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Top 10 Marketing Slideshares of 2011

December 29, 2011 By

I am a big fan of a Slideshare and I try to sort through the latest business and marketing presentations at least once a week. When I find a great deck I either use Instapaper or Evernote to save it as a resource for future use.

2011 has been a great year for presentations so I wanted to share some of my favorites. With thousands of presentations published in the business category, I am sure I missed a lot of good ones so please add your favorites to the list.

Here are my 10 favorite marketing presentations:

How storytelling can enhance digital projects

View more presentations from StoryBeats

The 10 Mistakes I’ve made…so you don’t have to

View more presentations from Tara Hunt

How to Win the Zero Moment of Truth – iCrossing and Google Webinar

View more presentations from iCrossing

Mktng like jazz

View more presentations from Peter Economides

Transform Your Marketing

View more presentations from HubSpot Internet Marketing

It’s Time for a Moment of Truth – Getting Beyond the Status Quo of Customer Interactions

Brand It Like Beckham

View more presentations from The Marketing Network – Power to Connect

Work That Content! CNW Group Breakfast in Montreal – May 2011

B2B Content Marketing Trends

10 Steps to Product/Market Fit

View more presentations from ashmaurya
That completes my ten favorite for 2011. For extra credit, here is my favorite personal presentation from 2011 and thanks to Brian Solis, is now my most viewed deck ever:
The End of Business as Usual

View more presentations from josh duncan
Filed Under: Marketing Resources, Slideshare Presentation, Worth the Read Tagged With: , ,

We Need A Definition of Marketing

November 28, 2011 By

Why do we need a definition of marketing?

  • We have an education problem. There seems to be a never-ending confusion on the difference between advertising and marketing. When you have companies like Forrester Research and uber-blogger/ VC, Fred Wilson propagating the wrong definition, you know we have a problem.
Isn’t there already a definition out there?
Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. (Approved October 2007)
  • This isn’t necessarily incorrect but I would say that it is a definition by marketers for marketers. If you want to explain marketing to someone that doesn’t understand it, this is not going to help. The mainstream definition needs to be simple, to the point, and short.
So, what definition do you suggest?
Marketing is the name we use to describe the promises a company makes, the story it tells, the authentic way it delivers on that promise.
  • And then let’s follow it up with Seth’s explanation on the difference between advertising and marketing (from Mitch Joel’s most excellent podcast) just to make sure it hammers the point home:
Advertising is a price you pay for an undifferentiated product for the masses. Marketing is the way you avoid paying that price. You avoid paying that price by designing a product worth talking about.
That works for me, so now what?
  • My idea is that one of the ways we can get others to start understanding that there is more to marketing than advertising (or social media, or content marketing, etc) is by making sure that this definition turns up first when someone searches for the term. This makes sure that when someone is trying to get educated on the topic, they start off on the right foot.
  • So here’s the ask,
Please go to The Definition of Marketing and share the page, link to it, blog about it and anything else you can do to make sure that it gets lots of Google attention.
  • It may be a small act, but as Howard Zinn said, “Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.”
Why did you pick this definition?
  • It was the shortest and simplest that I could find from one of today’s leading authorities when it comes to marketing. Have a better one? Would love to hear your suggestion.
Image credit:  Jose Téllez
Filed Under: favs, Marketing Resources, Product Marketing, Product Messaging Tagged With: , , , , ,

Juggling It All

December 5, 2010 By

John Spence, author of the book Awesomely Simple, recently did an interview on the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast and made a great observation that I thought was worth repeating. John commented on the topic of staying on top of everything,

The important thing when you are juggling is to know which balls are made of glass.

You need to know what can’t be dropped and what can. Drop the right one and it bounces for you to grab when you have a free hand. Drop the wrong one and it shatters all over the place destroying any momentum you had.

As we wind down 2010, do you know what you need to hold on to and what you can afford to drop till later?

Image Credit:  Flickr

Filed Under: Marketing Resources Tagged With:

Using Gladwell To Create A Real (Social) Network

November 15, 2010 By

Last week I participated in panel discussion on the topic of social-ties and networking.  The inspiration for the talk was Malcolm Gladwell’s controversial article on the impact of social media.  The panel took a marketing view of the topic and the discussion was thought provoking and full of insights.

One of my favorite concepts the panel brought up was around the idea of network “repeaters”.  The thought being that if you want an idea to spread, it has to find enough repeaters in the network in order to boost the momentum of the message.  If your idea doesn’t reach the next repeater, it runs out of steam and doesn’t have the reach needed to make a major impact.

Overall, the panel discussion was a successful debate and a lot of fun in a relatively short period of time.  So, what did the panel audience think of the talk?

That’s the interesting part, there were no audience members.  The panel was organized just for the sake of discussion.

Jeremy Epstein, of the Never Stop Marketing company, put the panel together and here’s what I think made it such a success:

  • Relevant topic – Gladwell’s piece was not only a current topic but also full of many “meaty” points making for an interesting discussion.
  • No strings attached – there was no hidden agenda, just a request to bring a point of view and be ready to talk.
  • No chitchat – Jeremy set up a Facebook group so everyone could do a quick introduction before the call.
  • Ready to go – having a designated moderator with starter questions guaranteed a fast start.
  • Short and sweet – at twenty-five minutes, the panel had enough time to cover 3-4 solid topics and didn’t require a major time commitment.

The irony of the panel was that it was doing exactly what Gladwell wrote can’t happen – using social media to turn weak links into strong links.  Most of the members of the panel had never met face to face, so this was a chance to get to know each without having to wait for an event.  Relationship building can happen over time but Jeremy added kindle to the fire with this engaging discussion.

Social media may help you add to your contacts list but this doesn’t mean much if they are all weak links.  Major kudos to Jeremy for coming up with this smart idea.  I am hoping that this was just the start of many more such virtual meet-ups.

The next question is what can you do to help turn those friends and followers into a real network?

Image Source: Flickr

Filed Under: Marketing Resources Tagged With: , ,

A Month’s Study Of Books

March 11, 2010 By

There is an old Chinese proverb that says:

A single conversation across the table with a wise person is worth a month’s study of books

This pretty much sums up Gary Hoover’s presentation at RISE Austin.

I captured just a few of the many solid words of advice he shared during his presentation on 8 keys to creating and building lasting enterprises:

Nothing that matters in business is new.

Be incredibly curious.  There isn’t a person in the world that you  can’t learn something from.

Remember at one point of time, Sears had the best of everything.

The only reason why a business is in existence is to provide good and services to people.  The minute an enterprise forgets that, it’s all over.

Do one thing (or a small few) extremely well and don’t let up on your focus.

With SXSWi right around the corner and the incredible amount of hype around what’s coming  next, I felt that Gary’s next point was especially timely.  Gary comments,

Studying the present doesn’t give you time to see what worked and what didn’t.

Gary does not take studying business history lightly and has made it one of his lifetime passions (as you can see for yourself  in his History of the Airline industry presentation).  Gary went on to add that everything goes in cycles and through study of the past, along with trend analysis, the future can be yours.

So, while I am off to SXSWi tomorrow, and will mostly like post about it next, I am going to promise to spend more time in the near future looking backwards.

Thanks for the great presentation and words of wisdom Gary!

Filed Under: Marketing Resources Tagged With:

Don’t Forget About Segmentation

October 3, 2009 By

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Over the last couple of weeks Personas have been a hot topic of conversation (are they useful?, challenges, how to write, etc):

The one thing I have seen missing from the discussion is how you figure out who your target customers are in the first place.  Do you know what groups are the most interested in your brand?  Your competitors?  Which part of the market is growing the fastest?  Who is willing to pay the most/least for your type of product/service?

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Marketing Resources Tagged With:

What Is A Phenomenal Product Manager?

September 24, 2009 By

Find out over on the The Association of International Product Marketing and Management (AIPMM) blog.

Filed Under: Marketing Resources, Product Management Tagged With:

Evernote

August 31, 2009 By

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The NY Times had an article this weekend on giving software away in order to make money down the road.  In the story they featured Evernote, a data saving service that I had signed up for last year. After reading the article,  I checked out Evernote.com and found that they had released several new features and a lot of useful walk-through videos since I last visited.

Evernote’s goal in life is to help you “Remember Everything”. If you are not using it, check it out now.  I guarantee you are going to find it very impressive.

But the truth is, I hardly ever use it.

The strange part is that I have been looking for this type of service for years.  The ability to store and recall anything, anywhere, at anytime?  I would pay for such a service (which makes Evernote even cooler since it is free).

So, why am I not hooked yet?  Is there some key features missing?  Some hook not quite there yet.  Looking at the product feature list:

  • Easy to use – check
  • Search – check
  • Web access – check
  • Web tools for quick add – check
  • Desktop clients (pc and mac) – check
  • Mobile apps (iphone, BlackBerry, Pre, Windows Mobile) – check
  • Flash drive install (For those that can’t install apps at work (how cool is that!))  – check

So, what is the problem here?  I am hard pressed to think of anything that Evernote is missing so why am I not using it?

It has to be me.

Well, its not just me.  According the NY Times, ” About 75 percent of the customers walk away within the first four months.”  That means that only 25% of users find a way to make Evernote’s features part of their everyday process.

I think that this is a great illustration of the challenges of  new technology adoption.  Even with an amazing product and an unbeatable price, changing behavior is hard.

Filed Under: Marketing Resources, Product Management Tagged With: ,

Slowing Innovation

August 23, 2009 By

Unfortunately, buybacks are rampant in industries where investment in innovation is crucial—energy, technology, and pharmaceuticals….And five high-tech leaders—Microsoft (MSFT), IBM (IBM), Cisco Systems (CSCO), Intel, (INTC) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ)—are in the Top 10 of repurchasers, each having spent more on buybacks than on research and development from 2000 through 2008. (While spending $73 billion to buy its own stock, IBM increased its offshore employment by 133,000, reducing U.S. jobs by 36,000.)

Via BW’s The Buyback Boondoggle.

Filed Under: innovation, Marketing Resources Tagged With: ,

Social Media is Changing Everything

March 9, 2009 By

Report this morning from NetPop highlighting the impact of online content developers and the social.  The full report is not free but they were nice enough to publish a preview version of the slides:

Netpop | Connect: Media Shifts to Social 2009 Preview

Here is the link to the press release.

Filed Under: Marketing Resources Tagged With: ,
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