach both to angels and to the wider community. More specifically, they are using these channels to share information about their ventures and to generate buzz. Mostly, it is the web-based companies that are the early adopters of social media as an outreach tool, I find.
For startups, social media encompasses a wider range of online platforms, such as AngelList, Tech Crunch’s CrunchBase, and StartupIndex. These platforms are social in that they allow entrepreneurs to share information about their ventures with investors. On the investment-opportunity-intake side of things, sites like AngelSoft, unlike widely used social media platforms, are secured and closed systems involving only individuals in the angel capital community. Entrepreneurs and investors are using these platforms to share and receive business information and manage deal flow.
By Linda Forrest
Francis kicked off the launch of this blog by listing to some of the more common objections made by technology companies about why they’re not investing in marketing. One of these straw man arguments, an all-too-common refrain, is a lack of budget. From that first post:
“Lack of budget is the next most common excuse for not engaging in marketing. This one has more legitimacy but it also betrays a failure by marketers. If we can’t get the funds we need to do the job we believe needs to be done, it’s because we have failed to adequately plot the line between cause and effect, between marketing outflow and revenue income. What rational person would decline to invest a second and third dollar into a marketing program that has proven that the first dollar actually produced the revenue we said it would?”
We’ve long said that marketing is an investment, rather than a cost centre, and that’s absolutely the case. A business that views marketing merely as an expenditure rather than a tool to increase market share and revenue is doomed to failure. Marketing requires investment of money, time and resources to be successful. To borrow a line from a Canadian bank’s advertising campaign, “you’re richer than you think” when it comes to having “budget” for marketing. And here’s why.
By Francis Moran
Although I am utterly persuaded of the efficacy of new and social media as potent marketing, communications, outreach and customer service channels, I am also utterly persuaded that far too many so-called social media marketers are, quite simply, drowning in the Kool-Aid.
An early indication of this social media myopia became apparent in a conversation I had a year or so back with one of these self-styled new media gurus. She and I got into a discussion one evening about the value of social media channels. Her argument was that any and every new media channel trumped any and every so-called old media channel; that this new media model had completely disrupted the old media model.
By Leo Valiquette
Do you remember that Knorr commercial about how it had reduced sodium in its packaged side dishes?
Global advertising agency DDB Worldwide took a clever approach to promote a relatively humdrum message by portraying the perspective of that one individual unhappy about sodium reduction. It came up with an ad that features a despondent little salt shaker neglected at the family dinner table who trudges out of the house into a cold dark world.
Such creativity, says Jeff Swystun, is the most powerful force in business, especially in today’s world where technology has fuelled social interaction between consumers and the brands they use like never before. In this new reality, advertisers and marketers can no longer afford to focus on connecting people to brands. They must instead focus on connecting people to people.
