How Can You Create a Viral App or Site?
Steve Hoffman
First off, what makes an app or site viral?
Here are 14 Steps to Winning the SEO Wars
Is SEO (Search Engine Optimization) a mystery to you? Well then, take a look at this presentation by Ryan Spoon of Polaris Ventures.
Five Approaches to Acquire a Client
Raj Gavurla
by Raj Gavurla of LiiiVEN, Inc.
Entrepreneurs have an idea they research and chisel into service and product. To make a significant difference in the marketplace acquiring a client is needed. Why a client? To help them, gain revenue, and find new ways to apply service and product.
There are five approaches to acquire a client:
- You call on them, answer their questions, demonstrate the usefulness of your service and/or product, and give them the information needed for them to make a buying decision.
How do I make my next press release a success?
Naomi Kokubo
Question: I’m running a startup and I haven’t had much luck with press releases. What do I need to know before I do my next press release? I need this one to be a success.
Answer by Naomi Kokubo, Editor of Founders Space
The first thing to know is that most press releases get ignored or lost in the noise. There are so many startups competing for the attention of top bloggers and journalists that they simply ignore the majority of press releases and inquiries.
Here’s what you NEED to know…
Why You Must Create Your Facebook Business Page Today
Suzen Pettit
by Suzen Pettit at Omaginarium
Don’t Have a Facebook Business Page? Why You Must Suck It Up & Create Your Facebook Business Page Today
If kids, soon-to-be-adults and millions of not-so-young adults are your future audience, then you need to have a Facebook Business Page as you need to be where your audience is. And, today, our children, teens, young adults and even older adults like my former room mates and my ex (who deny they are addicted to Facebook) can be found updating their profile, commenting and changing their status updates regularly.
Using QR Codes For Small Business Marketing
Karen Leland
by Karen Leland at www.karenleland.com
Seven years ago, entrepreneur Rico Elmore was on vacation when he failed to find a pair of sunglasses that would fit on his not-so-small noggin. Elmore’s hefty head experience left him with an ah-ha moment, and today he is the proud proprietor of Fatheadz Eyewear www.fatheadz.com , a company that makes oversize sunglasses and extra wide eyewear for folks with large heads.
Always looking for ways to innovate, Elmore has recently been using mobile marketing, and QR codes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_code in particular, as a part of his plan to engage customers in making a once-boring piece of print an interactive experience.
How a Marketing Plan Can Save Your Firm from Making These Costly Errors
Daniela Baker
by Daniela Baker at CreditDonkey
Every business, large or small, needs a marketing plan to avoid making costly errors. Unfortunately, all too many business operate their marketing on a fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants sort of method. They don’t have much of a plan in place, and if they do, they don’t really follow it. While this might seem to make your business’s marketing techniques more flexible, it actually can cost you a ton – both in extra money spent and in opportunities missed – in the long run. Here are just a few common mistakes businesses make and how they can be avoided with a good marketing plan.
Can you recommend screen capture software for creating videos for marketing presentations & investor pitches?
Naomi Kokubo
by Naomi Kokubo, Editor of Founders Space
Using screen capturing software is a great way to show off your product or service. You know what they say when you’re trying to sell something… “A video is worth ten thousand words!”
Videos are actually becoming the preferred way to market any Web 2.0 site or service online, and there’s nothing easier to use than a good online screen capture program.
Here are a few worth trying…
Each of these have their strengths. Try them out and let me know which you like best?
How does a foreign company get help launching a product in the United States?
Soody Tronson
by Soody Tronson, Founder of Soody Tronson Law Group
QUESTION: I am based in Australia & have a business that I am passionate about. I want to find a VC that has experience in taking a product & selling it succesfully via infomercials throughout the U.S. It is difficult to find anyone in Australia that has this experience & not sure as to where to start looking in the U.S.? Your help is greatly appreciated! Glen Pattison
Tetris Blocks: 7 tips for Marketing a Startup
Richard Hsu
by Richard Hsu at One Page Blog
If you were like me, you probably played the video game Tetris from the 80′s, so when well-known CEO Jae Chung of goBalto presented his 7 tips for marketing a startup company on 5 four-square colored blocks, I couldn’t resist from posting it.
Publish your work in Digital-format
Fanny Tham
by Fanny Tham of CreativePeople@Work
If you want to be a published writer, you don’t have to face rejection from publishers anymore. User-Generated Content is the key product of the internet age and you can join in the bandwagon by publishing your own work.
WHAT
Publish your own work. It doesn’t have to be an epic bestseller because the mode of self-publishing is best suited to limited, niche editions. You can write about anything. Truly anything.
WHERE
1) Createspace
Does Your LinkedIn Profile Summary Sound Like a Lame Author’s Bio At the Back of a Book?
Kristina Jaramillo
Many LinkedIn professionals simply copy their bios from their website or the back of their book. And believe me you can tell. For example, I recently spoke to Ted Gee about changing his LinkedIn profile. I told him that his summary read like a back flap of a hard cover book. His exact response was, “You nailed it! That is exactly what I did”.
Why Your LinkedIn Profile Should Not Sound Like an Author’s Biography…
Marketing as an Experiment
Karen Janowski
by Karen Janowski of Traction Team
It’s practically a cliché to say that many startup CEOs are skeptical of marketing spending. To some, it’s a mysterious black box, voodoo laced with inscrutable jargon, or just a grand experiment. Well, I’m here to tell you that at least part of your marketing should be an experiment!
Why? Because marketing (particularly the part focused on arousing customer needs) is not a mechanistic process where you put in certain ingredients, turn the crank, and get out a predictable result. There are lots of variables:
Lessons from the Porn Industry
Fanny Tham
by Fanny Tham of CreativePeople@Work
The Porn Industry is a big industry. David Klatell, associate dean of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism notes, “[Pornography] is an industry where they exaggerate the size of everything.” In a report published by TopTenReviews Jerry Ropelato on 3rd June 2010, the Porn Industry pulls in USD4.9 billion worldwide revenue from internet porn. And that’s online alone. The industry also reaches out to consumers on other platforms such as publishing, photography, DVDs, VODs, satellite television and video games. Exaggeration or not, for an industry that has survived from the Victorian era, there is much we can learn from it.
Lessons the we can learn from the Porn Industry:
Why Providing Content Should Be Your FIRST Priority – Not Starting Conversations!
by Eric Gruber
As I look on my Facebook news feed I see:
* A business and life coach mentioned: Today’s challenge is to see if I can replace the heating element on the dryer……..I’ll let you know if I succeed or fail…lol….send prayers….lol
* Quotes by Tony Robbins from someone who is not Tony Robbins
* A realtor asked: What are your top 5 favorite things about summer? Mine are 1) Farmer’s market, 2) Baseball 3) Weekend cookouts 4) A sliced summer tomato with a dollop of Hellman’s mayo 5) Sunlight till 9 pm!
Stock Footage Library: What’s In It For Me?
Fanny Tham
by Fanny Tham of CreativePeople@Work
Stock footages are increasingly popular because of their availability for immediate download and cost-savings advantages. This raising trend of using stock footages has created an impact for both buyers and sellers. No matter who you are, this is what you want to know.
BUYERS:
1) Uses of the Footages
Common uses for stock footage (stills) are in magazines, book publishing, business reports, advertising, web design and graphics design. Stock video footages are commonly used in documentaries, television programmes, news items, sports reviews, independent films and commercials. Entire story lines can be created by means of stock footage. Commercials have been created purely out of stock footages.
LinkedIn Marketing Debate: Should Your LinkedIn Profile Be in 1st Person or 3rd Person?
Kristina Jaramillo
I spend hundreds of hours on LinkedIn every month researching, testing, tweaking and seeing what works and what doesn’t – and that’s on top of the hours I spend marketing my business and my clients’ businesses on LinkedIn. So in a week’s time I view thousands of different professional profiles.
I see people who write their profile in 1st person. Others will write in 3rd person. Even the LinkedIn marketing experts say different things when it comes to whether or not you should write your LinkedIn
profile summary in first person or third person.
What’s the best way to reach entrepreneurs around the country without a sales force?
QUESTION:
I run a local business directory in The South Jersey area, started in 2005. We’re profitable, and now we’d like to expand by offering a franchise to entrepreneurs across the country. We envision offering the local rights county by county, so each franchise would encompass one county. Each franchise would be a one person or family operation. The only problem is that if you hire salespeople, they want benefits and a salary, so it’s been slow recruiting. The business can be very profitable if someone wants to work at it. What’s the best way to reach entrepreneurs around the country without a sales force? – Bob
LinkedIn Marketing Question – Seriously, How Different Are You?
Kristina Jaramillo
Lots of people are “different” these days. But are they really thought leaders?
1. In most cases, you can’t tell one coach, consultant or expert in a particular industry from another. They practically use the same language to describe themselves and what they do.
2. If you look at the articles on their blog and those they distribute within the different groups – you’ll notice that they provide the same old information as everyone else.
Now, look at your profile. Look at the content you provide. Now, take an even closer look. Then go into LinkedIn and view others in your industry.
Conversations with Today’s Movers and Shakers (part 2)
Alan Toman
by Alan Toman, author of The WOOF Factor
Clearly the greatest interest and the most activity are in all things mobile; it crosses all sectors. Here are just a few facts about mobile today:
- Amazon sold $1 billion worth of product through mobile in the last 12 months.
- Mobile ticketing is predicted to more than double by 2012 (from 2010 figures) to exceed $100 billion (based on gross transaction value). Mobile devices are being used for ticket purchases for all kinds of travel, entertainment and sports. Mobile ticketing is one of the main factors driving the growth of mobile commerce.
Using an eBook to Build Your Brand
Karen Leland
by Karen Leland at www.karenleland.com
By now almost everyone has heard of Amanda Hocking, the 26-year-old novelist who was rejected by dozens of New York publishing houses. Not one to give up, Hocking decided to go the entrepreneurial route and self published an eBook instead.
The results? She’s made more than US$1 million dollars to date and just sold the movie rights to one of her popular series. Oh and she also just penned a US$2 million deal for a four book series – with an old fashioned publishing house.
How do I market to homeowners?
QUESTION:
I want to market to homeowners in a specific town about my curbside recycling business. How should I go about this? The only thing I can think of is door hangers and standing on corners with signs. The town has rules about signs being put up. Any suggestions?
ANSWER:
by Naomi Kokubo, Cofounder of LavaMind
Here are 12 ideas on how you can reach home owners:
- You can mail flier to each home — if they won’t let you hang one on the door
How do I plan my Internet advertising budget for my startup?
QUESTION:
Can you please tell me how to plan an Internet advertising budget for my startup? Should it be a certain percentage of revenue?
ANSWER:
Naomi Kokubo
by Naomi Kokubo, Cofounder of Founders Space
First of all, your advertising budget should be determined by your goals. Is your goal to brand your product? Drive users to your website? Drive awareness? Drive sales? Also, how much money do you have to invest in advertising? It usually takes a while to optimize an advertising campaign and figure out exactly what works and what doesn’t.
What should I consider when putting together my online marketing campaign?
QUESTION:
What should I consider when putting together my online marketing campaign?
ANSWER:
Naomi Kokubo
by Naomi Kokubo, Cofounder of Founders Space
Start by taking a close look at your competitors. Where are they advertising? How are they advertising? The more you can learn about what’s working for them, the more time and money you will save when it comes to your own marketing campaign.
What’s the best way to find the right PR person?
Naomi Kokubo
QUESTION:
I created a humorous gift item that people can buy online. Who would be best to reach out to help me market my product? I really need PR help with this.
ANSWER:
by Naomi Kokubo, Cofounder of Founders Space
What you need are two different people:
1) Someone who is really good at getting distribution for all the online and retail outlets that sell your type of product.
How do I best market my new book?
QUESTION:
I have written The Las Vegas Showgirl Diet, and I need suggestions as to the best way to market it. I’ve sent out press kits and established a website. What’s the best way to locate individuals looking to lose weight? – Annoula Wylderich
ANSWER:
Obesity is at epidemic levels right now in the United States, so I don’t think you’ll have trouble finding people who want to lose weight. It’s just a matter of cutting through the noise. There are a million and one diet books on the market.
Here are a few ideas that might help…
How do I market to nonprofits?
QUESTION:
If you want to market to nonprofits and organizations that cater to teens or young adults, what would be the best avenue of getting all their attention, rather than going to each company separately?
ANSWER:
Naomi Kokubo
by Naomi Kokubo, Cofounder of Founders Space
I’m not familiar with all the nonprofits that cater to teens, but I’m sure there’s a network out there, and I’m positive they have conferences and websites where they exchange ideas and partner with one another.
Here’s what I’d suggest:
How do you find a good PR firm?
QUESTION:
How do you go about finding a really good PR firm? What should you look for?
ANSWER:
Naomi Kokubo
by Naomi Kokubo, Cofounder of Founders Space
There are a few good ways to find the right PR firm:
1) Ask people in your industry what PR firms they use and how satisfied they are. Ask everyone you know until you narrow it down to a few firms that come highly recommended. Then you can go meet with them and judge for yourself.
Is Twitter really worth my time as a marketing tool?
QUESTION:
I run a tech startup that does online inventory management. Does it really make sense for my company to use Twitter as a marketing tool? It seems like a lot of work to be tweeting all the time, and would anyone really care? Would they even read my tweets? And even if they did, would it translate into business? Bottom line is that I think my time could be better spent on building my business, or am I missing something?
ANSWER:
Captain Hoff
by Steve Hoffman, Cofounders of Founders Space
What are some good marketing strategies for an Internet startup?
QUESTION:
My company runs a social site focused on food. Any suggestions for good marketing strategies?
ANSWER:
Alex Salkever
by Alex Salkever, Journalist & Marketing Executive
First of all, recognize that you are in an extremely crowded space and that you need to do something to stand out. So crystallize exactly what is different or unique about your site/business into a one or two sentence statement. Then, work on your story. Without a strong story about how the site came about, its mission, where you hope to go, what your goals are, then it’s much harder to nail down a marketing strategy.
