We did a seminar today at Otago Southland Employers Association about How to migrate your marketing online.

The Resources and additional material which add to the slides are:

• Blog post about website keywords and how to test for their use
• Reverse IP Mapping Explained – and download the free e-book
• Leads Explorer and DomoDomain are examples of companies offering IP lookup services
• How to do B2B leads research guide slide deck
• The Word of Mouth marketing website - this is the Otago/Dunedin page, there are many others

How to use these resources:

Check out the original slide deck; then review the Reverse IP Mapping document – it includes a case study done on our own website about visitors, lastly review the slide deck B2B leads research because this shows how to use the reverse IP mapping in your business development methodology.

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John Pettengill

#OMGdiabetic

I am a diabetic and I live with a chronic disease.  25.8 million in the US today.   A diabetic looks at each meal as a carbohydrate count with high/low glycemic index.  You are thinking about yoiur condition all day long and we know why lab values like A1C are important.

Some of us are bigger experts than others 17million / 67% US diabetics aren’t managing their blood sugar well.  Something is systemically wrong with the system if this number are having problems.  This is not to remove personal responsibility.  Cost to US is enormous in healthcare costs and chronic diseases cause 7/10 deaths per year.

Why aren’t we handling it?

Can technology help us manage it?

IN 21 minute segments (an average doctors visit) we talk about our health.  They ask questions about our lifestyle and health.  It’s isolated within the doctor’s office which is outside the normal pattern of your life (bar, office, restaurant, gym).   This is 2 hours per year approx and the doctors aren’t there when we make daily decisions about our disease.

This isn’t enough for patients with chronic disease.  31% are having problems with their medication in 45-54 age bracket.  Even more are dissatisfied with their eating or exercise plan.  The problem doesn’t lie mostly with the areas where doctors write prescriptions…. “eat well and exercise” doesn’t work.

Read the full post on our client’s site LifetimeHealthDiary.com

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Dear Sir [it's always a man, dontchakno?]

Thank you for asking me to comment on how I could help your company improve its business development, incoming leads pipeline and sales pipeline.

The following comments apply not just to you, but to a large nubmer of corporates whose websites have never been updated since launch.  Please don’t take it personally.

Website – this was a perfectly acceptable website for three or five years ago. Static, full of information, but never-changing and not seeking to engage in discussion with a visitor.

Although much of the content can be re-used, the marketing plan needs to be redesigned around moving the whole marketing communications from monologue to dialogue. Your current website talks AT the customer.  The new marketing mode is all about having a chat, a conversation and through that demonstrating your product, your expertise and your solution for their problem.

This theme of moving from monologue to dialogue runs through all the suggestions I would make for you.

So a short list of things to consider:

• Newsletter
• Blog
• Customer reviews
• Surveys / polls
• Forum
• Linked In page
• Podcast interviews
• Participation in groups relevant to your industry sectors – Ning, LinkedIn
• Participation in writing answers to questions relevant to your subject matter expertise – Linked In Answers, Yahoo Answers, Wikio

Take a look at this client website [insert here]. I spent some time working with them on their social media marketing and generating incoming leads for the sales team.

It is a simple site, but there are up to date news and events information, reviews, links to articles in other magazines. It could be improved – but there’s new content, dated and visible.  That helps with Google rankings, search engine optimisation for natural search and creating the impression that there are real people working at your company.

All of which, together, help to make your company visible on other peoples websites, indexed regularly by Google (makes your SEO findable) and participating or leading conversations that are pertinent to your niche area of expertise. You ‘hang out’ in places online where conversations start and where you can speak to show off your knowledge and product range.

B2B marketing hasn’t changed. It is still about being known, demonstrating expertise and connecting with the right people. What has changed is the way in which this is done online and how that integrates with your offline sales and marketing work.

I hope I haven’t frightened you off irretrievably, but please let’s talk.  But if we don’t, you can be sure I’ll be spending my time with an organisation that is so frightened of losing its market that it is prepared for a radical marketing and sales overhaul.

Lots of love

Becky

P.S. I meant it when I said not to take it personally.  You aren’t alone.  You arent’ even late to this party.  I suspect you aren’t even in the last 50% of organisations to make this change.  There is still time to be a winner.

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The development of online money-making by bloggers and early-adopter affiliate marketers has progressed from stage one – write stuff and hang adverts around it; to stage two – use affiliates to promote it on your behalf and is now moving into a third stage.

Building closed spaces where you can pay a bit to get  into the ‘inner circle’ and learn new stuff early on thus taking advantage ahead of the crowd.

There is a nice logic to this.  We’ve done it, let us show you how.

The Third Tribe Story

I got an email last week inviting me (and you) to join a new private online space  Third Tribe Marketing. I know where they got my name, I’m signed up to ProBlogger, Copyblogger, Chris Brogan and Lateral Action.  All high volume readership sites that talk about online marketing.

Getting them together to co-launch a members-only site for super-cool-new-stuff is a very neat idea.  The copy on the site is in a frame so I can’t send you separate URLs but the Story, the People and what’s Inside are very well-written pages with compelling reasons why you should spend $27 a month to join the inner crowd.

Join it if you want – or just read the copy and see what a lovely warm feeling it gives you when you see such a great proposition combining and re-working content from a range of great sites into one place.

Congratulations, guys.  It looks like a super money-maker and I hope it works well.

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I wanted to start this post with a flow diagram t hat resonated with me so much that I immediately sent it to my Mother.  I’ve been doing ‘tech support’ for my family for years, and for Geoff and, and, and.  I expect you’ve been doing it too.

But although funny, truthful and nicely wry, the diagram got me thinking about what web 2.0 really means in real life.  How does it change some of the things we consider to be ‘normal’ now and what will a different future really be like?

There are lots of ways that I forsee
1.    Self-help – go and find it out for yourself
2.    Basic computer skills like editing documents, highlighting, linking
3.    Collaboration skills becoming more important
4.    Blending your private and business life

The cartoon illustrates the self-help trend.  I am marginally better than you at finding stuff online and so you call me to assist your search for a solution.  What’s important about this is not that I try to teach you how to do it yourself, but that I don’t mind that you call me. 

This is a link into the third point.  We will need to un-learn self-direction and move more into collaboration with virtual teams who come together and split apart without formalised enablement. 

The ThinkingPharma team is like this.  They find each other and new skills when their business demands it.

Point two is a possible huge divider between the digitally enabled and those who are cut off from this new world.  This really matters – but isn’t something for today’s post.

The private:public blend is something I personally will have a lot of issue with.  I dislike having to socialise with work and taking my private life into the office is not what I choose to do.  And yet I notice that Facebook has some helpful groups for my work and LinkedIn (which I thought to be business-only) now has a great group for my hobby.

We will all have to un-learn a lot of the habits business has taught us.

Then I read David Armano’s latest slide set about ‘social business by design’. His organisation, Dachis Corp ,  have been working on a management consulting template for enterprise.  They cleverly figured that the only people who will pay top dollar for social media advice are big companies and the only way to get them to do this is using change management or business model improvement.  Both huge consulting gigs.

Way to go, David!

Last week I undertook my first social media training event in which I spent an afternoon with a group of bright people and endeavoured to teach them how to use social media for business development. 

They were all business development professionals so it was a task to explain new ways of working to do the same old job.  Rather like “what web 2.0 will mean for business” as I said earlier.

I learnt a lot from that session.  

And now I feel better informed and ready to work with another company who is interested in teaching themselves, using computer skills and collaboration to work differently in future.

Is that you?

Prio

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  The Clutrain Manifesto was a significant moment in future-gazing for a world that is now very clearly with us.

The authors have re-published the book with some additional chapters by themselves and another luminary, JP .  Which will be great and some added thought-provoking chapters to digest.

What was so great about Cluetrain?  It first foresaw and articulated the concept of the market as a conversation. That is thesis number one.

A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies.

That corporations are made up of people who (shock horror) may disagree.

How do you speak in a human voice? First, you get a life. And corporations just can't do that. Corporations are like Pinocchio. Or Frankenstein. Their noses grow longer at the oddest moments, or they start breaking things for no good reason. They want to be human, but gosh, they're not.  Christopher Locke

and thesis 15 stands out for me today – have we arrived at the point of 'a few more years'?

In just a few more years, the current homogenized "voice" of business—the sound of mission statements and brochures—will seem as contrived and artificial as the language of the 18th century French court.

For me what happens next is the really interesting part.  Here's what I think….

1. the rise of the power of the consumer to inform, bargain, leverage and enthuse
2. corporate honesty is tested and changes many organisations
3. Reversal of the advertising-led world of marketing and sales to networked conversations
4. The end of corporate databases and centralised record-keeping.  Only record-verification needs to be centralised
5. B2B engagement and prospect research is easier and cheaper and the opportunities to find good new business partners and clients quickly and cheaply grow massively
6. Shifting budgets from OTL to direct and social media
7. The up-skilling of call centres from help-desks to teams of helpful folk who can get things done, sell more product and work withing the network to facilitate the coompany goals

thanks to David Cushman for the link.

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I have written about new business models and new ways of working and earning in the new economy.  Now Dougald Hine who I met earlier this year has started a new project specifically to write and consult on the wittily-named "Collapsonomics ".  Here's the definition

collapsonomics, n.

1. The study of economic and state systems at the edge of their normal social and economic function, including preventative measures to avoid destructive feedback loops and vicious cycles.

2. A consulting practice based on the scientific and historical understanding of collapse conditions, and responses to them.
 

He is writing about social media as a recession-busting tool for the newly unemployed, specifically "digital resource-maps for people who have lost access to the market as a source of resources". 

The comments stream is well worth reading.

I am interested in the slightly anti-establishment comment about how anything proscribed and 'rolled out' nationally is bound to fail.  Is there a middle way between central provision of helpful services e.g. Libraries, Connections, Business Links and strongly local interpretations / adaptations to suit local need? Bottom up feels nice and social media tools could be the glue that enables knowledge sharing and best practice for local interpretation.  This fits nicely into the Ernesto Sirolli enterprise fcilitation model which is being trialled by Rochdale District Council in the UK.

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Image via Wikipedia

Well a major brand is rocking the OTL boat – Coke 'suggests' that agencies get rewarded based on value .

Traditionally, defining the value of an assignment has been the job of the agency, which tells its client how many people and how much time it'll need to accomplish a given project. Under its new model, Coke will determine the value of assignments based on a range of factors including the work's strategic importance, the talent involved and whether other agencies could duplicate the work — if they could, it's worth less.

After those factors are used to set the value of a project, the agency's performance and the business results that follow determine what, if anything, the agency deserves to be paid beyond its upfront costs (which, in practice, are sometimes inflated). If all targets are hit, the agency could make as much as 30% on a project; if all targets are missed, the agency won't make any profit at all.

 However later in the article ittalks about P&G and their approach – which seems different

 
Procter & Gamble Co. is moving more brands toward a model that makes a single agency lead contractor over the rest of a brand's far-flung marketing-services roster, which includes maintaining control over hiring, budgets and payments for other agencies.

Now this is completely different – a new skillset of management of sub contractors.  This is not the traditional core skillset of an agency.  BUT it could be a new business model for agency groups – and a nice new revenue stream if you have project management and cost control skills.

This should have some knock-on effects

• Budgets migrate to direct channels and digital
• Pitches more tightly managed
• Procurement more closely involved in existing agency relationships
• Pricing reviews (and possible knock-on to media buying…?)
• Agencies tracking internal costs
• Improved job-bag systems
• Cost management jobs being created at agencies
• Lead agency role moving from OTL to digital agencies

What else?

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Iwent to Lloyd Davies' first prototyping meeting for Tuttle a while back.  Well he's written his first 'annual' report' on the state of the group so far.  Tuttle Annual Report 2009

And it reads very well.  

I'd like to extract some fine quostations that iillustrate what it does and why its so 'of the moment' that you should consider coming along. 

Lots of people came [to the first meeting] and sat there and looked like "So you've got us here, we're ready, what's all this about? Why am I here? What do you want from me? What am I going to get out of this?" So I told them. I explained what little 'd worked out and what I still didn't know and above all it was not about something you were going to get something out of without putting something significant in first.

 Very true – you get out what you put in and then there's the amplification effect where the sum of the parts is more than the whole.

It was also an opportunity to see to what extent building rich relationships between smart and well-connected people could deliver any forms of economic value. I'm pretty sure we've proved that hypothesis over and over again.

I’ve ‘given away’ more great ideas this year [at Tuttle] that at any time in my life, but have received twice as much in return.  (@solobasssteve Steve Lawson)

This is part of the new business models for the new working world – I am certain.

What I find most useful and intriguing about Tuttle is the opportunity to meet people who want to know how it can help them do business better.

Yes the sharing of 'how to' knowhow is a key element of Tuttle that is missing in most other networking events that I go to.  I've learnt loads and occasionally had the chance to show off my own skills because of this very important element of the social rules at Tuttle.

Looking forward – plans for the future.

The simplest way this is happening is the way that Tuttle Clubs and Social Media cafés are springing up in other cities.

Initially, we are developing some consulting offerings, analytical and thought leadership publications and masterclass/workshop events.

My own experience of Tuttle and things that I'm working on now that started there are:

• Amplified East and Toby Moores @sleepydog
• the T shirt campaign for SXSW
• Meeting David Terrar and starting a biz dev collaboration
• Geeknbury with @documentally Christian Payne
• Getting Spinvox on my phone thanks to @Whatleydude Kevin Whatley
• Finally seeing the movie Brazil through to the end – I've slept through it more times than I care to remember!

In summary – the group is TOTALLY not clicquey and everyone is made to feel welcome.  I like this a lot.  Come along and see if you like what you find.

If you can't come along just follow the attendees on Twitter.

AFTERWORD

Steve Lawson has written about why the creative industries need Tuttle. 

Well, what you’ve just read is about as succinct and poetic an exposition of how what’s currently called ‘social media’ is changing how we create, innovate, network, resource, collaborate and make money from whatever part of the world we operate in, as I’ve ever come across. The ethos of Tuttle that Lloyd spells out so loquently is what those areas of work euphemistically referred to as ‘the creative sector’ have been desperately in need of for years.

The lack of agenda, the desire to share, the room to innovate, the fun, the friendship, the caffeine. All vital elements in getting creative for the sake of making the world a better place. Not in any ‘worthy’ sense, but just because so many of the old models of business and creativity were built on sustaining myths. Myths of status, of importance, of fame, of business-yness.

All of them Bollocks.

As a proof of concept, Friday mornings are a shining testament to the power of curiosity. It all seems to have started with a ‘I wonder what would happen if…’ type question, and here we are, planning and scheming ways to push technology as far as we can into the world of usefulness.

I subscribe to this.  there's a load of wanky, cooler-than-thou egos around that I dislike.  It's exclusive not inclusive and implies that those of us who don't fit that mould are worthless.  Get rid of it – this attitude is holding back our industry.  Curiosity is what our industry does well – we should share it or as Alex Bogusky says 'stick our noses in where we're not invited'.

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