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Who is listening to you? You might be surprised

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That takes some effort to listen and be aware of what the opportunities actually are but if you ignore them you do so at at your own peril. Throughout my career as a professional communicator I come across clients who are absolutely sure they know who their audience is. Invariably they are wrong.Let me give you an example. Many years ago I counseled a semiconductor company that had a great business selling components to Apple for the iPod. They sold almost 30 percent of all their product to Apple. They knew that Apple was never going away. In our research into the effectiveness of their content we found what seemed to be a discrepancy. We knew that there were multiple product groups that the client’s technology would fit, but they were focused only on the iPod team. We told them they needed to start a focus on development teams. They responded, “We know who to talk to, you just concentrate on putting out press releases.” Six months later, at a trade show, two Apple team managers came ...
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Marketing coffee break: Marketing Automation makes investment in people profitable

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This is our first interview in a new series on best practices in marketing technology. today we talk to James (Jamie) Morgan, vice president of global sales for SharpSpring, one of our technology partners. Most companies, we have found, that invest in new tech for marketing and sales somehow think they can skimp on professional personnel but that has been a poor model for success. The marketing automation industry is growing rapidly, one of the fastest growing industries in the world, but the tools are complex. Very few customers of the industry are making effective use of the tools and customer turnover is as high as 50 percent annually. as a result, many industry members are scrambling constantly for new customers . SharpSpring, however, ties it's business directly to marketing and communications professionals and has an admirable 2 percent turnover rate. One of the lowest in the marketing automation industry. Our discussion with Jamie shows why it is so low and why investing in ...
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Navigating to complex world of marketing tech

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We're off on a new direction again, advising companies about strategy and teaching content development. Our new video series will feature service vendors and customers to help you better navigate the complex world of marketing technology. Grab a cub of coffee and join the conversation .   Video: Footwasher Media Winter '17 Newsletter: a New Path Marketing practices are failing companies. Here's how to be more effective Related articles One man's view of the state of Linkedin Are ethics and integrity arising in web journalism?
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Sharing is a thing, but it isn’t the only thing.

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I received a few emails from a content services vendor this week (Here’s a suggestion…did you get my email… have you read my email…) and after getting over the initial annoyance of a rookie PR gaffe I decided to look into the suggestion while I made coffee. My response is this blog post. The vendor was Venngage which has a nifty online tool for creating infographics for distribution on digital media, and competes with dozens of similar online tools. The offer was a very long white paper on engagement that, to their credit, had no blatant push to buy their service, but it wasn’t completely subtle. The premise of the white paper is “content that people share is a good thing.” In fact, if anyone from Venngage sends you the link to the paper, I just saved you a who lot of time because you don’t have to read it now. That is all it says, but with lots of statistics before they get to the point. It’s true that a metric of content engagement is, in fact, how many people in your audience share...
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Automation's dirty secret: We still need people

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In all cases we have learned that these companies, if they don’t have trainable employees, must invest in employees or consultants with the knowledge and experience. More importantly, those resources need to be dedicated to the task. With all the talk of automation replacing workers there is a dirty little secret that most people are ignoring: The need for workers to implement and maintain automation tools and to effectively analyze and interpret data from them. Companies like to buy automation technology with the belief that they eliminate the need for people and expertise but when they fail to invest in the manpower to use that technology it severely hampers the ability of the tools to deliver value. At the same time, while ROI is significantly reduced by the lack of appropriate staff, the cost of eliminating the unproductive tools increases. Nowhere is this more evident than in the area of marketing automation and online communications. Over these past two years, Footwasher Media ha...
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Recruiters and job listing sites do not work

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In fact if a job seeker were to place on roulette bet or buy one lottery ticket for every job they apply for on a job listing service, they would be more likely to win a living wage from gambling than job searches. Finding a job is not easy and there are no shortcuts no matter what is said by the human resources industry, including Job finding services, independent recruiters, and in-company human resources (HR) staff.  Even with an unemployment rate of less than 5 percent there are 100 million skilled, experienced people who are looking for or have given up looking for work in the United States. In fact, the conclusion of a year long New Tech Press investigation of the employment industry is it is doing a disservice to job seekers, employers and the investment community by making the claim that they can help people find work or employees. While some of these services can point to a few areas of success and some are better than others (our research shows Linkedin is the most re...
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I'm old and you are not. That's good thing.

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I turned 64 this year and have been on the receiving end of scams and offers related to social security, dementia and Medicare for weeks now. I'm also getting offered senior discounts without asking. None of that has bothered me as much as getting dismissed because I'm no longer in my 30s (which bothered me as much when I was in my 20s). Today, however I had a revelation and I'm feeling much better about my age. I was doing a session with the marketing team for a small business back by telephone and was in the process of breaking down their preconceived notions about communication when the youngest member of the team asked me, "How do you know this is what our customers are thinking?" "Because I've been doing this for 40 years," I replied. "Oh." She replied.  Then one of the business owners, well into his 70s asks, "Wait a minute. You said you've been doing this fo r 40 years. How old are you?" "I'm 64....
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