To Blog or not to Blog?
That seems to be the question I am getting a lot these day from executives that are trying to allocate budgets and people resources. Face it, a blog takes time, time that is hard to find when you are wearing several different hats. Believe me, I know. I struggle to find extra time in my schedule to blog.
But a recent study conducted by George Washington University and Cision suggests that a corporate blog is becoming as important as a corporate web site.
The study found that nearly nine out of ten journalists (89%) say they use blogs for online research. Only corporate websites (96%) are cited by more journalists as a source of online information. WOW!
However, the study also showed that 84% of journalists believe that news and information delivered by social media, including blogs, is less reliable than information delivered by traditional media. Lack of fact-checking, verification, or reporting standards was cited as the number one reason for their skepticism. No surprise here!
As a result, according to the survey, most journalists turn to public relations professionals for assistance in their primary research. Editors and reporters surveyed said they depend on PR professionals for “interviews and access to sources and experts”, “answers to questions and targeted information”, and “perspective, information in context, and background information”.
So here are the top reasons why you should blog:
- Blogs give you a platform to convey information that may not be newsworthy to the industry at the moment, but may be important and/or relevant at another time.
- Corporate web sites and blogs are the top two online destinations that journalists use to gather information.
- Blogs provide a platform for your opinions and unique perspective. It provides a medium for thought leadership without external filtering.
- Blogs help with search engine optimization.
So, if you are not blogging, you really should reconsider your communications strategy. It is becoming as important as your website.
By Dana Harris
Last night was an extremely exciting upset for the Republicans, a huge change for Massachusetts and for future politics in Washington. Scott Brown, a relative unknown, came from behind as an underdog to win the late Ted Kennedy’s U.S. Senate seat. But as a PR professional, I found the communications strategy in the last 10 days of the campaign very interesting and saw many lessons learned for Red Javelin’s clients– emerging-growth technology and consumer companies that are typically the underdog needing to compete with the big “machines” of the technology sector.
So what can we learn from Brown’s win? Here are some of my thoughts:
- Lead with direct, clear and simple messages. And repeat them often. Come up with 3 of these messages and stick to them in your communications efforts. People will then remember who you are and what you stand for. One of the simple statements in his winning speech last night was a great example of a direct message as he discussed the issue of defending terrorists in our nation. He said “Our tax dollars should go towards weapons to stop them, not lawyers to defend them.”
- Show your differences. Brown clearly articulated the issues and how he differed from his opponent Martha Coakley. Technology companies need to do a better job of stepping outside of their company bubbles and analyzing their competition, and distinguishing why their solution solves a business problem better than other ones out there.
- The importance of listening to your target market. Brown’s statement of “The people’s seat” and focusing on “listening to the people” resonated with most voters. Technology companies need to listen better to their customers – the people that buy their products and services – and learn what they really need and want, what issues they are experiencing, and how they can better solve these problems.
- Show your character and tell your story. The press is interested in real stories around real people. They like to get “under the hood” and see what makes successful companies run, who makes them run and is behind the latest and greatest product or service. Brown displayed passion, energy, determination, and showed his easygoing, down to earth character which turned many voter prospects into voter sales.
- Bashing your competition can come back to haunt you. Coackley’s negative ad campaign turned off a lot of voters here in Massachusetts. I am a firm believer in sticking to positive messages about your company and products and avoiding the desire to slam them as it doesn’t get you anywhere.
- The use of social networking to communicate. We all now need to understand that social networking is here to stay. It is critical to integrate social networking into your communications, even when targeting IT and enterprise-level decision makers. People make decisions based on opinions they gather from colleagues, peers in their industry, friends and family and are feeling more comfortable sharing their views on social networking services such as Twitter and Facebook. Tap into this and use communications to nurture your influencers.
I’d love to hear your comments on other communications tactics we may have learned from the Mass. senate race so post them here!
For all of us in the emerging tech market, I think that although we all are happy to say goodbye to 2009 and ring in the New Year, we have all learned much in the process. This year has allowed us all to take better stock of what works and doesn’t work in our companies. We took time to smell the coffee, slow down, and appreciate more than before. CEOS tweaked and critiqued their corporate expenses and budgets and became more creative with their resources, leveraging activities off one another and taking advantage of social media tools to evangelize their opinions across the web.
We want to congratulate all those companies that have survived this year. These survival tactics, along with tenacity, perseverance, and the ability to stay flexible and creative should help us all in 2010. I believe smaller emerging-tech companies need to continue to do more with less. From a communications perspective, companies should look in 2010 to:
• Create more original, high quality content and leverage the heck out of it
• Consider visual ways of telling your story including online video
• Share this content socially through appropriate social networks
• Use marketing and PR resources to generate great ideas to create well told stories
• Get closer to your customers and try to get your biggest product champions to speak for you
• Leverage offline marketing activities in PR efforts
• Make sure you have an ongoing communications/PR program
B2B marketers can no longer ignore that buyers are more savvy, looking for digestible chunks of content when making decisions and need to be engaged over many months. We believe that companies that rise to leadership positions excel at targeting their key audiences, and are consistent at communicating industry vision, market and product validation. Consistency is the key word and marketing to prospects is not a stop/start activity.
Lastly, Red Javelin would like to send a word of thank you to all of our clients who fought the battle in 2009 with us. It has been a pleasure working with all of you, representing so many exciting sectors of the technology market and may 2010 take your company to a new level of growth and success.
I love the new marketing tools! I use them every day. Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, SEO, and Inbound marketing are all essential tools for any Internet marketing program.
But here is my gripe. More and more, I hear entrepreneurs and VCs claiming that this is all they need to launch companies or generate momentum for their young developing companies. I have also heard frequently “Customers will find us…organically” (BTW, I have a bridge to sell you). While I understand that many of these statements are motivated by the fact that new companies don’t have or need to preserve cash, when I hear blanket statements like this, I see a giant red flag waving in the wind.
Back in the day when I did a three-year stint as an analyst/management consultant, I specialized in the start-up world in the area of network convergence (ok – I am really dating myself here!). During that time, my team sat through close to 700 start-up briefings and we quickly became very astute predicting a start-up’s success based on what we heard in the initial briefing. By the end of each briefing, my colleagues and I would confer, count up the number of red flags we could see, and form our opinions on whether or not the company was going to make it. Our track record turned out to be very good.
Each one of my colleagues had a hot button – for me, I wanted to dig into their go-to-market strategy. If I believed that the company had a product that somebody actually needed (you would be surprised how many don’t) and that the management team had the fortitude and passion to see the venture through (this is really about believing in what you do and have the perseverance and know how to make it happen), then I wanted to understand the strategy and tactics of their go-to-market strategy.
I wanted to know how the team was going to help the sales force, the guy on the front lines, holding the bag every day because that person had the biggest mountain to climb. I wanted to know the details of who they wanted to partner with, how they were packaging themselves, how the company was going to generate leads, and how the company was going to shorten the sales cycle. I want to know how they were going to create the “push and pull” needed to generate momentum.
The devil is in the details. This is where we would usually see many red flags.
So, let’s examine the new tools. SEO and Inbound Marketing allow you to be “found”. Blogs, Facebook, and microblogging allow you to have conversations with prospects and customers. All are very good things. But each one of these tools serves a particular purpose in the marketing mix.
How can you be “found” or start a conversation if nobody knows that you exist? How can people search on a new product category that isn’t defined? Who is going to read the blog that you have spent days and weeks creating and populating with content? Why would anyone follow you on Twitter if they never heard of you?
I would argue that you need to communicate both broadly as well as in a targeted fashion using all types of tools – that you need to blend the old with the new. Even in this new world where Social Media or Inbound Marketing are without question important tools in your marketing mix, if you tell me these are all you need to market your company and product this is another one of those huge red flags. I would place my bet that you will not be around next year or will not have had a lot of success to talk about. Good marketers understand that you need a number of activities and communications vehicles working in harmony to generate momentum with the buzz.
Last night I attended my first Tech Tuesday event held at the Microsoft NERD building on Memorial Drive. Here is a shout out to Microsoft for providing the food and beverage at the event. For those of you not familiar with Tech Tuesday, it is an informal gathering held on the second Tuesday of every month for geeks, tech savvy professionals, DIY-ers, press, and other industry luminaries. Attendees bring their laptops, robots, new cell phones, gadgets, and other new-fangled devices for ad hoc show and tell. It is a great venue to show proof of concept, solicit ideas from peers, or refine your pitch.
It is hosted by the Mass Technology Leadership Council and tech luminary Dan Bricklin. At the beginning of the event, Dan gave each attendee an opportunity in two sentences to introduce themselves and promote what they are showing.
Last night there was a group of entrepreneurs from Ireland that are visiting Babson for a week-long boot camp of entrepreneurial studies. Several of them have already launched successful ventures in Ireland and are looking to scale beyond Emerald Isle while others are getting ready to launch iPhone apps in the near future. I had a lively discussion with Barry Lynch from Nifty Nosh, an online food ordering service for take-out on how they were using Twitter to promote special events for their client restaurants. What I found interesting about the conversation is that they were using what I would call “classic pull through channel marketing” using new social media tactics.
Blank Label is a newly launched online company that provides custom dress shirts for the trendy male. This is a very cool and interesting company that has the foundation of a successful venture. I particularly like their belief in Connected Individualism - I think this concept has great promotional potential. Blank Label launched late October using social media as their primary vehicle to get the word out. Good start but here is the challenge. I hear this all the time from young twenty-something entrepreneurs and also from VCs – social media and SEO are the only tools I need to get the word out. NOT! (I will pontificate more on this subject later in the week!)
There were a number of very experienced and seasoned professionals taking a look at this company. Within 15 minutes, we as a collective group came up with at least a half dozen of ideas on how this start-up could enhance their presence in their target market. The ideas ranged from innovative video to grass roots event marketing – fashion shows in nightclubs, partnering with universities and graduate programs, and the list goes on. All great ideas. And this is what Tech Tuesday is all about. Sharing ideas, mentoring innovative companies, and keeping it all in Massachusetts.
Building Thought Leadership and Brand Awareness through Content Creation, Social Media and Public Relations
Red Javelin Communications, Inc., a leading boutique communications firm that fuses content, public relations and social media, today announced it has added four new clients to its growing roster of emerging-growth high technology and consumer companies.
Red Javelin’s newest clients include:
- LineSider, Danvers, MA has created the first network services virtualization platform that enables enterprises and service providers to automate the provisioning and deployment of network services in cloud computing environments;
- Navarik, Vancouver, Canada is the leader in on-demand software services that automate maritime shipping logistics and physical trade operations in global crude oil, refined products and bulk commodities;
- Atrion International, Montreal, Canada is the recognized leading provider of green, global regulatory product compliance information services.
- Haddad Hakansson, Belmont, MA is a full-service interior design/build firm that creates home environments in New England and New York.
“We are thrilled to be working with innovators and leaders in their respective fields,” said Lisa Allocca, co-founder at Red Javelin Communications, Inc. “The Red Javelin team will focus on increasing their reach, driving sales and thought leadership by developing compelling marketing and web content, media relations, events and social media support, digital marketing campaigns and providing strategic counsel both in North America and in Europe.”
By Dana Harris
Last week I attended another interesting MassTLC unConference session called “Firing Founders is VC-101: How to Keep Your Founder Job.” The session was run by Russ Wilcox, President and CEO of E Ink and Chip Hazard, General Partner at Flybridge Capital Partners.
This session was of particular interest to me. I have been working closely with small tech companies and directly with CEOs and founders for many years now and have seen some lose sight of what’s important and others listen to those around them and put the company first. In most companies, it is the founders that exude the most passion and typically have the clearest vision on where the market is headed and how their technology fits into this vision. But they are also the ones that can unwittingly keep an emerging company from becoming successful.
There is saying in the VC world – “It is never too early to fire the founder.” This session provided valuable insight on why founders “flounder” and what they can do to succeed. Here’s the Top 10 Lessons on How to Keep Your Founder Job gleamed from the session:
1. Be coachable and listen: This is a key success factor. You need to be self reflective, step back and look at the personality types within your organization. Listen and learn from others around you. Solicit recommendations and feedback and incorporate this into how you change yourself to be a better leader. Also, leave ego and politics out when making decisions because if you don’t, you will get into trouble at some point. Nobody “knows-it-all” and you can learn from other’s experiences.
2. Hire in areas where you are weaker: Surround yourself and fill in your management holes with people who are smarter than you in the areas that you are weaker. Change your management team if necessary. Demonstrate you can build a team of people that are very qualified for their jobs. In my experience, the most successful tech start-ups have hired strong VP of Sales and Marketing people within the first year of launching their products and have developed partnerships and relationships that have been instrumental to their survival and success.
3. Develop good working relationship with your board: Take the time to make sure you choose the right people on your board, from their skill sets (look for solid operating experience to fairly judge your efforts) to their personality types. About 25% of your job is to be aligned with the board and yes, you will be judged on how you run board meetings as they reflect how you run the company. If there are differences of opinions, ask “WHY” to facilitate conflict resolution and call your VC testimonials before you partner up with them. 90% of founder/CEOS don’t take the time to call previous companies to get a feel for the VC marriage they are about to enter into for a very long time. Understand that it is not a marriage of equals and you will not be in the primary position of power.
4. Hit Your Targets and Be Thoughtful at Setting Your Valuation: Be thoughtful when setting your targets and have realistic expectations as you will earn and build trust this way. Don’t get too ambitious, especially around for B or C round, and jump for wanting a high valuation as it is not always necessarily the best. Avoid valuation “overhang” and don’t think you need the highest valuation in the middle of the process – you want it at the end. If you get two term sheets, run the scenarios and do the math (many founder don’t do this!).
5. Assess goals upfront with fellow co-founders: Think long and hard at the personalities of your fellow co-founders and make sure you all have the same “end game” in mind. Make sure they are personalities you can work with in the long haul. As my ex-client and founder of Viaweb Paul Graham clearly states in his 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups article, fighting between founders can kill startups. And contrary to popular belief, VCs never want to fire founders as they are usually the passion and drive behind the company and a lot is lost without them involved.
6. Put the company first: Many founders start out running their companies and then bring in more experienced CEOS and take different roles within the company. Be honest in assessing your strengths from the start and put certain criteria in place when interviewing for your new CEO (i.e. – looking for a good mentor). After hiring the new CEO, make sure you and your fellow co-founders put employment contracts in place for all of you.
7. Know your business: Make sure you know your technology intimately and develop tight relationships with your customers and partners. As a communications PR professional, I wholeheartedly agree with the point made here as it can be the key to success when you work to leverage your customers early in your company lifecycle.
8. Take your vacation time
9. Get support from home
10. Join a CEO group, especially if you are a first time CEO.
And last but not least, congratulations! It is very difficult to launch a company in these tough economic times.
by Dana Harris
I have attended all of MassTLC’s unConferences and the event yesterday was definitely the best. The crowd was very optimistic and you could feel the energy as soon as you walked into the room. The event was sold out and there were entrepreneurs buzzing around looking to get advice on how to run their businesses and learn more about various technology topics from their peers (see agenda – http://masstlc09.org/wall).
My favorite session of the day was when Globe columnist Scott Kirsner teamed up with Tim Rowe, CEO at Cambridge Innovation Center & Venture Partner at New Atlantic Ventures, to run a well attended discussion on “Turbo Charging the New Culture of Entrepeneurship in MA”. Scott ’s premise for the discussion was what we know as Old School Boston VC culture: You have to know the “right” people, go to the “right” school, and have a successful track record before any VC will talk to you seriously. Many people still believe it really doesn’t matter if you are smart, aggressive and have a great idea…if you don’t have an “in”, you don’t have a chance at getting funded. And as a consequence, many now successful entrepreneurs left New England and established their companies elsewhere.
He stated that he is starting to finally see this change. All of us involved in New England technology now have an opportunity to get involved to help make this change. Here’s is how I sum up the discussions:
(1) Keep the entrepreneurs here – Many of our leading tech companies such as Lotus, Interleaf, Open Market, Napster and Facebook were all “born” out of New England’s educational institutions. Let’s keep the future entrepreneurs here upon graduation to bring forth the next generation of leading tech companies. CEOS of tech companies should all look at flexible ways of hiring students into their organizations, even rotating them if necessary, and highlight the companies that take this initiative to connect students to businesses. Bottom line, we need to figure out how to get students into the culture of innovation and break down silos of resources that reside in not only educational institutions but in the broader business community.
In addition, someone (possibly a VC) should take charge to create an “Open Employer Logo” to banish non-competes as we know them today.
(2) Better coordinate our many innovation initiatives – We need to coordinate innovation/venture/entrepreneur initiatives that have been started. The group compiled a list of over 50 active, existing initiatives such as TechStars, WebInnovators Group, Boston World Partnerships and Beta House with a dozen in process such as Mass Challenge, VentureCafe and IDEA @ NorthEastern. Coordination will enable students to more easily find the right group for their needs and allow for market consolidation for better efficiencies. In addition, these meetings need to be practical and focused on solving real business problems.
(3) Boston VC funding needs to become more flexible – VCs and angel groups still have an “Old School” mentality. They need to change, to be more flexible, look at different ways in funding companies and open up their broader networks (including company infrastructure services such as communications, marketing, HR, IT and technology specialists) so great startups stay here and don’t run to Silicon Valley. The tech culture in Silicon Valley is much more open and collaborative than it is here in New England. Silicon Valley has been investing in companies with passion, energy and give new entrepreneurs a chance. We need a greater amount of seed stage capital and an effort around getting more “acquirers” for sound exits.
(4) All leaders need to join in and give back – We need more high-profile thought leadership for the larger companies in this area. Scott noted his disappointment in not seeing many “experts” at the event. We are all part of the larger New England Tech community ecosystem and need to give back to our industry and “harvest it, plant the seeds.” Companies should give preferential treatment to local companies for partnership opportunities and make this fact known.
(5) Lessons learned globally – It’s not just Silicon Valley. We need to compare ourselves to the rest of the world and take notes from successful innovation centers taking place across the globe.
The great discussion ended with Scott asking the group, ”How can we make it actionable?” We all go to many events where we hear great ideas but no one takes charge to do something to make a change. Therefore, if you are reading this blog, please review the above points and see where you can make a difference.
We at Red Javelin are leaders in tech communications and marketing and want to give back. We are experts at helping young companies package themselves. One of the activities we’d like to do is donate our partners’ time two days per month to young companies looking for funding or recently having received funding. We will provide advice on how to package their company up in a cost effective manner and use cost effective tactics with limited resources. So calling interested entrepreneurs, let’s get together…. dana@redjavelin.com.
So what can you do?
by Lisa Allocca
Late last week I took my teenage daughter on several college tours. We drove a thousand miles and visited several colleges and universities. Seeing it through the eyes of a sixteen year old really hit home the importance of marketing, messaging and branding. If it is done well, you make the short list, if it isn’t done well, and as any teen parent can attest, you are quickly dismissed.
Looking for a college is a very sophisticated buying process. At every step of the way, I was amazed how the decision-making process parallels that of a B2B technology purchase. I thought I would compare the decision processes, and provide you with some “take aways” that can be used for business. I was stunned to see how quickly a school made the short list and how quickly a school was excluded from the list.
The first phase of the buy cycle was the research phase. To help narrow our search, we used two third-party search tools to gather basic statistics about the universities. One provided basics statistic about school and the other provided rankings based on academics, social life, and quality of life. From this initial search, my daughter decided that she wanted to look at large Division 1 schools that had strong academics but also a social life that centered on sport activities.
Takeaway: Make sure that your products and services are listed in directories and articles that are widely read by your target audience.
Once we narrowed down the scope, we then proceeded to take a look at their web sites and schedule visits. This was really the first encounter with a prospective school and I was surprised at how a teen can quickly filter what they are interested in pursuing. Three things were considered – information, personality, and ease-of-use.
Here is what we found.
University 1 – This large university is known for its academic excellence. The first three graphics on the school’s home page flash were a non-descript building (the library), a lecture hall, and a few kids gathered around a computer. You had to wait through 10 graphics until the very last graphic to see anything about campus life. In fact, there was no information about campus life on their web site, it focused strictly on the academics. My daughter’s reaction – “this place looks boring”. And guess what? When we visited the campus, it was boring. The information session was a pre-recorded, generic video. No one from admissions was on-hand to answer questions. The pre-reserved tour had about thirty people, was very ordinary and there was no attempt to “brand” or personalize the university with any type of unique character. The academics may be outstanding however it is unclear how it balances with campus life and the bigger picture.
Takeaway: If your website is generic and too focused on one aspect of your offering then your prospective customers will not understand how it fits into the bigger picture.
University 2 – The second school’s web site was loaded with information (almost too much information for a first visit) and was very easy to navigate. When we visited this huge university, it was like entering Disney World. The signage was good and accurate, there were people on every corner helping you to find your way to information sessions and the speakers were on top of their game. Any one of the speakers could have been an executive in any F500 company. The student-led tour limited the number to about 12 people and the guides talked about the balance between rigorous academics and a robust social life. That point was driven home by a discussion of how the school’s academic programs contribute to university life. They talked about the school’s famous ice cream (thanks to the success of the agricultural program) and the refrigerators that were designed by their engineering students where the freezers could hold exactly two gallons of the famous ice cream. They talked about how the allied health science majors work at the local hospital to give them real-life experience. This huge university took the time and effort to personalize the experience, make the school “small” in the eyes of a prospective student, and relate the academics to real life experiences.
Takeaway: Easily found information, personalized experiences, and real-life examples draw prospective customers in.
University 3 – The third school’s web site had flash graphics that portrayed students in a various academic endeavors in a very interesting and illustrative manner. Each graphic was centered on a student and their interest at the university. The web site was easy to navigate and offered all the information a prospective student would need for a first visit however not enough for more in-depth research after a visit. The visit to this university was perfect. Someone from the admissions office gave the information session and was available before and after tours for questions. The student-led tour was informational and focused on the balance between academics and the overall college experience. However, when we returned home, there just isn’t enough in-depth information readily available on the academic programs. So now, we will have to work to get more information on specific academic programs and will have to proactively reach out to the various academic departments to learn more.
Takeaway: Make sure you have enough information on your site so that prospective customers don’t have to “work” to learn more about your offerings.
Just like the college search process, in a B2B technology buy cycle, prospective customers receive their initial information from various internal and external sources. They find it in directories, third-party articles from your web site and from their initial encounter with your company. At each step of the way, prospective customers are forming their opinions based on the information they receive and how you package your company and offerings. Easily found information, personalized experiences, and real-life examples draw prospective customers in. But nothing trumps the opinions formed during the first human interaction with a prospective customer. First impressions are lasting impressions.
