Here’s a link to the Twitter activity during my panel discussion: http://twitter.com/#search?q=londonink%20growsmartbiz
And here’s an archive of the live feed of the panel discussion:
http://growsmartbusiness.com/small-business-news/2009/09/growsmartbiz-video-panel-1-driving-small-business-performance-w-marketing-and-innovation/
Enjoy!
There are still some tickets available to hear Wired mag’s Chris Anderson, Sen. Mark Warner (& yours truly) next week…at the big GrowSmartBiz conference in Washington, DC on 9/29.
Based on the preparations for the event, including the conference calls to prep for our panel discussion on small business marketing and innovation, I can tell this is going to be a top flight event with practical tips and tools for business owners and others.
To register at the special rate of $99, please go to http://bit.ly/hK1IC and register using the code ‘GSBReader’.
Hope to see you there!
The GrowSmartBiz conference on 9/29 just keeps getting better. Virginia Senator Mark Warner just announced as special keynote. Warner, Wired’s Chris Anderson, Bob London. What more could you want?
Click on http://bit.ly/z4If4 to register now.
Virginia Senator Mark R. Warner Will Speak at the GrowSmartBiz Conference
Network Solutions® is pleased to announce Virginia Senator Mark R. Warner as the special keynote for the GrowSmartBiz Conference.
Senator Warner was elected to the U.S. Senate in November 2008, and serves on the Senate’s Banking, Budget, Commerce and Rules committees. He served as Governor of Virginia from 2002-2006 after spending 20 years as a business leader in the high-tech industry. He also is the co-founder of telecommunications firm Nextel Communications, now known as Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S).
“Senator Warner has been a well-known leader in the high-tech industry for more than 20 years,” said Melina Formisano, vice president of marketing at Network Solutions. “He will provide GrowSmartBiz Conference attendees with a unique perspective due to his vast experiences.”
Here is an ad that demonstrates how advertising should be used: to reflect a brand’s existing success, not tout its potential.
The premise of the amazing ad below is that Knob Creek Bourbon has run out of product. They’re making more but for now they are asking customers to be patient until November, when the next batch has completed the 9-year aging process. NOVEMBER!
So while the premise is honesty and patience, the real message is confidence. This darn company has the confidence to stop selling their product rather than deliver an inferior version (i.e. one that hasn’t completed the full 9-year aging process.)
What I really like is that there’s no gimmick. No web site that shows pictures or video of next batch being made, no forced viral campaign asking viewers to guess how many barrels will by yielded in the next batch.
Just a requests for customers to hang in there. Even though I’m sure the intent of the ad was not to generate new customers, I bet the next time I’m presented with a choice of bourbons I might just give ol’ Knob Creek a try.
Just a reminder about what promises to be an educational and fun event (where I happen to be speaking!) on August 5th. The event is part of the Unintentional Entrepreneur program which was conceived and is being underwritten by Network Solutions and Outright.com–two companies at the forefront of helping entrepreneurs and small/growing businesses–and is being held at the Johns Hopkins University–Montgomery County Campus.
I have the honor of joining another speaker, Shashi Bellamkonda, who is an expert on helping entrepreneurs and small businesses use technology for marketing, communications and overall productivity. Shashi was also recently named to Washingtonian Magazine’s list of Top 100 Tech Titans (http://www.washingtonian.com/print/articles/6/173/12164.html) and is a popular speaker on the tech/marketing/small biz circuit nationwide.
Please check out the Unintentional Entrepreneur site and register for the event at http://uedc.eventbrite.com. Remember it’s on August 5th and space is limited! Hope to see you there.
Later this week, I’m reprising my highly rated (by the audience) presentation, originally given at this summer’s National Association of Federal Credit Unions (NAFCU) Strategic Growth conference.
The topic is social marketing but not from a “slam dunk,” “gotta have it,” “full speed ahead, damn the business case,” perspective. Rather the presentation examines whether there is any “there” there yet regarding revenue (specifically for credit unions, member acquisition, retention and non-account revenue).
Here’s the abstract from the NAFCU Annual Conference site, and I will post the presentation on SlideShare in the next couple weeks.
Social Marketing is Free so it Must be Worthwhile… Right? Well maybe, but BEWARE— don’t be drawn in by the ‘coolness’ of using Facebook, Twitter and interactive applications to market your credit union without some investigation. Before you launch a social media campaign that you’re sure will “go viral,” don’t forget these three simple letters: R.O.I. Even though setting up a Facebook or Twitter account, or even a blog, is free, there are hidden costs in terms of time, resources and budget. This presentation will explore how credit unions and other organizations are using social media and other Web 2.0 tools and to what degree they are successful.
Presented by Bob London, President and Founder of London, Ink, LLC
See NAFCU Conference site at bit.ly/fdMyl
About ServerVault Corp. Founded as a secure hosting company, ServerVault is still remembered by many people as the company with the giant Hummer H-1 (not one of the cushy new ones but the original military-style model) cruising around town bearing the ServerVault logo. Now under the leadership of CEO and President John Kraft, ServerVault is a leading provider of highly secure, federally compliant hosting and IT infrastructure management services for government agencies, commercial enterprises and system integrators with sensitive, security-driven applications.
“When I joined ServerVault as CEO in 2003, the challenge wasn’t how to generate flash and attention (hence we no longer needed the Hummer with the giant ServerVault logo on it), but rather to rebuild the operation and
the company’s market legitimacy. Together with great leaders like Seth Finkel, who I worked with at PSINet, and John Curran, who had been CTO XO Communications and BBN/GTE Networking, we retrenched not only operationally but strategically.”
“Hosting as a standalone business had changed. You either had to achieve massive scale as a collocation or infrastructure provider or find a niche in a growing segment. We chose the latter approach based on a careful analysis of the market’s requirements and ServerVault’s assets and strengths, including:
“Building on our strengths in secure hosting–which was a solid positioning but not enough to distinguish ServerVault from much larger players–ServerVault is now a leader in providing secure and compliant hosting and management services that help government agencies and corporations save time and money meeting major IT security regulations such as FISMA, DITSCAP / DIACAP and DoD 8500.2.
“As a result our clients save time and money by outsourcing their sensitive applications rather than having to build compliant data center facilities. While we can’t divulge much of the work we do for clients for security reasons, we have announced deals with IBM to provide secure, compliant infrastructure for the DISA NCES system, the military’s major new collaboration platform and with Northrop Grumman to secure, maintain and operate the DoD’s Web-based travel system.
“The results have been terrific in terms of customer wins, revenue and margin, and ServerVault is better known than ever in the federal IT sector–both agencies and system integrators. The future looks bright indeed.”
Read related post: John Kraft on London, Ink.
Bob London is president of London, Ink, a Maryland-based marketing and communications consulting firm, and serves as a Virtual VP of Marketing for growth stage companies that need an injection of marketing experience and leadership to drive key initiatives and results.
