From startup venture to up-start brand: are your marketing in the right jungle?

I hereby claim "rights", for whatever the hell it's worth (hint: probably very little) to the following line: Web 2.0, the blogosphere, etc., cuts the old "15-minutes of fame" thing down to "15 seconds". I'll let you come to your own conclusions as to the marketing and branding implications, but one thing's certain: For a resource-hungry, early-stage venture unveiling its premiere product, 15 seconds ain't much. It underscores the new reality of the launch party, which you don't want devolved into a lynch party. Your Mission Damn Near Impossible calls for marketing innovation at least equal to the breakthroughs that conceived your super-cool, gotta-have-it new product you now need to brand. Your task: concoct the go-to-market strategy and tactics that blend just the right measures of guerrilla and conventional PR, go-to-market materials and tools, and -- something I call event-ing. Think of the audience, or the target market, you're pursuing as a kind of navigational coordinates, or simply as a template. Then calculate how those people want to be informed, talked to, and sold. Then create events, online or off, that encourage small communities of them to hear more. Ah, but you would say, nothing new here. Isn't the whole buzz phenomenon all about identifying the "hub" people in networks of affinity groups? Sure it is. But what about those "groups"? Who are they, really? Are they in fact your hottest prospects? Not so long ago, Napster worshipped at the altar of the 16-22-year-old demographic, believing that it was the center of the bulls-eye. That is, it did until its media guys sobered Napster with news that it was actually the affluent, 30-and-40-somethings who were the power-downloaders! True story. This necessitated a slight adjustment in Napster strategy. Point is: market segmentation isn't the most important thing when you're preparing your go-to-market plan and concocting your PR-cum-marketing formulae. It's the only thing. And, in a 15-second timeframe, you better make sure the audience you've invited to get your pitch is the one containing the most people who'll raise their hands and want to hear more. Start counting: fifteen...fourteen...thir..

Marketing and branding are high-tech

Why is “technology marketing” such an oxymoron? Why is it always right there with Vatican City Planned Parenthood and Mormon Wine Country and government intelligence?
What’s most galling about such self-cancellation is how often the people in charge of marketing are the enablers of it.
In my experience there are two reasons for it. You must incorporate this understanding into the way you solve the problem at your company.
The first has to do with a definition. Specifically, lack of consensus definition of the marketing function inside so many product-obsessed companies. A definition everyone’s signed up for, believes in and rallies around.
I could walk into just about any company within a 20 mile radius of my office in Silicon Valley and ask people at random to give me a one-sentence description of the various functional departments. They would tell me that sales closes the deals, engineering delivers the product, manufacturing makes it, finance counts the beans, and that HR handles benefits, insurance, recruiting and lawsuits. And throws parties people complain about.
What about marketing?
Ask you shall receive a menu of engineering-support projects and sales-support programs or a mish-mash of convoluted, sometimes indecipherable yammering about logos, literature, trademarks and tradeshows. And these would be the definitions thrown at you by marketing people.
Ask people from other departments and you could get anything from playfully disparaging wisecracks to outright hostility. Especially if it’s a salesperson who didn’t make his or her number the previous quarter.
Lack of a consensus definition is a big problem because organizations, like nature, hate vacuums. So, with no consensus definition, people start defining you. And now you’ve got big problem that’s getting bigger. When someone else is defining your job, it’s lose-lose: You get the blame for the screw-ups, someone else gets credit for success. Every time.
The second reason is the prevalence of what I call the Inside-Out Syndrome.
A company begins life by finding a need and filling it. This is classic outside-in thinking and executing. The outside-in perspective is essential to effective marketing. The problem is that over time, as the company grows it is victimized by its own success. And the natural instinct, what I call the marketing gene that equips you with an outside-in perspective, steadily gives way to a perspective that’s inside-out. More and more, you start seeing the world through the lens of your product and your company.
Before you know it, fewer and fewer people inside the company share the customer perspective. Left unchecked, this leads to all kinds of problems for which marketing typically catches the heat: The company wonders why customers aren’t buying the products that the company insists on selling to them. Small wonder why.
There’s only one remedy. Start pushing that gravitational center back to the customer, where it belongs, and where it began when your company started up. This pushing back begins at the top of the organization. Get back into orbit around your customers. Expect them to revolve around you and you’ll be amazed how fast they disappear.

Six Steps to Developing Your PR and Publik Media Plan

Marketing experts will tell you that a well planned public relations campaign is often far more effective than advertising. This tutorial will assist you in developing and creating the core of your public relations campaign in six easy steps.
• Step 1: Define and write down your objectives for your publicity or media plan.
How will you design your public relations campaign? Will it be designed to:
o Establish your expertise among your peers, the press, or your potential clients or customers?
o Build goodwill among your customer, supplier, or your community?
o Create and reinforce your brand and professional corporate image?
o Inform and create good perceptions regarding your company and services?
o Assist you in introducing a new service or product to your market?
o Generate sales or leads?
o Mitigate the impact of negative publicity and/or corporate crisis?
You may be wondering why I am asking you these things at the beginning of a tutorial that is supposed to show you how to create and your develop publicity plan? The answer is easy.
In order for your publicity and media plan to be successful it's first most important to determine and define your objective. With a clear objective in mind you have laid the ground work to the complete the remainder of this tutorial.
• Step 2: Define your goals in achieving this objective. It is important that your goals be specific, measurable, results-oriented and time-bound. These goals must be in-line with your overall business, marketing, and sales objectives.
• Step 3: Determine who your target audience consists of. Who is it that you want to reach with this campaign? What do you want your key message to be?
• Step 4: Develop a schedule for your public relation campaigns. Create synergy by coinciding your public relations plan with other marketing and sales efforts.
• Step 5: Develop your plan of attack. What communication vehicles will you use to get your message to the public? Examples may include:
o Press releases
o Articles
o Customer Success Stories
o Letters to the Editor
o Press Conferences, Interview, or Media Tours
o Radio, Television, or Press Interviews
o Seminars or Speaking Engagements
o Event Sponsorships
Select three from the list and beginning researching and developing your approach.
• Step 6: Put measures in place to track the results of your PR Campaign. After each campaign sit down and review the results. Did you achieve the defined objectives and goals of this campaign? Should you consider modifying your original plan? If so, how and why?