SmokeJumperStrategy

How SEO Can Drive Non-SEO Marketing

A year ago I was asked by a friend and former colleague of mine, who is now a Partner at a prominent Silicon Valley Venture Capital firm, to come be the lead speaker at a “Marketing Meetup” they were hosting.  It seems that many of the companies that the firm had invested in were struggling with (or at least hesitating) to take advantage of online marketing (e.g. search engine optimization, search engine marketing, email marketing, blogging, social media, etc.).

How Marketing Changed in the 2000’s

I was recently reflecting on that session and thought it would be interesting to go back and see what, if anything had changed in my perspective.  When I gave the talk, I did my best to provide some context of how marketing had changed during the last decade (or at least back to when my former colleague was pushing product out the door for Netscape Communications).

• Access to media, thought leaders and influencers was somewhat limited and pre-defined by the traditional bounds of print (and even early online) publications and the relationships that Public Relations (PR) professionals had with the media whose coverage they sought. Read more…

Enchantment | 5 Questions for Guy Kawasaki

Guy Kawasaki is the co-founder of Alltop.com, an “online magazine rack” of popular topics on the web, and a founding partner at Garage Technology Ventures. Previously, he was the chief evangelist of Apple. Kawasaki is the author of ten books including his recently released (and reviewed by yours truly) Enchantment.  Other books include Reality Check, The Art of the Start (my personal favorite), Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way. Kawasaki has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.

While I knew of Guy for his standing and prominence in Silicon Valley and the tech world, I know him personally from the ice rink.  He is a frequent teammate and opponent in pick-up hockey games.  Whether friend or foe, he always seems to find joy in slapping the puck in my general direction.

1)  What was the inspiration for “Enchantment”?

Many people at my ice rink know me only in the context of my limited hockey ability. I decided to write a book that hopefully becomes a bestseller so that they’ll be in a bookstore someday and see my book and say, “I play hockey with that guy.” This will change the dynamics of my relationship with them.

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Review | Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki

Unwittingly, Guy Kawasaki faced fierce competition on my bedside table.  I was in the midst of reading “The Greatest Hockey Stories Ever Told” by the finest writers on ice when I received an advance copy of Guy’s latest book, Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions.  Guy and I met playing ice hockey and while I enjoy technology and marketing, my first love continues to be ice hockey.  How could I put down stories about flaming Zambonis and a cow being killed during the intermission of a Texas minor league hockey game for Guy’s latest foray into the literary world?  (Well a deadline does serve to energize at times).

I recently asked Guy, amidst middle aged gasps for breath in between shifts of a pick-up hockey game, how many books he’s written.  ”Ten” was his response.  ”How the hell do you find the time?”  ”This is what I do.”  Simple as that . . . it is what he does.

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I’m Tired of One Night Stands

At the risk of mixing metaphors, Luke Hohmann recently described Groupon, Living Social and other daily deal sites as enticing businesses into one night stands.  At first I laughed but as I thought about my direct experiences with a plethora of group buying sites, I think he may be right.  There is no doubt that these daily deal sites can deliver a deluge of coupon-grubbing customers to a small, local business’s door step.  But at what cost?  Negative margin, stretching service delivery to breaking point, alienation of regular loyal customers, attracting customers who don’t spend more than the deal amount and won’t ever come back are some of the well documented potential pitfalls.  (And hopefully not STD’s!)

I often describe Groupon, Living Social and other daily deal sites as providing small businesses a large, fishing drift net to cast broadly into the ocean; the result is you will no doubt collect a lot of sea life, but only some of which will be the targeted species you are actually fishing for.  Luke’s metaphor is certainly more colorful and may, in fact, be truer than mine.

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Fanminder | 5 Questions for Paul Rosenfeld & Tracy Grover

I met Paul Rosenfeld last year when he came to pitch Savvy Cellar Wine Bar & Wine Shop before it opened in Mountain View, CA on the merits of his new mobile marketing service called Fanminder.  Always being one to extend and try new things and wanting to dip our toe into the mobile world, I said yes (plus Paul is very passionate and convincing).  He is the Co-Founder and CEO of Fanminder.  He spent about 15 years working for two of the best companies catering to small businesses — American Express and Intuit. At American Express Paul helped lead its first gift card program for merchants and worked in the Small Business Services division. At Intuit, he was General Manager QuickBooks Merchant Account Service; QuickBooks Online Edition; and led development of the FinanceWorks online banking suite.

Tracy Grover is Co-Founder and COO of Fanminder.  Most recently, Tracy was Vice President of Product Management for AccountNow. Previously she served as Director of Marketing for LoopNet, which automates online marketing tools for small real estate businesses to help them compete with the big guys.  Before that Tracy built, launched, and marketed online banking solutions for small businesses (for Bank of America & Silicon Valley Bank), a secure mobile application used by doctors & public officials (Certicom) and the first mass market online credit card, NextCard.

I recently sat down with Paul and Tracy and fired off 5 questions for them . . . .

1) What was the genesis of Fanminder?

Paul:  Tracy and I started Fanminder literally in the teeth of the recession, in October 2008. We had very good paying jobs – I was the Chief Marketing Officer and Tracy was the VP Product Management for a local start-up. We saw how all the larger, Fortune-sized retailers were rushing into mobile and social marketing but when we “walked down main street” we didn’t see any local businesses doing anything.

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