It's Showtime!

David Byrd : Raven Call
David Byrd
David Byrd is the Founder and Chief Creative Officer for Raven Guru Marketing. Previously, he was the CMO and EVP of Sales for CloudRoute. Prior to CloudRoute, He was CMO at ANPI, CMO & EVP of Sales at Broadvox, VP of channels and Alliances for Telcordia and Director of eBusiness development with i2 Technologies.He has also held executive positions with Planet Hollywood Online, Hewlett-Packard, Tandem Computers, Sprint and Ericsson.
| Raven Guru Marketing http://www.ravenguru.com/

It's Showtime!

In addition to opening the month with a very successful product launch (ANPI VIP) and the introduction of the new ANPI Chief Sales Officer (Mike Cromwell) during Cloud Partners, I also attended NTCA 2013 Fall Conference, COMPTEL Plus Fall Convention and Expo and Search Marketing Expo East.

Each of these meetings offers a different experience. NTCA provides the rural telecommunications community the opportunity to learn about the changing regulatory environment, get updates on new technologies, share various experiences in the deployment of new services and network infrastructures, and develop new professional and personnel relationships. Dave Lewis, ANPI CEO, participated in an industry panel the last day of the conference. Dave’s message was that the rural Telcos need to collaborate and work together to respond to competitive pressures, revenue and margin decreases, and jointly develop and market new solutions. Working together, we can accelerate our time-to-market and ultimately deliver industry-leading applications that allow us to leverage our brand capital to retain existing customers and close/convert prospects. Another key message of the conference is the phrase “Rural is Cool!” As a rallying cry for the NTCA members, this works well to develop a shared experience and strengthens the group’s camaraderie.

COMPTEL Plus is a very different type of conference, with a focus on selling and exchanging services between carriers and OEMs, and presenting new equipment and applications for carriers. Additionally, there were learning sessions on a variety of topics including IP transition, cyber security, Lifeline, VoIP, cloud solutions, Ethernet access, small cells and strategies for strengthening the bottom line. ANPI took advantage of the show to also perform demonstrations of our new Hosted Unified Communications Private Label Package.

Search Marketing Expo (SMX) is a conference to learn more about the latest tools and methodologies to enhance and improve Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing. The all-day workshop that preceded the conference, The In-house SEO Exchange, was fantastic. It was very intellectually invigorating to sit with large companies and discuss successes and pitfalls uncovered as they execute their SEO strategies. We were sworn to secrecy as to attendees and specific cases covered, so you must attend to gain the experience. The ROI for this conference comes in increasing qualified leads and improving conversion rates, while managing costs more effectively. Google and its latest algorithms, rules and tracking methods and analytical tools were discussed throughout the three-day conference.

I recommend all of these events for their target audiences. Staying on top of what is happening in our industry and understanding the latest marketing and sales strategies is important to all of our businesses.



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