Marketing

Wasted Ad Money

July 14, 2008

I have worked on marketing for ISP's, CLEC's, ITSP's and MSP's as well as non-tech firms like lawyers and real estate firms. My suggestion has always been to forget the Old Media Tradition of radio and TV advertising. Now there is a presentation on SlideShare about how at least Half the Advertising money is wasted. See here:

| View | Upload your own

Posted in Marketing

All They Want is Sales

July 25, 2008

Most of my phone calls lately is How Do I Generate More Sales? It's getting tougher to sell telecom. For years it was all about "Saving 10%". Now that's not enough.

Posted in Marketing, sales and selling

Lessons from Jack

August 4, 2008

Rich Tehrani has a post about magicjack. He saw one of the company's many infomercials. (Someone said that Isenberg is hawking them in one!) Anyway the one thing MJ is doing is promoting VOIP without talking about VoIP. Vonage does it as well.

Posted in Marketing, sales and selling, voip

11 Ways to Market Your Event

August 14, 2008

We are organizing BarCampTampaBay for Oct. 11 & 12, 2008 at USF College of Business. These are the first 11 ways we are marketing this event:

Local bloggers - contact, invite, interact with. Local organizations like the Chambers of Commerce. LinkedIn - your network first! MeetUp.com - create a group, just $75. Eventful.com, Upcoming.yahoo.com, Craigslist - free event listings Newspapers - weekly, commununity, and trade. Magazines, too. twitter - again your network first. podcast about it and get others to do so; interview with podcasters. create a website or a blog eventbrite.com for sign-up sheet make a Facebook group

Posted in Marketing

Differentiation Part II

October 14, 2008

When I say that word - Differentiation - in a space like VoIP with 1100 providers, what does it mean?

Marketing is about stories. Not stories about your boring tech, but stories about what the consumer can do with your tech. For the most part, the technology works, but why would anyone use it?

Blackberries were the first prolific smartphone for business users. Execs thumbing away at the airport after listening to voicemails.

Posted in Marketing, voip

Deep Dive on Blogging

November 3, 2008

On Wed. night, I am moderating a discussion at the American Marketing Association - Tampa Bay Chapter (New Media SIG) on the Deep Dive into Blogging.

In a Biz Journal article, the author notes, "It is a new world for business. Embrace the opportunities. Open your mind to a new way of connecting. It is a great way to prosper in any economy."

I say that in today's business world, you have to be connecting with your customers and prospects - even your employees, vendors, and prospective employees.

Posted in Marketing, Web 2.0, social network, twitter

Best VoIP Commercial Ever

November 10, 2008

Saw this commercial on TV yesterday for oovoo, which is a Skype replacement.

Why did I like it? Because it demonstrated what it does while doing what Ma Bell used to do in the old days with its Reach Out and Touch Somebody ads.

It makes a connection with the audience. The connection is an emotional bond. No talk of features or benefits. Perfect.

Luca says that there isn't room for any more players. To an extent that is true because the market is full and it will be a zero-sum game of take-away. But with marketing like this, I can see how oovoo could take market share -- but how do they make money?

Posted in Internet, Marketing, im/chat, telecommunications, voip

ISPCON this week

November 10, 2008

I'm at ISPCON in San Jose all week so the updates will be few and far between. Jack Brandt and I will be doing The Marketing Spotlight - Q&A from the audience on how to market your services. (Differentiate and Delivery). Then I am moderating a panel with Google, Optenet and IKANO about How to Build Successful Channel Partnerships.
If you are in San Jose, let's grab some coffee. Susan Bowen at DIDX is having a blogger's breakfast tomorrow at 8 AM. See you there!

Posted in Marketing, channel, conferences

Spam Response Rate

November 17, 2008

1 in 12.5 Million responses to spam -- but it is still highly profitable. If the spam was just selling products with $10 profit per sale, it would still be highly profitable. But when you are stealing credit card numbers and identities, it makes spam hugely profitable.

Spammers usually run off of botnets of infected computers. Why people don't update (and run) anti-virus programs regularly is beyond me. Why we haven't defeated spam yet is another issue.

Posted in Internet, Marketing

Is the $100 Triple Play viable?

November 21, 2008

So on Linkedin, Neal Lachman, asked if the $100 Triple Play was Viable in today's economic molasses. Neal writes:

Bundling voice, video, data services for a higher ARPU was an obvious, great move when broadband services and advanced digital services were first introducded...... However, the market is moving more towards a lower ARPU for the triple play services. This is especially going to play a big role in future operations. The time of high ARPUs is going, and soon it will be history.

Posted in Internet, Marketing, bandwidth, broadband, cableco, duopoly, economy, linkedin, telco, telecommunications, video, wi-fi, wireless

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Next

On Rad's Radar?

Marketing