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 (look to Leo and Francis’ duelling posts), our first article talks about why startups should opt for digital marketing. Next we take a look at the latest change to Facebook and what that means for B2B marketers. Finally, the last two articles we’ve rounded up talk about how to combine your customer service and marketing efforts by making your marketing useful and avoiding silly mistakes on social media. We pulled this week’s content from Nashville Business Journal, Convince and Convert, Social Media B2B and Memeburn. Let us know what you think!
4 reasons startups should invest in digital marketing
Samantha Owns Pyle, Owner of Green Apple Strategy, looks into some excellent reasons why entrepreneurs should consider beginning their marketing efforts with digital marketing, as opposed to jumping into traditional mass marketing. Cost effectiveness is a big one for startups, as is setting up early-stage personal branding.
Read More
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, I thought it was one of the boldest initiatives from an organization whose hallmark, at least in its previous incarnations, was not exactly one of bold and innovative thinking. I have long looked covetously at Kitchener-Waterloo’s Communitech Hub, Toronto’s MaRS Discovery District or Campus London in the British city’s east end, and I welcomed the IO effort to create a similar locus and anchor point for Ottawa’s considerable but largely fractured technology communities.
(And I use the plural of community advisedly here. Ottawa’s tech sector is an amalgam of communities that, best efforts of many people notwithstanding, continues to fracture between the older, west-end companies focused mainly on communications infrastructure and the younger, downtown companies working on software and apps.) Read More
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 and doesn’t seem to have garnered much media attention in the months since. But after my recent trip to Kitchener-Waterloo and immersing myself in the environment of the Communitech Hub, it seems that some discourse should be attempted on a subject that has perhaps provoked too little attention so far from mainstream media.
I am referring to plans by the City of Ottawa and Invest Ottawa to construct at Bayview Yards west of the Canadian War Museum an “innovation complex” that would repurpose an old 150,000-square-foot city workshop (pictured). According to a city staff report from January, the complex “would help to meet the growing demands of new entrepreneurs in Ottawa” and be modelled after Communitech and the MaRS Discovery District in Toronto.
The site is nestled in a rather forlorn light industrial area characterized by weeds growing from cracks in the concrete. However, this area is the focus of the city’s Bayview Community Design Plan.
Read More
By Hailley Griffis
Last month’s lineup featured great posts that shattered common myths about how your brain functionality affects sales and marketing and whether or not your software demo may be killing your sales. We looked at worst practices in the world of social media marketing (and how to avoid them), as well as how to pitch an investor slide by slide. Most notably, our website was redesigned and we are happy to present to you the new and improved layout. Let us know what you think!
In case you missed any of it, here is a handy recap of our posts, as ranked by the enthusiasm of our readers:
Read More
By Francis Moran
Today is a typically confused holiday for we Canadians.
It’s the Monday of a long weekend that is enjoyed coast to coast.
Well, almost coast to coast; in that unique fashion of theirs, Quebecers express their distinct society aspirations on this day by not having it off. (Although they did get to enjoy their Fête nationale du Québec on June 24, so they can’t really complain.)
We have trouble deciding what to call this quasi-national holiday in the rest of the country.
For most, it simply carries the anodyne moniker, August Long Weekend.
For Haligonians, it’s Natal Day. (Although I lived in Halifax for more than 10 years, I was never a real Haligonian. At best, I was a reasonable Halifacsimile. But I always enjoyed the Concert on the Hill and fireworks on what was only nominally the city’s birthday.)
Read More
-
Great articles roundup: Online and real-time marketing, social customer service and the Gmail Promotions tab
August 02, 2013 by Hailley Griffis
We’ve rounded up some of the best posts we came across this week, to share them in our weekly roundup post. Today we’re looking at the justification for online marketing […]
Read more... -
‘The definition of an entrepreneur is someone who is abnormal’
August 01, 2013 by Francis Moran
Ottawa entrepreneurs were treated last night to a rare performance when seasoned entrepreneur and pioneering angel investor David Rose […]
Read more... -
-
The tech world should defend the Keystone pipeline
July 31, 2013 by Denzil Doyle
It is encouraging to see the emphasis that President Obama is placing on the jobs and other economic spinoffs that will be created by the proposed Keystone pipeline, because if the arithmetic is done properly […]
Read more... -
Investor pitching 101, with Communitech’s Frank Erschen
July 30, 2013 by Leo Valiquette
“It’s all about the content, it’s not about the sizzle. You have to give investors the content they need to make an investing decision.”
So says Frank Erschen, pitch coach […]
Read more... -
-
Why the best target for your sales and marketing efforts is a reptile
July 29, 2013 by Bob Bailly
As a self professed science nerd my study of choice over the last decade has been neuroscience, so much so that I’ve built a consulting practice centered on a notion […]
Read more... -
Great articles roundup: The content marketing playbook, storytelling, marketing trends, quality vs. quantity
July 26, 2013 by Hailley Griffis
The great article roundup this week is very focused on excellent content marketing posts, as well as a hint of what the future of marketing will bring. Articles on Forbes, ClickThrough as well as Search Engine Watch […]
Read more... -
-
Welcome to our new design
July 25, 2013 by Francis Moran
If “new and improved” is supposed to be the most potent statement in marketing, then I have high hopes for the newly designed website you are now reading. […]
Read more... -
Soaking up that K-W vibe
July 23, 2013 by Leo Valiquette
Even casual readers of this blog will likely know we are great fans of the good work done from the Kitchener-Waterloo region by Communitech. I am writing this post from the Communitech Hub and have to admit this week marks my first visit […]
Read more... -
Twitter
Tweets by @FrancisMoranRecent Comments
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...) [...]