Mindshare Marketing

The other day, someone asked me why I was attracted to working with start-up companies.  After all, money’s tighter, margins are slimmer, and the risk associated with start-up equity is so much higher.  Why would anyone want to enter that kind of a business relationship?

With me, it’s all about one of my three pillars: fun.  Working with a new company (or even an old company creating a new product) is exciting!  There are unforeseen obstacles to be avoided or surmounted, new relationships to be nurtured with partners, customers, and other stakeholders, and every kind of business challenge you can imagine.

… Then again, I am a bit of an adrenaline junkie.

I had the opportunity this past weekend to watch my brother SCUBA dive for the first time.  Yes, it was only in a swimming pool, but he was still completely under water for a good 10-12 minutes at a time.  I would have gone with him, but we were at the state fair and, unlike him, I had forgotten to bring a spare pair of shorts.

Think about what he was doing.  He was trusting a handful of experienced guides and second-hand equipment with his life.  He was then following the guides completely under the water with this equipment and playing catch with them at the bottom of the pool.  When I think about what he did on Sunday, and the risk he was taking by doing it, I just sit in a state of shock.  There’s a huge, resounding “wow” in my head when I look back at photos of it, too.

All the same, he jumped at the chance.  The $5 fee was no roadblock as he quickly filled out liability waivers, stripped down to his gym shorts, and pulled on the SCUBA gear.  He was excited by the opportunity to try something new and, at least to him, completely untested.

We must be related, because that’s exactly the way I feel about start-ups.  Here I am, trusting a handful of experienced businesspeople and second-hand advice with my professional reputation.  I follow them into the fold and, once I’m completely immersed in the business, I sit at the table and play catch with different ideas for the “future.”  Maybe that’s why other people can look at what I do on a daily basis, and the risk I assume through doing it, and sit in a state of shock.

What do you do in your life or business that people don’t understand?  Do you have similar drivers like “fun” and “excitement” to fuel you as you mock their disbelief?  What are they?

I was asked the other day what my level of experience was with web 3.0. Last I’ve heard, though, the world is still catching up to 2.0, let alone experimenting with the next stage. It seems a few companies are trying to push their way upwards and onwards hoping to beat the rush to new technology. To give you an edge, here are a few of my favorite web 3.0 applications (also called “new” or “emerging” media).

• Twitter - This is a website that allows users to send text message updates to everyone in their social network. It’s seemingly pointless, but has massive potential. Companies and brands can communicate with their most fervent fans, you can update customers on new product releases, or just engage stakeholders in an on-going, albeit brief (Twitter limits users to 140 characters), conversation. In April, one user reached out through Twitter to his friends for help getting released from an Egyption jail!
• Facebook - This is more web 2.0, but the development team over at Facebook has been working constantly to push it to the next level. One feature they developed entirely by accident: pages. Once meant to give individual users more space to talk about themselves, pages now allow users to create their own social networks within the overall network of Facebook. Pages can pull in multiple blog feeds, discussion threads, and user profiles - this gives page “members” the ability to build their own network independent of their Facebook web.
• Google - A discussion of web devleopment doesn’t start unless it finishes with Google. “Cloud” computing with the new Google Gears setup makes mobile computing simple, flawless, and almost idiot proof. The new Google Maps SMS features (using text messages to get directions when you’re lost) also integrates Goole further into our daily lives.

There are lots of companies out there racing to develop the next great web 3.0 application, and I can’t wait. The future of the Internet is bright, and will become increasingly important for not just our personal lives but also business as well! For a glimpse into one concept of the Internet’s future, check out the Aurora concept video by Adaptive Path below. This is just a concept, but it definitely displays the direction in which things are moving!

I had a long conversation with someone the other day about the differences between push and pull marketing.  It was a little disappointing, though, because they had already invested a great deal of time and money developing their pull marketing strategies under the assumption that there was no difference between the two types.  Not all was a waste; pull marketing is still highly effective.  It’s just not as quick to bring in new customers as he would have liked.

Push Marketing

This is any strategy that results in a direct call to action.  Television advertisements with a “call now” message, in-the-field marketing with fliers directing potential customers to “come to the event today,” or even some hosted events that are targeted more towards sales than the event itself are all examples of push marketing.  The idea is to put a hand (the marketing message) behind a prospect and push them to a decision to become a customer.

It can be effective in many areas and for several demographics.  There will always be some products or prospects for which push marketing won’t work, though.

Pull Marketing

This is a longer-term strategy of placing something in the market only loosly related to your product and waiting for customers to pick it up and ask you for more information.  Viral, or buzz, marketing is the best example because prospects are actively seeking out product information and are pulled towards a decision to become a customer.

Demographics and products unaffected by push marketing might be more affected by pull marketing.  The unfortunate tradeoff is the vastly longer sales cycle neccessitated by pull strategies.

Blogging is a pull strategy.  Yes, you can throw some Google AdWords around to drive more traffic to your site, but whether or not people actually read, let alone subscribe, to your blog is dependent on two things:

1. The quality of your content
2. The length of time it’s been available

On the one hand, you can have a stellar blog that’s been online for two weeks.  I doubt you’ll have much traffic, but give it time and that traffic will grow.  On the other hand, you can have a 4-year old blog with random factoids from your life.  If they’re interesting enough, you’ll have traffic.  If not, don’t count on it.

You can increase traffic by sharing links with similar, albeit higher-traffic, blogs or by exchanging comments with their offers.  Like blogging itself, though, this is a pull strategy and will take several months to actually turn out any sort of results.