Sage Software - Insights 2007 - Orlando

What a great show for us at Sage Insights this year! Thanks to everyone for stopping by our booth!

It was a great week for us. Swiftpage took home 3 awards. The “2007 Preferred Vendor 4-Star Club Member”, “2007 Preferred Vendor Top Rookie” (both from Sage), and the “2007 Killer App Award” (from the CRM alliance).

We the debuted our new product; Snapshot; our sales force automation tool integrated directly into ACT!.

We received tremendous feedback about the NEW Snapshot sales tool and the incorporation of the Swiftpage Call List into ACT!. Thank you to all of the Sage Partners and Resellers who have made Swiftpage what it is today.

And Congratulations to Janice Holt from Covenant Information Services for winning the Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC) we gave away!

The new ACT! plug-in with Snapshot will be available soon!

A lesson in Advertising

In a culture that is exponentially more immune to advertising day in and day out, I continue to be disappointed that modern advertising has not raised the bar.  In fact, advertising creative seems to get worse.  Sure, different mediums are being experimented with, but nothing makes a larger impact than a beautifully created and thought-out ad campaign delivered through the mother of main stream media - television.  And then of course picked up and talked about on the internet.

Sony gets it with their new ad campaign for Bravia.  These two spots are pleasing to the senses, beautifully created and perfectly spot on with what they want you to know about their latest creation.  Better yet, they created two stand alone web pages for each spot so the internet community can link at their leisure (Much like I am doing).  Stop fast forwarding your Tivo if these ads come on - Bravo Sony.
Paint
Super-Balls

New Product Release

This is how it should be done - Audi R8

Beautiful, mysterious, interactive, viral…

Alexa

Do you know your Alexa (What’s Alexa?) ranking and how you stack up against your competition in the web popularity contest?  Try alexaholic and view all your competition in one place.

Other sites that will give you a pulse on how much your brand is being talked about -

Blogpulse
egosurf
Technorati

Built for the long run

Is your product/service built for the long run?  Are you willing to alienate potential clients in order to further your story?  I’m not saying you should, just saying you should think about your story and if you are doing anything that may be compromising it.

Brand Heirarchy

David Armano is putting together a presentation on the differences between influential power of A list, B list, and C list bloggers and I felt like it was a nice metaphor for your brand as well.

“The bigger point that I want to make is that bloggers at each level command a “sphere of influence”.  The higher the “level”, the more people are exposed to a blogger’s influence.”

Isn’t this true for your brand and your competition?  How large is your sphere of influence and who is feeding it?

Forward Facing

Have you ever thought about your logo, your branding and the way it may make your customers feel just from looking at it.  Take a little test and check out the cover contest for Guy Kawasaki’s latest book.  Nearly 75 entries all trying to convey the same thing.  Did he make the right choice, was there a different cover that resonated more with you?  Think about this and think about the way your forward facing images may appeal to some and turn off others.

Fashion Forward

What can we learn from the fashion industry in terms of word of mouth marketing?

Did you know True Religion jeans made a name for themselves by giving away pairs?  We’re talking about jeans that cost $400+!  They were having a hard time selling (no surprise at that price point), even in high-end boutique shops.  They made a bold move and their CEO hit the streets and gave random urbanites a post card.  On this card was an entry form for your pants size.  Fill it in, drop it in the mail and True Religion jeans showed up on your porch within a week.  Why?

He knew the power of Word of Mouth and believed that if people were wearing his jeans, they would be noticed.  So what happened?

Stores couldn’t keep them on the shelves and they are posting over $20 million in revenue this year.  What are you doing to encourage word of mouth with your products?  Are you branding your email campaigns?  Are you telling a story that easily spreads?  Are you giving away trial versions?  Think about the effects of true word of mouth and think about what a real product evangelist can do for your brand.

Brand Reach through Participation

So, you work in/service a specific vertical.

You are likely advertising in the proper publications and newsletters, attending the relevant tradeshows, sending email and snail mail to your existing clients and prospects etc…You are probably reading industry leaders blogs and may be writing a blog of your own.  But Are you really participating in your industry?  Why will participation help you?

Leaving aside the blatent benefits of participation I want to visit the value of the comment.  Commenting on someone’s blog not only allows the world to view your opinion and adds value to the original content - it gives you a link back to your site.

Go on…participate.  Agree or disagree with someones blog and let them know about it.  Comment and watch the site traffic trickle in.  Oh yeah, make sure you are sending them to the proper landing page - where you are surely gathering names to include in your prospect list for future email campaigns.

Simple, Free, Branding?

New web 2.0 technologies and social media applications seem to be popping up as fast as new bloggers. There is a lot of buzz around this new internet, just how do you leverage your small business and possibly focus some of your resources to getting their feet wet?

5 simple ways to put your brand in front of millions -

Start a blog
Create a video and post it on YouTube
Podcast, regularly
Make it simple to be Dugg, Furled, posted to del.icio.us, etc.
Write a company description on Wikipedia