Commentary on the world of marketing, market research, small business, crowdfunding, and social media based on real life experiences, not stuff you'd get in an MBA class.
Over the past few months I’ve built my team at Privy from a one-man show to a group of four that I am extremely proud of and excited to come work with every day. In that process, I talked to a lot of people, lots of whom I liked a lot—even if they weren’t the right fit for this company at this time. (Both of those matter.) Between that experience and my own job searches in the last few years, I’ve been thinking a lot about where the process goes right and where it goes wrong. Along the way, I’ve put together a few takeaways worth sharing for anyone in a similar position. While I haven’t always followed these rules, I certainly try. 1. This company and this time matter. There are lots of really smart people who could be a great hire in a vacuum. But as companies grow and change, so does the skill set needed to be successful. For example, early stage companies need doers who can think but can’t afford people who are unwilling to roll up their sleeves every day (at least for a w...
It recently occurred to me that since starting my current role over a year ago I have revamped the entire marketing infrastructure in my organization – from technology, to strategy, to staff, to measurement. Over the next few months I’ll be posting on a lot of those changes – both in terms of why and how we did it – and offer tips for people looking to put the same principles to work in their companies. Today’s topic is a simple one – establishing an internal benchmark for effectiveness/ performance. Background The marketing function in a small-medium sized company like mine can be very different than what people thinking of as “marketing” in a large organization. Traditionally marketers play a sales support role and defer to content experts on the substance of all communications. This makes it very hard to truly measure the success of a group. So while many of the changes we have made are designed to make it easier to measure success, I knew that there was a lot to learn from our inte...
I often hear people who are into social media talk about how their friends or colleagues or competitors are “doing social wrong.” But unless you are running scams or spamming, is there really a “wrong way” to do social? Certainly there are more and less effective ways to achieve your business goals using social media and there are lots of great tools and resources out there to help you get on your way, but saying someone is doing it wrong implies that everyone has the same goals and that there is only one way to be successful in attaining them. For example, here are three completely valid business objectives that require very different social techniques to achieve them. (Note: I haven’t included “building a large following” as a business goal. In my opinion it’s not, it is merely a means to an end.”) Drive increased foot traffic from existing customers [Activate your Network]: For many businesses, especially small businesses, driving increased foot traffic from the people who alread...
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