Corante Marketing Hub

November 30, 2005 | Blogging

I am pleased and honored to be among the marketing bloggers selected by Corante to be part of its marketing hub. I am in extremely good company, and rather than miss someone off, I’ll refer you to the list on the hub.

Corante has taken a unique (and I believe ultimately successful) approach to the concept of collecting/aggregating interesting content. Instead of recruiting folks to contribute to another blog (in our copious spare time), they are providing what amounts to a daily commented, digest of content from participant blogs. Some posts are commented on, others are just included in a raw feed. BUT here’s the most important part: our feeds are pulled with NO ADDITIONAL WORK ON OUR PART. Amen to that.

It is up to the hub members to continue to write engaging,interesting posts on marketing topics. Which is after all the reason we were recruited in the first place: the folks at Corante thought we  had interesting, original perspectives on marketing topics.

Did I mention no extra work!!! I have participated in group blogs, and the hardest part is finding the time. The spirit is willing, but there just ain’t no time. Lately (as I am sure my readers have noted), it has been tough to find the time to write here, let alone somewhere else too.

So, take a look — this model has "legs" and I’m honored to be part of it.

One year on the Roadmap

November 25, 2005 | Blogging

Wow!  While we were in Hawaii, this blog reached the one-year mark. Not sure whether that’s a birthday or an anniversary, but whatever it is, we’ve made it this far. Thanks to all my readers and commenters for sticking with me!

I’ll be back next week in full force with the Hawaii report and perhaps a few other things.

Off to Hawaii

November 8, 2005 | Blogging, Travel

We are off to Hawaii tomorrow so blogging may be thin.

For the past week, I have been pushing hard on a web site for my client GuideMark. GuideMark provides CRM solutions to financial services organizations, and we just finished redoing their site to have more of a product and market focus: www.guidemark.com

When I return from vacation, I will be working on the sites for two other clients. Just call me the "Web Queen."

I’m also thinking about Web 2.0 — whatever that is, and will definitely have some thoughts soonish.

Today’s Blogthing

November 6, 2005 | Humour

From Blogthings: What does your birthdate mean

Your Birthdate: July 5

You have many talents, and you are great at sharing those talents with others. Most people would be jealous of your clever intellect, but you’re just too likeable to elicit jealousy. Progressive and original, you’re usually thinking up cutting edge ideas. Quick witted and fast thinking, you have difficulty finding new challenges. Your strength: Your superhuman brainpower Your weakness: Your susceptibility to boredom Your power color: Tangerine Your power symbol: Ace Your power month: May

Blackberry blogging

November 4, 2005 | Mathom Room

This is my first post from my Blackberry. Why moblog now? We are off on a two week vacation shortly, and I don’t plan on lugging a computer.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Lead Gen with Seminars

November 3, 2005 | Integrated Sales & Marketing, Marketing

Part 2 of the content from my recent lead generation workshop

Seminars are a great way to educate your prospect about your product, can be a great offer/action for your direct mail program, and are definitely productive venues for meeting prospects. They tend to work better for products and services that can be complex – B2B and B2C – like computer products and financial services, or products/services that can be demonstrated effectively and/or taught in groups -  gardening, wood working, cooking.

Typically, the goal of the seminar is to move the prospect along the sales cycle, and closer to trial or purchase.

I’m not going to go into the logistics of setting up a seminar. There are a lot of options, from setting up your own live seminar series, to webcasts, to offering your content to associations and the like. Run ii yourself, you have more control. Participate in someone else’s, you have less control, but less overall responsibility for logistics and audience as well.

What I really want to focus on is the content of the seminar.

People will not attend a seminar that is a thinly disguised product demonstration with little added value. If they are going to take the time to attend your seminar, whether IRL or virtually, the session has got to address a REAL problem they have and put your product in the context as part of the solution.

An example.  My business is marketing consulting. When I give seminars or speeches, it is imperative that I give the audience value it can use, whether or not they ever engage a marketing consultant. If all I did was talk about the problems, and then said, to solve this, you need my product… I’d have an unhappy audience and I wouldn’t be asked back.

It is perfectly fine to talk about what you do… as long as the workshop has independent value as well. So, when you start down the seminar route, look for the independent value to your audience FIRST, and then add your product or service to the program.