The Illusion of Communication

I just recently had the opportunity to meet with some fabulous folks from Emma, that is the email marketing service provider, and I came away very impressed. The Emma team, Suzanne, Annie, Bo, and Laura, scheduled a stop in Austin at The Belmont (very nice service at this event, but I was at another event the just the night before, and service was horrible!), the drinks were flowing and so were the ideas. Everyone made fun of Bo being from Virginia (a very nice state, by the way, so I’m not sure why it’s so funny to be from Virginia, unless you spell it wrong, which I have, so you do have to be careful).

But that wasn’t the impressive part. The impressive part starts here: If you are looking for a good email marketing system, Emma is the gal you need to deal with. First of all, their interface is one of the easiest to work with, but more than that, they do a bang-up job in paying attention to their customers and delivering real value. They have a list of new, innovative benefits they are working on—I don’t think I’m allowed to tell you what they are. In fact, they already do all the best bits of Constant Contact and Vertical Response combined: autoresponders, reporting, as many signup screens as you want (for free—this is important; if you’re not sure, ask me why), and perhaps the best looking email designs (in fact they won an award for that).

Anyway, I’m looking forward to doing more with Emma, I think they have a real opportunity to do some great work here in Austin. So, time for full disclosure: I (and by extension, Aperio Marketing), offer email marketing services via Emma. So, if you’re looking for help with your email marketing efforts, I might know of someone …

Posted by Matthew under Innovation & Communication | No Comments »

Although I never got a chance to actually meet her at the conference, a big shout out to Megan in the Pink, who was nice enough to take notes during the SEM for SMB conference. Here’s one of the bits she recorded:

Q: Ideas on how to leverage SEM techniques for product research?
A1: Not a great tool for innovating products.
A2: You can look at Google Trends, etc, but that’s based on today. At an extreme, you can build a website about a potential product, get PPC info and look at the data
A3: Look into the social world - what’s happening in the blogosphere? What are people talking about/looking forward to?
A4: SEO not so much, look at social media and PPC.
Moderator: If Ford asked his audience what they wanted, he’d say “a faster horse”.

I disagree with the answers here (strongly with most of them, but A2 and the Moderator are almost on the right track). Here’s a little clip from my session at the conference, which was on keyword research. My belief is, if you can structure your keyword research properly, it can be a really powerful way to evaluate your business, your customers, your prospects, and whether or not what you are trying to offer the marketplace is at all compatible with what people are really searching for.

Granted, if you are looking at things at face value, then it’s only really good (as A2 mentions) for historical information. However, if you look at it too literally, then you will likely be in danger of delivering the exact value the marketplace is looking for … e.g., making faster horses (as the moderator and Henry Ford point out).

I hope to put something more substantial around this … I may even make the keyword presentation more robust to support this stance. Check out the clip below and let me know what you think. And I’ll let you all know when I get this session put together.

Posted by Matthew under SEM & Internet Marketing & Innovation & Marketing Strategy & Business Strategy | 1 Comment »

Hi all … I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted here. Things have heated up with the business (which is a very good thing indeed), but I’ve neglected the blog long enough. There’s a bunch to share … so away we go!

Coming up next week is a really great event that I feel privileged to be a part of. On April 3, the Austin Technology Council will be hosting a Sales & Marketing Strategy Session on guerrilla marketing.

The session will be an interactive discussion between agency experts and marketing directors from growing technology firms who have successfully implemented these and other marketing tools to attract exposure, build a brand, and market to their customers.

The panel includes:

• Sam Decker, Chief Marketing Officer, Bazaarvoice
• Tim Hayden, CEO, GamePlan Marketing & Events
• Sarah Russ, Vice President & General Manager, Austin, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide
• C. Eric Smith, President/Founder, UnWired Nation, Inc

This is a top-flight panel and there will, no-doubt, be lots of really great ideas flying around. To learn more about the panelists, visit the Austin Technology Council’s website.

To register for this event, please visit the Austin Technology Council’s website:
http://www.austintechnologycouncil.org/cde.cfm?event=207400

Oh, and yours truly will be moderating the event. So, if you have a question that you always wanted to ask a room full of marketing gurus, now’s your chance. Post your questions here and I’ll see what I can do about working them into the panel discussion. And who knows? Maybe I’ll be able to post some video from the session with your question in it!

Posted by Matthew under Innovation & Marketing Strategy & Business Strategy | No Comments »