Jon Peddie Blogs

Social Media #2 — Getting Started

Posted by Andy Marken on August 15th 2010 | Permalink
Categories: Blogs, The Market
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Social media—1:1 marketing and communications is so new, it sounds glamorous. Some see it as a new sense of freedom, romantic even.  Just you and him (or her) bonding, building a relationship, building sales. The first thing the company has to do is forget about employing their mass advertising thinking to social media.  People don’t want, expect, appreciate marketing messages being pushed at them on the Web. According to a study by Digital Brand Expressions, nearly all of the firms surveyed in the consumer industry are committed to carrying out a social media program.   Research where respondents at participating companies…

Social Media – A Company’s Friend, Foe

Posted by Andy Marken on August 2nd 2010 | Permalink
Categories: Blogs, Content Creation
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There’s so much information and misinformation surrounding the power and magic of social media, company management and marketing probably feel like a deer hypnotized by the headlines of a semi on the highway. We all know that word-of-mouth “advertising” is the most powerful – good and bad – promotion for a company that exists. As a result, companies, departments, individuals are setting up social network pages, signing up for microblogs like Twitter, establishing management/marketing blogs on their Web site and establishing customer forums on the Web. The challenge is to understand the true value of social media for your business, activity.…

The business plan:  selling the entrepreneurial idea

Posted by Andy Marken on May 23rd 2010 | Permalink
Categories: Blogs, General Interest
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With an estimated $800+ billion in funding available for the entrepreneur annually (even in bad times), you may think that venture capital and R&D partnership firms would be falling over each other to fund the latest wave of scientific and technological proposals. Wrong. Venture capital companies such as R&D Funding Corp., Early Stages Co., Mayfield Fund, Asset Management, and others receive an average of 100 technology and service/support proposals each month, even when the economy is “less than desirable.” Unfortunately, instead of paving the way for funding, the proposals are often more detrimental than helpful. The sad truth is that the…

Marking 101 - Increasing Your Product, Service Street Cred

Posted by Andy Marken on September 17th 2009 | Permalink
Categories: Blogs, Content Creation
Tags: facebook twitter social networking buzz myspace products marketing marketplace communications

When our kids were growing up, they asked us what we did…really?? The answer changes … constantly. Over the past 20 + years in the PC/CE/communications marketplace, we’ve had to learn and relearn our job 40-50 times. Every time the industry changes, every time the communications avenues shift; life/opportunities change. Since the Internet (recently celebrated its 40th anniversary) and Web came into their own; editorial and promotional outlets/targets have shifted…dramatically. We all read the same studies, the same reports—WOM (word of mouth) is the most effective marketing/sales tool available. Yet PR people – at the cattle prodding of management – constantly…

In Prosperous Periods Promote Tactically, In Down Times Promote Strategically

Posted by Andy Marken on October 14th 2008 | Permalink
Categories: Blogs, The Market
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The sudden realization that the emperor had no clothes and magnitude of the financial crisis is only now being fully addressed.. But, economists are unanimous that regardless of what governments do, it will take time, a lot of time, to rebuild faith in financial institutions and rejuvenate the economy. In a knee jerk reaction management is moving to cut costs – circling the wagons – by reducing staff and marketing budgets.On the surface it appears logical. But if you look at downturns and recessions in the past it wasn’t financial institutions or governments that led the economy back. Recovery was developed…

The New Communications Tools…Listening, Helping

Posted by Andy Marken on May 10th 2008 | Permalink
Categories: Blogs, The Market
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Guest blogger Andy Marken has weighed in with his very opinionated view on how, exactly marketing professionals are going to have to change their ways in order to take advantage of the new order: Web 2.0. It’s not business as usual and it’s going to require new attitudes as more people get in on the act. By G.A. “Andy” Marken, Marken Communications Inc, Marketing and communications “experts” like to tell us how the Internet and Web 2.0 have opened up new opportunities for the industry to reach out to and influence people in new, exciting, more effective ways.  Instant information web…