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3/30/2005 9:52
This morning's frenzy is about getting ready to record a podcast on Paying Bloggers to Blog for Feedfest 2005. Tara and I have made sure Stephen is ready with FlashMeeting loaded on his laptop, ready to participate with talking points, when I get an urgent message from Alex at Corante – the meeting host.
Marc's mail box is full. Can you make sure he gets the reminder for the meeting today? Alex.I have an alternate e-mail for Marc, which also bounces back as full. So I call him, and get him right away. “Tell me about it,� he said, when I told him both of his e-mail boxes are full. After trying unsuccessfully four or five times to read the lengthy, cryptic URL to Marc, we determine someone's going to have to send him an Instant Message (IM) with the URL in order for him to get on. My IM is down (that's another story) so I sent Alex an urgent note to send Marc an IM. Imagine. Knowing that you have two e-mail boxes full of stuff – I can only imagine how much spam Marc gets – and still managing to do business in his virtual world. I think I've just witnessed a whole new shift in communicating. There's a world in which a few people live by ignoring e-mail in favor of IM, using skype to call people free all over the world, holding and listening to meetings on their iPods and generally living without traditional communication tethers. Except for their laptops. Oh, the trouble they're in if they go down!
March 30, 2005
For the last week or so I've been busily making arrangements for Marqui to speak with industry analysts from a number of well known groups, such as AMR Research, Gartner, IDC, etc. Now, many companies are under the impression that the only way to get any attention from such firms is to pay them.
This is absolutely incorrect.
Granted, it may be easier to get multiple meetings if you are a paying client (it's part of the service after all), but all of the reputable firms will take at least 1-2 briefings without charging a dime -- in fact, most of them accept briefings on a yearly basis from non-paying companies.
The exact process varies depending on the firm but typically companies will be asked to submit some basic information via e-mail or an online form. This usually includes:
- A brief company overview, including employee headcount, headquarters address, etc.
- The objective for the meeting (e.g., is it for a general introduction or perhaps a product update)
- A list of company representatives planning to attend the meeting
- The names of the analyst(s) you'd prefer to meet with (NOTE: the process will move much faster if you have researched and correctly identified 1-2 relevant analysts. Most groups post analyst bios and a list of recent reports on their web sites so it shouldn't be too difficult to find this information.)
- A few dates and times for a meeting
The process takes anywhere from 48 hours to 2-3 weeks so I'd highly recommend starting a month in advance if you are trying to arrange briefings around a major corporate or product launch.
In terms of how to get things started with some of the biggies:
- For Gartner, send an e-mail to vendor.briefings@gartner.com. Within 24 hours, you'll receive a briefing request form to complete and send back.
- For AMR Research, click here and fill out the form.
- For Forrester, click here and fill out the form.
- For IDC, click here and fill out the form (NOTE: The form varies depending on whether or not your company has briefed IDC in the last 12 months, so be sure to follow the directions.)
If you've worked with a particular group before or have a PR agency (or analyst relations firm) that has, you might be able to bypass all of the forms by sending an e-mail directly to the appropriate analyst. However, given how many e-mails and briefing requests these folks receive it might actually be faster to go through the formal process.
3/28/2005 13:19
As I type that headline, I smile, thinking: what would my 84 year old mother think of that headline? She'd shake her head and say something like:
"Janet's been in the computer business for years, and I never quite understood what she does. Now I can't even understand what she says."Anyway, there was an interesting article in today's Infoworld, talking about companies (like Disney, Cisco, IBM and others) turning to blogs and wikis in order to foster collaboration among employees, customers and the public. I loved this quote:
“Blogs and wikis play opposite roles,� says Martin Wattenberg, a researcher on the collaborative user experience team at IBM Watson Research Center. “Blogs are based on an individual voice; a blog is sort of a personal broadcasting system. Wikis, because they give people the chance to edit each other's words, are designed to blend many voices. Reading a blog is like listening to a diva sing, reading a wiki is like listening to a symphony.�Finding the harmony in this new world will take a finely tuned ear and the ability to listen well - and practice makes perfect. That's something my mother can relate to.
3/28/2005 7:58
According to an article I just received via MarketingVOX, the reach of the Internet has passed that of magazines. The full piece reads:
An American Press Institute study showed that the internet's reach continues to grow apace, coming to reach more people than even magazines, according to an AdWeek email. The web reached 51 percent of people in the study, putting it in fourth place and a country mile ahead of fifth place medium magazines, which managed 42 percent reach. Newspapers managed to hang on to 59 percent of respondents, ranking third. Radio ranked second with 73 percent and, not surprisingly, TV ranked first with 94 percent reach. In terms of time spent with the media, TV again ranked first with 272 minutes per day, radio too up 122 minutes, the web 73 minutes and newspapers only 29 minutes. Magazines managed only 19 minutes per day on average.Of course, this shouldn't come as a surprise to most, but it's still good to see some stats!
3/25/2005 15:51
You know you've made it when you're in a Dummies book! Buzz Marketing Through Blogs for Dummies is out, and you can buy it here. Marqui was fortunate to be mentioned in it. After we had signed releases and approved the mention, I was lucky to meet Susannah Gardner, the author, at the Blogging for Business Summit in January, and she has written several Dummies books. What a fun resume. We'll be ordering up a few for the lobbies and personal bookshelves.
3/25/2005 14:41
In a recent study by the Institute of International Research, 29% of 1,300 executives polled said marketing is the most important expertise a business leader can have. Next highest was operations expertise, cited by 22% of respondents. 14% said financial expertise is key, while sales and engineering each were cited by 8% in the survey. We're on the right track... how do we keep up?
3/24/2005 8:33
So the "Internet buzz" is positive about The Office, which premiers tonight at 9:30 p.m. on NBC. The show is getting great buzz, according to PropheSEE. Similar to the buzz that preceeded Desperate Housewives and Lost, The Office is pulling very high scores and is projected to do well. PropheSEE is a joint venture among Initiative, TVtracker.com and Trendum. It analyzes both the amount and the sentiment of Internet discussions about TV programming that occur in public online forums, discussion boards, and newsgroups. It is interesting to me that Internet buzz is being measured by independent firms for marketers. It's nice to see that the most accessible medium -- the Internet -- is capable of being measured beyond google juice or web hits. NBC's use of online comminities seems to be paying off.
3/23/2005 9:36
Speaking of RSS...companies interested in using RSS to their advantage should check out today's post on CEO Bloggers' Club: Ten Ideas for Corporate RSS Feeds. Big thanks to the head lemur for bringing this one to my attention.
3/21/2005 14:28
Lots of noise in the 'sphere about RSS today. Jupiter Research just came out with a new report saying RSS isn't ready for prime time and will not have a significant effect as a supplemental alternative to e-mail marketing. That's a pretty daring statement given that everyone else in the world seems to be pretty darned excited about its possibilities. But as Seth Godin points out this might not be all bad, since it will "give the rest of us more time to get it right. Hurry, before the spammers show up!" The sad truth is that I'm sure spammers will find a way to bend RSS to their will fairly soon. Interested parties should check out the DM News recap of the report and/or bonus editorial entitled "What the Heck is RSS."
3/18/2005 15:47
Looks like Mitch Ratcliffe has a new project these days -- he's launching a company called Persuadio next week at PC Forum. According to his recent blog, Persuadio has developed a "Web-based data collection, analysis and visualization platform that supports commercial and enterprise social and information relationship mapping." Try saying that five times fast. In any case, as part of his pre-launch buzz-building activities, he provided a sneak peak at one of the company's "first public projects" MyDensity.com. MyDensity.com is a free service that maps two degrees of link relationships around any URL. Just go to the Web site, enter in your URL and see who else is linking to you. As Mitch is quick to point out, MyDensity.com is still a work in progress... meaning it doesn't really do anything at this point but show the links. Limited capabilities aside, it's still pretty cool. For marketers, this could provide some additional insight on who is driving traffic to your site. Go Mitch!
3/17/2005 11:43
In an interesting play for good buzz prior to launch, NBC is streaming a 13 minute preview of their new show, The Office, online now at myspace.com. It's not unusual for media companies to join forces with online entities, but myspace.com is a bit of a different network, because of the younger people it attracts. The phenomenon of leveraging online 'social network' sites is being fully explored by traditional advertisers, where (like NBC) they're looking to have people engage with (and blog about) new shows, new products, new trends. One of the best things about social networks for a marketer is their highly targeted nature. People who join together as a result of their interest in rare hummingbirds might be perfect targets for an offer to celebrate spring solstice in the Yucatan Peninsula. What travel agency wouldn't kill to offer special pricing for special events based on very specific 'happenings' in their areas? And what better opportunity to leverage their unique offers to the very people who'd most like to take advantage? Now we're getting somewhere...
3/16/2005 16:50
Here's a very interesting perspective of our paying bloggers to blog program that Steve Gillmor blogged today: Steve Gillmor -- Marc Canter bought me dinner last night. Does that mean I'm pimping Marqui now? Guess it does... If only he'd linked to us. :-(
3/16/2005 11:04
I was on a panel last week speaking on blogs, podcasts and such. It was clear there are many people who are wondering about blogs - and a ton of uncertaintly out there about whether companies should be blogging, what you can, or can't say as an employee, etc. Being a practical person, I always prefer to learn from others' success or failure. I feel lucky to have been exposed to wonderful resources like Marc Canter at Marqui. He set up our blogging program for us perfectly. For beginners wondering about rules around blogging, I think Robert Scoble is amazing. He is the poster boy for making blogs relevant to his company's (Microsoft) readers - and anyone thinking about blogging for the first time should read his stuff. He recently posted a lesson on corporate blogging that's a must read. As I said on the panel, it's like my mom always told me when I was a kid (and walking out the door) "Janet, don't do anything you would not want to see on the front page of the paper tomorrow." It's common sense in a new world. Nice linkage.
3/16/2005 10:38
I had a meeting this morning with our web designer, Brandon Rigney. I love Brandon. We worked together at Enron years ago, and I found him to be a bright, creative and refreshing man who stood out like a beacon in the sea of sameness: the agressive, polished, corporate people who dominated the place. We got along well, and have kept in touch through relocations (his) and new positions (mine). When I needed help in finalizing the design for Marqui, I called my friend Brandon. I'm not sure why, but we seemed to ingnite the creativity in each other, and the project - to define a new look that would immediately set Marqui apart visually from others on the web - went swimmingly. Thank goodness, because: 1) we were on an incredibly short timeline 2) we were trying to pull together a few extremely different elements and make them hang together Anyway, he's got a page on his site that puts all the elements of design in one space. It makes me happy to see the work together. I know it makes him happy, too. That's the beauty of creativity. When you see the results, it gives you a smile from your heart through your soul. I wish that kind of happiness for all of my friends in this business.
3/15/2005 17:08
It came to my attention recently that folks were wondering why we haven't provided an update on Marqui's blogging program in our own blog. Initially, my answer was, "Well, we are trying to make this blog more of a resource for marketers as opposed to just an ongoing ad about Marqui." But after giving the matter a little more thought, a few things occurred to me: 1) we've certainly blogged about the program before, so why not now, b) inquiring minds are curious enough about the next phase -- and the glaring omission from our blog -- to e-mail me about it, and c) other marketers seem to be seriously considering whether to implement this type of program so keeping everyone apprised of the status of ours seems to make sense. So with that in mind, here's the skinny: *We've extended the program for another two months *We've invited all existing bloggers to continue and are adding up to 15 more to the program (note: a few existing bloggers have decided not to continue for a variety of reasons) *We've reduced the required number of blogs so bloggers don't feel like they are ALWAYS writing about Marqui (although they are certainly welcome to write about us as much as they want!) *We've also adjusted the compensation so it's in line with the reduced number of required blogs. This is also allowing us to include a broader number of bloggers. A press release on this new phase of the program is available here. It also explains why we think the first phase was such a success.
3/14/2005 8:22
I can't resist providing a little recap of Andy Rooney's segment from last night's 60 Minutes. It offered advice to viewers on how to sort incoming mail and should be taken to heart by any direct mailers interested in knowing what NOT to put on their envelopes. The full segment is available here, but a few of the highlights are: *First, if the word "important" is on the envelope, you can be pretty sure there's nothing important inside. Toss that! If it happens to be a bill, don't worry. They'll send another. *Another variation on "important" is "do not discard." Discard any envelope with do not discard on it. *If the envelope says "open immediately," you know you can wait a few weeks. *Letters with a code number above your name can go. You're not a person to them; you're a number. *Near the top of my list of mail I throw away without opening is anything that comes to my house addressed "current occupant." *Mail addressed "to our neighbors" is in the same category. Now, if only direct mailers would listen!
3/11/2005 12:08
Like my friend Tim the realtor says, it's all about location. Search Engine Optimization and Pay Per Click advertising are critical tools in a marketer's belt for this reason: Click here and have a look at what people's eyes do when they do a search for information on google. It's pretty amazing. We've got a good paper for marketers about Search Engine Optimization if you'd like to learn more about the why's and 'how-to's.' Yes, we ask you for an e-mail address and your state to grab the white paper, so feel free. (Hey, we're marketers. What would you expect?)
3/8/2005 10:11
As part of the new and improved Marqui Web site, we've added a glossary of terms designed to help marketing and communications pros sort out everything from RSS feeds to wikis. Not sure what Wikipedia is? Want to know what people mean by podcast? Just click here. We'll be adding to this glossary as we go, so let us know if there are any words you'd like to see on there. Comments and/or complaints about existing entries are also welcome, but keep in mind this is supposed to clarify terms, not over-complicate them in a flurry of technical detail.
3/7/2005 15:34
I'm speaking on two panels this week at Innotech in Portland, OR. In spite of the fact that they've got my information wrong in the listing (I'm listed as a "Marketing Manager" for Marqui, apparently they don't have the flexibility to update their web site as quickly and easily as I do), I'm excited about the opportunity to get out and speak again. I enjoy doing so, and find it to be a great way to stay in touch with what people are thinking and what they're questioning about topical subjects that I'm interested in, too. I came across a very good list of "do's and don'ts" for speakers on Jupiter Events site, here (scroll down about 3/4 of the page to Speaking Tips). Anyone preparing to speak (or pitching a speaker) for an event should be aware of the potential pitfalls of speaking poorly at a conference. It's good karma to pass along knowledge without a sales pitch. Otherwise, you're just not in the game for long.
3/4/2005 16:40
I just got an e-mail from my friend Connie who said the Country Music Network is looking for someone to blog about the Dukes of Hazzard. Calling it a "dream job," they'll pay someone $100,000 a year to write daily blogs (among other things) about the series. I cannot imagine. My goodness. So the job application is here. Go. Have fun.
3/4/2005 7:35
I'm planning a trip to Europe this fall and have pretty much decided I'm going to Greece. When I mentioned this little tidbit to my grandmother last weekend, she said there was a fantastic article in National Geographic that I absolutely had to read. She promptly promised to send it to me. What she neglected to tell me was that the article was in the June issue...from 1970. Despite the fact the article is almost 35 years old, I still enjoyed reading it. Of course, what I enjoyed even more was reading the ads. I don't think anyone would disagree with me that advertising practices have changed dramatically in the last three decades, but consider this comparison between the June 1970 National Geographic and the March 2005 one: June 1970 Total pages: 170 Number of articles: 9 Number of ads: 82 Number of pages with ads: 29 Primary focus of ads: Boys' Schools March 2005 Total pages: 192 Number of articles: 20 Number of ads: 40 Number of pages with ads: 45 Primary focus of ads: Prescription Medicine What I found curious about this was that there were actually more ads in the 1970 issue, albeit on fewer pages. I expected the opposite since it seems like every magazine I pick up these days is overrun with advertising. Perhaps this is a phenomenon specific to National Geographic since it receives funding from other sources. For example, a recent issue of Business 2.0 had a total of 185 pages, with an impressive 94 pages of ads. I can't help but wonder what the March 2035 issue of National Geographic will look like...and whether it will even be published in hard copy.
3/1/2005 17:06
I love salespeople. Really. After all, their hard work helps pay my bills. But let's face it, marketers and salespeople don't always...um...see eye-to-eye. I believe the reason for this is akin to the chicken and the egg problem. Marketers need salespeople to close deals so they have ample material for things like case studies, press releases, webinars, etc. But salespeople need marketers to come up with case studies, press releases, webinars, etc. in order to close deals. So what comes first? The amusing thing about this situation is that marketing and sales teams really do want the same thing: more deals (in larger amounts) closing faster. The question then becomes: how do we work together to make it happen? BusinessWeek ran a series of articles on this very topic last year. Here's Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. A somewhat shorter piece with a few exercises to try out is available here, courtesy of Goto-Silicon-Valley.com (kind of a weird little site, but I liked the article). It shouldn't come as a surprise that the unanimous opinion from all authors is that the key is open, constructive communication on a regular basis. So read the articles, give the excercises a whirl and play nice.
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