Is “voluntary registration” Smart Marketing for White Papers/

Great post from Michael Stelzner about white paper registration:  Is ‘Voluntary Registration’ Smart Marketing for White Papers?

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Your Targeting Strategy

Dave Baily over at My Educated Guess has a post about your targeting strategy and if have taken into consideration all aspects to target your database.

I am a firm believer in progressive profiling of leads and having sales join in this progressive profiling.  I believe in capturing little information upfront on the website and having sales use a consultative approach getting more information about the customer.  One of things that Dave neglected to mention in this article is the ability to engage your customers in the targeting strategy and treating them differently via messaging and offers to entice and engage them.

Targeting is hard and tedious work and sometimes the marketer is asked to do these sort of things and the activity is often looked at as easy, but it is far from easy, but can be very rewarding and profitable in the end.

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software marketing, targeting, software, marketing, customers, progressive profiling, lead generation, lead nurturing, profiling, branding, marketer, tech target

Marketers Opting for Social Media Ads Over Video

Great post over at Marketing Shift about a Forrester Research study on the use of social media.

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social media, forrester research, email, video, video in marketing, marketing, software marketing, branding, buzz marketing, SEO, SEM

What does your brand say about you?

When was the last time you asked yourself what your brand says about you?  Have you asked a customer?  Have you asked a prospect?

Often software companies are wrapped up with self promotion and wanting to be that cutting edge companies that they forget to stop and ask those around them how people view them in the marketplace.

Slow down.  Stop.  And converse with those that are willing to tell you what you may or may not want to hear.

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branding, marketing, software, software marketing, brand, image, marketplace

Why Twitter and Facebook for Business

Great post by Ron McDaniel about the importance of using FB and Twitter for business.

My take is this: I think they are essential if the activity is done right in addition to a solid email acquisition strategy.  To me, nothing is more important than email simply because if you have the person sign up and that is what they want to receive, then you have a captive audience and are more than likely to have their attention.  Social Media is all the rage now, but eventually peoples attention span is going to wane.

I welcome your thoughts.

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facebook, twitter, email marketing, email, social media, social media marketing, branding, business, marketing, buzz marketing

Must-have features your website is missing

Reid over at iMedia has an article on the must haves for you website. Its a pretty comprehensive list and my only addition would be “real voice”.  Keep it real and don’t talk to folks from a marketing/sales perspective.  Engage with them in a conversation.

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website, value statements, resourcces, feed back, communication, website, branding, voice, web development

Making Web 2.0 Work for Your Enterprise: IT Deployments

Great white paper over at IT Toolbox written by Oracle.

(Note: registration required)

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white paper, whitepaper, oracle, web 2.0, enterprise, branding, ittoolbox, IT marketing, software marketing

The Dark Side of Twitter

Great article over at iMedia this morning talking about the use of twiiter. Jim makes a statement at the end of the article that reads “My point is that Twitter, like email, is great for moving bits of data, little tiny pieces of information, but it is not an experience, and it is not a conversation.”

Sorry Jim.  I disagree.  I disagree fundamentally with your logic. Twitter is a conversation if you let it be a conversation.  I have convos with people all of the time on twitter.  We talk about business, technology, software, email and softball. I indeed have a conversation with people. However, I only have convos with people I know and I don’t have like 1500 people that follow me or that I follow.  To me….people treat Twitter like a game and the more people that they can follow or have them follow them is a contest and those people will lose.  Perhaps Jim doesn’t see the value in Twitter yet because he doesn’t use it a conversation piece.

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twitter, imedia, software, branding, software marketing, conversation

Celebrities Are Not Taking Over Twitter

Great post over at socialmediatoday from Adam Cohen (note..login required) about the value of twitter and whether or not its for you.  It also mentions that its not all about the celebs and the things that they do on twitter that we should be concerned with. I follow a few celebs on twitter and can tell you that learning about them really isn’t all that exciting.  I chose to follow these folks and that’s about it, but I have no idea how they can keep up with 25,000 or even 200,000 following them.

I think that this sort of thing falls into the “who cares” category. I would rather have 200 follower who really care what I have to say rather than folks who follow me cuz I am famous.

Feel free to follow me if you want:  @andrewkordek

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twitter, social media, social media marketing, digital marketing, branding, marketing, internet marketing, web marketing

The Official 2008 Web 2.0 Buzzword Forecast

Pete Blackshaw over at ClickZ has an interesting article title The Official 2008 Web 2.0 Buzzword Forecast. I love “shamsparency”. Pete offers up a bit of humor in this article and its well worth the read.

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web 2.0, branding, buzzwords, clickz, pete blackshaw, social networking, seo, sem, blogging, facebook, myspace

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web 2.0, branding, buzzwords, clickz, pete blackshaw, social networking, seo, sem, blogging, facebook, myspace

Branding For a Software Company

John at Duct Tape Marketing has a great definition of branding that I would like to share:

“Branding is the art of becoming knowable, likable and trustable”

So with this definition in mind, how can something like this statement above apply to any software company of any size? Does Microsoft or Oracle need to brand their software anymore than they already have? Some people trust and like Microsoft and Oracle and some people don’t. I think more where this applies to is company’s who have a multitude of products or services and are well known in the marketplace for some piece of software.

Branding takes alot of patience, time, money and creativity. You cant just buy a Super Bowl Commercial and expect that it will instantly brand you. (ok..maybe GoDaddy is a bit of an exception) Buying the back cover of trade magazine is a good start but for some is expensive. I feel that in todays transparent world, a great way to brand yourself is to open up the doors, knock down the walls and show the IT community that you are all about collaborating and solving the pains of their world as well as being a thought leader in your respective marketplace. You can have the best products in the world, but if you play the secracy game with the public, branding will be difficult.

Here are a few (yes a few) ways to build a good brand in software

1. Start a blog. A good blog..not a chest pounding advertisement, but one which adds value to your expertise

2. Hire an evangelist.

3. Build a wiki or a community centered around pain and have that evangelist dedicated to fostering both

4. Educate educate educate through as many new mediums as you can (podcasts, video, white boarding sessions etc….)

5. Do a super bowl commercial (kidding)

6. Do things that are fun for your audience…show them that you are real

7. Monitor your reputation online and comment and acknowledge people that talk about you and your industry.

This is just a start, but if you manage to do the above you are well on your way to branding your organization

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web 2.0, branding, marketing, software, software marketing, podcast, wiki, evangelist, community, online communities, IT, word of mouth, buzzmarketing, duct tape marketing, John Jantsch

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web 2.0, branding, marketing, software, software marketing, podcast, wiki, evangelist, community, online communities, IT, word of mouth, buzzmarketing, duct tape marketing, John Jantsch