By Hailley Griffis
The great article roundup this week focuses on excellent content marketing posts, as well as a hint of what the future will bring. Forbes, ClickThrough and Search Engine Watch touch on content marketing, some intriguing case studies, the importance of storytelling, and the quantity vs. quality debate. Finally, a futuristic piece on SocialMediaExaminer looks at six of the biggest marketing trends to watch for in 2013 and why they are so important.
Content marketing: A playbook
Christa Carone offers takeaways from big brands that are really succeeding with content marketing. Some of the key elements she writes about are knowing the purpose of your content marketing, as well as making sure that the content is relevant. She stresses the importance of setting expectations and changing your angle if you aren’t reaching them.
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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.
If you are a long-time reader, you will know that this blog had its origins almost six years ago, when the bulk of my time was spent managing the technology PR agency, inmedia Public Relations, that I had founded a decade earlier. A few years ago, I started a transition away from an agency model and back to my roots as a marketing strategist. Although inmedia persists and continues to have some great clients, I now spend most of time working hands on with smaller and startup B2B technology companies that know they need the marketing strategy piece but don’t have either the resources or the requirement for a full-time VP of marketing.
The model I set out to develop was a virtual one wherein we are able to bring to the table exactly the marketing resources a young company requires in exactly the right amount and at exactly the right time. In support of that, we re-striped the inmedia blog about two years ago under the name of the new venture, Francis Moran and Associates, and widened our scope of our writing to cover the whole spectrum of bringing technology to market, from hard-core marketing issues like positioning and social media to adjacent issues like financing, government support programs and the health of the whole commercialization ecosystem in our three key operating areas of Canada, the United States and Britain.
You really seem to like what we have done. Traffic levels have seen consistent growth. We have attracted contributors of a calibre far higher than anything we anticipated at the outset. And the blog has created an international footprint for my personal brand that could not have been achieved any other way.
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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.
Our Francis Moran is of course a frequent visitor. While I have in the past had the opportunity to interview Communitech CEO Iain Klugman and Tim Jackson from the region’s Accelerator Centre, and work with the team at Communitech’s national arm, the Canadian Digital Media Network, I had not yet made the trek myself.
It also marks my first visit to a regional economic development agency outside Ottawa. Kitchener-Waterloo is not characterized by the shadow of big government as Ottawa is, but the linkages between industry, academia and government are obvious from the outset.
Walking down the street, I was struck by the profound significance of seeing on the side of the same building, alongside Communitech’s, the logos for Google, a multinational tech titan that needs no introduction, and local company Desire2Learn, which last year bagged the single largest first round of venture capital ever by a Canadian software play (largely from a U.S. investor). These two companies alone house upwards of 1,000 people in the complex.
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This is the next entry in our “Best of” series, in which we venture deep into the vault to replay blog opinion and insight that has withstood the test of time. Today’s post hails from May 2009. We welcome your feedback.
By Francis Moran
I was interviewed a few weeks back by the Ottawa Business Journal for a piece on marketing through a downturn. While a good bit of what I had to say did make it into the article, I thought it would be useful to expand on my thinking here. So, here are my 10 tips for marketing through a downturn.
1. Do as much marketing as you can afford
We’ve written a lot about the merit of maintaining your marketing spend through an economic downturn. There is still business to be written, markets to be taken and customers to be won. And a downturn, when many of your competitors may well be going quiet, often represents an unprecedented opportunity to grab a much larger share of voice.
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By Hailley Griffis
This week’s great article roundup is all about our bread and butter — marketing. From LinkedIn marketing and marketing strategy, to email marketing and content creation. Business Insider, Forbes, Entrepreneur.com and Social Media Today all give excellent tips and tricks. Enjoy.
How to use LinkedIn to boost marketing and increase sales
Business Insider explains just how powerful LinkedIn can be. With more than 225 million professionals worldwide using it, it is the hub for professionals to network and share online. Business Insider states that 24 per cent of salespeople increase their sales when they start using social media. Organizations can show off their expertise on LinkedIn and use company profiles and groups to build an influential presence.
Creating a successful marketing strategy
Andrew Klausner talks about the importance of a robust marketing strategy. Although many companies operate off of referrals, if ever the referrals slow down, they need to have a strategy in place to pick up sales. But you cannot simply decide to market one day, and stop the next. Klausner points out some key elements to a successful strategy, including being realistic and consistent over time.
10 questions to ask when choosing an email marketing service
Email marketing is still in full swing, having grown exponentially since 2009. It is now responsible for 7.5 per cent of new customers, according to recent stats. There are so many email marketing services out there, Kim Lachance Shandrow outlines some important things to first look over before deciding on one. She highlights setting goals, determining costs, picking a design and deciding on platforms, among others.
5 key elements of viral content
Mark Smiciklas knows that every marketer dreams of having their content shared like wildfire. He shares an infographic that reveals the secret sauce for making content viral. The infographic looks at elements like scarcity, share buttons, skim-ability, practical utility and consistency. One interesting fact is that the average user consumes only about 20 per cent of the content on a web page.
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Why VC funding might spike your dreams
July 18, 2013 by Francis Moran
One of the more thought-provoking presentations at last week’s International Startup Festival was by Randy Smerik, a serial entrepreneur who has lived through more than one startup, venture capital investment and eventual acquisition […]
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Test Test Test
July 17, 2013 by Peter Hanschke
Well we’re finally getting close to the end. I must say that although it has been fun, I’m looking forward to the end. Maybe because I’m thrilled to have an app in the store […]
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Cultivating your content garden
July 16, 2013 by Leo Valiquette
Given the time of year, it only seems appropriate to compare content marketing to a vegetable garden. Once you’ve planted the seed, you must keep tending it with suitable amounts of care and attention until it yields a fair crop […]
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How to use inbound marketing for App Store Optimization
July 15, 2013 by Chamber of Commerce
By Megan Totka You may or may not have heard this recently, but SEO seems to have introduced a new sibling into the online marketing family. ASO (or App Store Optimization) is the online marketing of mobile apps through items like their descriptions, keywords and titles. Because apps are marketed somewhat similarly, but not the same way […]
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Great articles roundup: Marketing bucket list, new marketing roles, prospect’s trust and watching your customers
July 12, 2013 by Hailley Griffis
This Friday we have two distinct trends in our top articles. First, the importance of looking to the future of marketing. […]
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Is your software demo killing your sale?
July 11, 2013 by Francis Moran
There may be nothing quite so ubiquitous in the normal sales cycle for the enterprise software market as the software demo. And there may nothing that kills as many promising deals as the software demo done poorly. […]
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When one city hogs a national economy
July 10, 2013 by Maurice Smith
The independence debate is dominating Scottish political debate right now, and will continue to do so for at least the next 15 months. […]
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Keeping constructively busy through these dog days
July 09, 2013 by Leo Valiquette
Summer, as I wrote in my last post, is no time to slack off from a marketing and PR perspective, but this raises the obvious question, what to do through July and August? […]
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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...) [...]