By Hailley Griffis
In this week’s roundup, we explore how PR agencies are in fact not dead, and why digital marketing is more than just social media (and other misconceptions.) In addition, we focus on startups, with reads that look at the top ways startups screw up and a few red flags when pitching to investors. This week’s articles come from Spin Sucks, Fourth Source, Wamda and Forbes.
Don’t die PR agencies, what the recent Google changes really mean
Gini Dietrich replies with a resounding “no” to the idea that Google has just killed PR agencies, or news releases, with its new update. If you consider PR to be purely news releases then you need to get back to the media relations that were actually supposed to be happening, where you build a relationship with journalists and reporters, call them and then pitch an idea after that.
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By Francis Moran
When I started inmedia Public Relations in the late 1990s, Ottawa and much of the rest of North America was mid-way through one of the most inflated economic bubbles that had been experienced up to that point.
The 1996 Telecommunications Act in the U.S. had spawned scores of ILECs, CLECs and a host of other acronyms describing various flavours of telecommunications carriers, all of which were on hungry equipment-buying sprees. This coincided nicely with the rise of data versus voice traffic, and so the requirement to build out brand new kinds of packet- rather than circuit-switched networks. These twin market drivers were the impetus behind a raft of new optical, silicon and networking startups in Ottawa as well as the unprecedented climb of Nortel Networks, which at one point had a market capitalization worth more than one-third of the entire Toronto Stock Exchange.
Driving much of that data traffic — either actual or anticipated — was this thing called the Internet, which was in its first furious bloom. The notion had somehow taken hold of otherwise canny people that you could put up a web site to transact almost any sort of business and that massive value would swiftly be created simply by attracting eyeballs to that site, even if precious few of the owners of those eyeballs ever actually bought anything.
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By Heather Campbell
Small businesses account for a huge chunk of business revenue produced in our country. In fact, there are nearly seven million small businesses in America. This includes everything from mom and pop shops in your local town to freelance work done in your neighbor’s basement. All of these businesses are important.
Completing a business to business transaction for a large corporation may be no big deal. These big businesses market their strengths easily. In many cases, they have a budget set aside for these things. They are experts at it. What about a small business though? Does it have the same success? Can it have the same success? Does it complete small business to big business marketing or small business to small business marketing?
The concept of business to business (B2B) marketing is very simple. B2B marketing is the relationship of selling and promoting between two businesses. Read More
By Leo Valiquette
Your quality as a vendor is often demonstrated best by how you deal with prospects who have decided your product or service is not for them.
As Francis wrote in his last post on customer service, we have a particular preoccupation with this subject because of its timeless relevance to any technology company:
“Customer service is based on what I have come to call my first law of competitive differentiation, the proposition that, in an age when almost any technological or cost advantage will rapidly and inevitably be eroded, the only sustainable competitive differentiation for most companies is to treat their customers like the centre of the universe, which they are.”
My most recent experience should be of particular relevance to software vendors, especially software vendors that are targeting niche markets and are trying to keep a lot of balls in the air with a small team.
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By Peter Hanschke
This is the last instalment of my journey product-managing myself to build and commercialize an iOS app.
In my previous post I revealed the name and details of my app and how important it is to test as many scenarios and on as many platforms as possible. I signed off the post with the fate of myFabWines resting in the hands of Apple’s review committee. Shortly after the post, I received word that myFabWines was accepted into the iTunes App Store. I had expected, based on all my previous research, that my app would be rejected the first time I submitted it. I honestly think my level of testing and setting up a beta program helped in being accepted on the first attempt. So, again, I can’t stress enough the importance of testing. On August 1, myFabWines was available for sale … mission accomplished. My target date was July 1, so I missed by a month, but I’m OK with that.
So now what? Version 2, of course!
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Great articles roundup: Demo day, VCs, cost of content marketing and startup PR mistakes
August 16, 2013 by Hailley Griffis
In this week’s roundup we rail against misconception, with articles from PandoDaily, Venture Beat, Business to Community and Washington Business Journal. […]
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Show up and throw up: A presentation epidemic
August 15, 2013 by Anil Dilawri
Nobody ever said, “That was an okay presentation, I just wish it was longer.” Yet day after day, in boardrooms around the world, presenters set up their laptops and present way too much information to their disinterested audiences. […]
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Ottawa’s new innovation complex needs lots of parking. And maybe a few other things, too
August 14, 2013 by Francis Moran
By Francis Moran Once they got past an inexplicable preoccupation with parking, participants at a focus group session last night had some good input for Ottawa’s economic development folks who are planning an ambitious innovation complex just west of the city’s downtown core. Ian Scott, an economic development officer in the city manager’s office, gave […]
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If you neglect your health, you are neglecting a crucial part of your business
August 13, 2013 by Leo Valiquette
Back in March I walked into an Ottawa Chamber of Commerce event and volunteered to be the male half of a 10-week fitness challenge. It was an impulse buy. It was also great timing […]
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Identifying the invention
August 12, 2013 by David French
In preparing materials for a recent presentation I boldly summarized the patenting process as follows:
It’s very easy to obtain a patent. Just file an application: […]
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Great articles roundup: Digital marketing, Facebook news feed, useful marketing and marketing mistakes.
August 09, 2013 by Hailley Griffis
Happy Friday everyone, this week, as usual, we have our favourite articles of the week lined up for you. Since we’ve been talking about startups and entrepreneurship in Ottawa in a few posts on the blog this week […]
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Ottawa’s proposed innovation complex suffers Ottawa’s familiar inferiority complex
August 08, 2013 by Francis Moran
When Ottawa’s newly reconstituted economic development agency Invest Ottawa earlier this year unveiled its proposal to convert a disused former city workshop in the Bayview Yards into a hub for the city’s technology and startup communities […]
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To serve the entrepreneur, you need to think like an entrepreneur
August 07, 2013 by Leo Valiquette
This may seem like an odd topic to raise in the early days of August. After all, it was a story that first broke in January […]
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By Hailley Griffis
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The Future of A&R – Walabe : [...] http://francis-moran.com/marketing-strategy/top-10-questions-every-strategic-communicator-should-ask... [...]
Traditional Marketing is Dead – Long Live Bikini Waxer Marketing | Scalexl : [...] pointed out by Alexandra Reid on the Francis Moran website content marketing is becoming more and more like journalism. So, it is not just about the content, [...]
It’s Summertime…and the Networking is Easy? | THE MERRAINE BRAIN : [...] In fact, summer is perhaps one of the times least used to network, yet at the same time has shown to be the most productive time to network. People tend to be in a brighter mood compared to during the gloomy winters-especially where I am from in England! Networking needs to be fun and not approached as another chore, like mowing the lawn. (http://francis-moran.com/marketing-strategy/social-media-strategy-why-meeting-in-the-real-world-matt...) [...]