New Venture Marketing

The Souk & the Supermarket

A favorite client threatened to come to my site today and post a comment to the effect I haven't blogged in too long and isn't that a bit hypocritical for someone who is so enthusiastic about new Internet media.  So with the hope of doing a pre-emptive strike, I am posting today.  Okay, John, the ball is in your court.  How about that new web site?

I will be teaching a course at Stanford Continuing Studies this spring on the Internet and new digital media and I am delighted.

The course will be entitled:  The Souk & the Supermarket:  Demystifying New Internet Media.  The Souk in this instance will be a "new" model for community, chaotic, messy and ever changing, and the Supermarket, my metaphor for a conventional business, highly structured and controlled.  I've wanted a chance to explore the changes I have seen resulting from the impact of the Internet. This is a great opportunity.  So stay tuned.

3 Great New Books for the Entrepreneur (and anyone else)

I'd have been remiss in not recommending three terrific books.

The first, Growing Your Business with Google, by Dave Taylor, I've just finished reading and it is excellent.  Taylor, who writes a highly regarded technology blog, column and many other things has spent the last decade developing the experience and insight for this book. And it shows. The book, whose title doesn't do justice to the content, is really about how companies can -- and will -- use search engines to maximize their business in the future.  It provides a great deal of insight into how Google operates, how search engines find you and "promoting and growing your business online."

Taylor says, it's about visibility or how easily a company can be found or what he calls "findability".  "On the Internet," says Taylor, "visibility revolves around the question of when people search for your product or service, do they find you or your competitors?  How you achieve and use that findability is the essence of his new book.

 

Imagine a world without search engines

Imagine a world without search engines or a day when you don't turn, at least once, to the Internet to search for market intelligence, look up a  reference, search for a new technology, get directions, make a reservation or purchase.

It would be hard to find that world today -- and with good reason.  Increasingly business depends on the Web for information, communications, research, marketing and sales. 

Yet today, while almost every company has a web site, amazingly few are optimized for search.
According to a recent research by OneupWeb, only some 10% of Fortune 100 corporations, optimize their sites for search, and only 12 out of 100 of the top retailers.

Towards a New Communications Model (3)

The following post also appears on the IAOC blog site where it is part of a week long discussion lead by Elizabeth Albrycht, entitled "Towards a New Communications Model."  Let me know if you agree -- or have some other ideas.

When I first started to explore how the Internet and new communications technologies had impacted our own profession, I was really doing so with the idea of catching up with the industry. I had been too busy with clients to spend much time researching technology for my own business needs.  But the economic downturn in
Silicon Valley, gave me both the time and the opportunity to invest in my own knowledge base.  As I began to understand the true scope of the technological changes that came out of the dotcom boom (and bust), I was amazed.  I felt like the legendary Rip Van Winkle who after going to sleep one night, awoke 20 years later to find that his world had changed.  

Toward a New Communications Model (2)

This week under the leadership of blogging thought leader Elizabeth Albrycht, we will be discussing a new model for communications.   Elizabeth kicked off the week with a reflective exploration of "social practices within the framework of 'cooperation.'"  From her first piece:

... I open our discussion today with this statement, because I believe that "social practices" is what has historically been given short shrift in the world of technology -- and technology-based communications. We professional communicators adopt the latest-greatest tech tools (often rather slowly!) but we don't generally give much deep thought to what these tools mean to those we apply

New Free Series on Online Marketing

Duct Tape Marketing and John Jantsch, author of the one of the best small business marketing blogs, is sponsoring a series of what look to be great teleseminars on "Local Online Marketing - How to promote your local business on the Internet". He has lined up some first class speakers, and best of all of the teleseminars are free.  Sign up while there are still spaces available.

The seminars are as follows:
"The Basics of Business blogging and why every business should have a blog." February 9, 2005. (done)

"How to deliver your marketing message directly to your customer's computer desktop -- The basics of marketing with RSS." February 23

"How to use an online newsletter to generate leads and key your customers coming back for more."  March 10

Leveraging Search for Greater Impact

I sat in on a seminar yesterday, "Leveraging Search for Greater Impact" , presented by PR Newswire which was first rate and rich with possibility.

The premise of the session was that "the real power of the Internet lies in search engines and their ability to connect customers, stakeholders, influencers and media directly to the content they seek... offering a much untapped, by extremely effective means for delivering information to those most likely to act."

"Journalists," said Michelle Horowitz, VP of Content Development, PR Newswire, "will research the news wires, internal archives, search engines, company sites... but ultimately, it doesn't matter where they go for information.  Journalists [and many others] will heavily rely on the on search engines like Google or professional search services such as Factiva and LexisNexis."

So if you want your company to be noticed, and more importantly, for press and others to get their information from you, you need to get your website listed as the top result when your company or products name are searched.