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Brendan Ziolo
Technology marketing dude that has successfully launched several start-ups. Writer and photographer when time allows.
Recent Activity
Getting Started: Using the 5 Ws to Build Your Elevator Pitch
Posted May 22, 2012 at Dude, It's Marketing
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Getting Started: What Bucket Are You In?
Posted May 10, 2012 at Dude, It's Marketing
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Getting Started: The 5 Ws Behind Your Key Messages
Posted Apr 26, 2012 at Dude, It's Marketing
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Your Marketing Success is a Long Term Game
Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan), a New York Times bestselling author and social media guru with a widely read blog, talks about how it took him years to become an overnight success. In fact, he recently said it took him 8 years to get his first 100 readers which now number 100s of thousands I'm sure. Now in fairness to Chris he started his blog before social media and even RSS for that matter. The point is that Chris is just one example of thousands. But I read that stat in Chris's newsletter and it got me to thinking about how marketing... Continue reading
Posted Apr 19, 2012 at Dude, It's Marketing
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Can Tradeshows Still be Effective for Marketing?
Posted Mar 13, 2012 at Dude, It's Marketing
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How to Quickly Launch a Product
Product launches are key to your start-up's success both from a development perspective but also from a marketing and sales perspective. We've all seen how Apple does product launches where everything is a secret until the big event and then a master unveiling takes place. This has been very successful for them as they are able to draw a large crowd and create buzz. However, this is the exception and only a handful of companies can pull it off not to mention the fact that a lot of time and effort goes into these launches that is just not possible... Continue reading
Posted Feb 23, 2012 at Dude, It's Marketing
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Getting Started: Naming Pitfalls to Avoid
There's no doubt that coming up with a name for your startup is not easy but it's one one of your first big decisions when you're getting started. Last week, I talked about some key attributes to consider when you select a name but probably more important is to avoid the three pitfalls I'll outline below: not securing the domain name, not spelling the name correctly, and using your name inconsistently. There was a time when naming involved doing a trademark search to make sure someone else in your industry was not using it as well. But now there are... Continue reading
Posted Feb 7, 2012 at Dude, It's Marketing
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Getting Started: What's in the Name
Coming up with a name for your startup is difficult when you consider that this is something you will need to live with for a very long time, especially if you're successful which is the goal of course. Many rush into naming their company without considering how much it matters both when you're starting out and over the longer term. I don't believe there is a silver bullet in naming your company and you don't need to spend weeks or thousands of dollars to come up with one but there are a few attributes that you should focus on when... Continue reading
Posted Jan 31, 2012 at Dude, It's Marketing
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Getting Started: Is There a Market for My Idea?
A startup begins with an idea for a product or service but this is really only the first step when you're getting started. While you may think your idea is revolutionary, will others? If you want to make a business out of it, you need to make sure there is a market for your product or service. Put another way, will people buy your idea and if so will they buy it instead of other similar ideas? Before you invest too much time and money in your idea, you'll want to research the market to ensure there is a need... Continue reading
Posted Jan 24, 2012 at Dude, It's Marketing
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Getting Started: Stages of a Startup
Posted Jan 16, 2012 at Dude, It's Marketing
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Happy Holidays from Dude, It's Marketing
In this last post of 2011, I want to thank all the readers of this blog for taking the time to visit Dude, It's Marketing. I hope you enjoyed reading the posts as much as I appreciated the feedback I've received on them. When I wrote this post last year, I said I wanted to blog more regularly in 2010. While I'm still not writing as often as I would like on this blog, I did manage to have 30 posts this year which is a 50% increase compared to 2010. Next year, I hope to post even more often... Continue reading
Posted Dec 23, 2011 at Dude, It's Marketing
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Gift Ideas for the Marketer on your List
Posted Dec 16, 2011 at Dude, It's Marketing
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Top 3 Marketing Lessons from Steve Jobs
Posted Dec 6, 2011 at Dude, It's Marketing
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Don't Forget to Always Have a Call to Action
I am still surprised that to this day there is one aspect that is missing from many marketing tactics that could make the campaign much more successful. In particular, this one element is absolutely critical to lead generation and nuture campaigns -- it is a call-to-action. A call-to-action is an image or text that grabs the visitor's or prospect's attention and directs them to what you want them to do. In the case of a lead gen campaign, the call-to-action would direct the person to a landing page where you can collect their info in exchange for the offer. There... Continue reading
Posted Nov 17, 2011 at Dude, It's Marketing
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It appears you have developed a great strategy and if its working keep at it. I talked about being a thought leader to build your credibility a while back: http://www.dudeitsmarketing.com/2009/11/be-a-thought-leader-make-your-marketing-credible.html.
My question to you, which was what my friend asked me, is what do you do first? Did you get the speaking engagements right out of the gate or did you develop a website? You talk about using keywords so I'm assuming there was some message development as well. When did you do that?
There are a lot of things that could be done when you're starting out but what is the most important one that needs to be done first? You raised a key point when you said "know your customer, know what is important to them".
Thanks for the ideas and feedback. I'm sure it will help others too.
Getting Started: What Do I Do First?
A month ago I got a call from a friend who is starting his own company and he wanted to know what some of the first things were that he needed to do to market his company. He was very excited about the new opportunity and I was very impressed that he was looking at marketing so early in the proc...
Getting Started: What Do I Do First?
A month ago I got a call from a friend who is starting his own company and he wanted to know what some of the first things were that he needed to do to market his company. He was very excited about the new opportunity and I was very impressed that he was looking at marketing so early in the process. This got me to thinking about what to tell him and where to point him for more resources. But I quickly realized that most books and blogs about marketing assume you have already started your company and want to... Continue reading
Posted Oct 28, 2011 at Dude, It's Marketing
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Don't Rely on Social Media for Lead Generation
There is little doubt that social media is one of, if not THE, buzzword in marketing. But, as I've written about before, social media is still only a tactic and not the only tactic you should use. Recent findings show how crucial it is to build an overall marketing strategy that uses multiple tactics if you goal is to generate and nurture quality leads (and who doesn't want to do that). As reported by ZDNet, a recent study by Demandbase and Focus.com showed that corporate websites were the top online lead source and second overall to personal connections and referrals.... Continue reading
Posted Oct 13, 2011 at Dude, It's Marketing
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Book Review - Content Rules by @MarketingProfs and @cc_chapman will Ignite your Marketing
Posted Sep 22, 2011 at Dude, It's Marketing
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Mapping your Content to the Sales Funnel
Posted Sep 13, 2011 at Dude, It's Marketing
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Generate and Nurture Leads After Getting Found
I wrote a blog post a few months ago that the start-up marketing plan can be summarize in four simple words: create content, get found. While I was trying to really simplify the marketing plan for companies that don't have a lot of resources, in looking back I was missing a key part of the equation. Once you get found, what's next? So, I want to add to the start-up marketing plan the concept: generate and nurture leads. To generate leads, you can use tactics like the get found tactics I outlined previously so for this post I want to... Continue reading
Posted Aug 25, 2011 at Dude, It's Marketing
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Fundamentals of Marketing: Has Positioning Changed?
Posted Aug 11, 2011 at Dude, It's Marketing
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Working with Developers, Creating a Product Brief
Recently, Pam, a Dude, It's Marketing reader, sent me an email asking if I had a template or suggestions for a product brief format to help developers draft a detailed document that will help her marketing team create better sales collateral. I realized in answering this email that it would also make a good blog post as I'm sure many have faced this same issue. When launching a product, marketing tends to get brought in later in the process. While that's not ideal, it is a reality and quite often you will need to take a list of features that... Continue reading
Posted Aug 4, 2011 at Dude, It's Marketing
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Hi David,
Once again, great post. Agree with your points, especially the ones about creating content that helps educate your audience rather than running advertising campaigns about your product.
The issue is that the 4 Ps of marketing are too limiting and outdated to be the only aspect of your marketing strategy. Any marketing plan that only addresses product, place, price and promotion is doomed to failure today.
However, product, place and price are still concepts that need to be addressed as one piece of your plan. Promotion is the one that has changed or should be removed more than the others. Most importantly though, your marketing strategy is a lot more than the 4 Ps.
Right now I'm working on a blog series about other fundamentals of marketing to see which other ones have changed, should be ignored, or which ones still need to be a key part of your strategy? I'd love any input.
Why the 4 Ps of marketing do not work on the Web
The four Ps of marketing -- product, place, price, and promotion – used to describe the marketing mix, was coined way back in the 1960s. Business school curricula still frequently include a discussion of the 4 Ps of marketing and I see the 4 Ps pop up frequently in marketing books to this day. ...
Have the Fundamentals of Marketing Changed?
For the last couple of years there has been a lot written about how marketing has changed and there is no doubt this is true. SEO and social media are just two examples of new tactics that didn't exist a decade ago. Other new strategies, such as content marketing, are key to your marketing but I would argue that creating good content has always been a key strategy to educate your market and it's the term 'content marketing' that's new. All of these new concepts have led many to move away from what is now called traditional marketing to try... Continue reading
Posted Jul 28, 2011 at Dude, It's Marketing
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The Importance of Language to Credible Marketing
For anyone who follows this blog, you know that I think it's extremely important to make your marketing more credible. Language and words play a key role in making your message credible and engaging to your audience. In fact, credible marketing is about many things but it starts with words. It's always surprising to me that so few companies spend a lot of time and money on crafting the messages and communications they use for their business. Or, they change the words so frequently that no one remembers them, including employees. Yet, it is these words that can make or... Continue reading
Posted Jul 14, 2011 at Dude, It's Marketing
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