To take a contrarian view I want to point out the importance of thinking things through. One tip I used when doing strategy sessions is to think about the sustainability of a decision moving forward. Creating real time value is great, but the long term sustainability of that decision can come back to haunt you.

I believe it make sense to slow things down at the planning stage and map out exactly how and why something will work once it is out in the real world. There is a powerful metaphor for developing something that is available to everyone right this second, but there is a strategy that must go along with it.

You cannot simply launch something and hope for the best, but rather have a strategy around it and way to support it. Too many times I have seen the mistake made with certain types of social media. My goto example is Facebook pages – everyone things they need one, but nobody stops to ask why.

Facebook now has 200+ million members and you have a global reach. But when it comes to targeting your audience and getting people to participate, you may be better off on a smaller niche network that has members that understand your brand or needs.

Having a strategy of soon enables you to create a roadmap of ideas that compete with the need for realtime information – but makes sure you do not pursue things that are unsustainable in the long run.

Post from: Marketing.fm - Eric Friedman

Are you a founder? Great writeup of what it takes to be a founder and see if you fit the bill.

TubeChop Great way to microchunk youTube videos

Ad supported Internet report from the IAB

Blind Search Blind search between Yahoo, Google, and Bing without knowing the results publisher – very cool

Google Page Speed Google introduces Page Speed and a great tool for webmasters

Deliver something of value every week – Very straightforward

10 Ways to launch a blog

Ignore Sunk Costs – from Seth Godin

Post from: Marketing.fm - Eric Friedman

This blog continues to be an experiment in learning about Marketing and Technology. Since its inception I have tried out new features, ideas, and mediums to interact with and build a community.

Today I am happy to announce my latest experiment showing off a re-marketing technology by MediaMath. I got the chance to meet CEO Joe Zawadzki last year and came away impressed with the next generation agency platform business he has built. Recently I got the opportunity to show off exactly how their technology works by running a 120×600 banner here on Marketing.fm. You can learn about the MediaMath Technology on the site.

The goal of this experiment is to show off exactly how MediaMath remarketing works to current and future clients, and hopefully get some engaged interactive media folks involved in the conversation here.

In the interest of full disclosure it should be made clear that I will not be making any money from this project, or will I be paying anything for it. It really is just a great way for Joe and his team to show off what they have built on a live site, and put my own blog in front of a new audience.

To see the technology in action you may need a demo from their team.

The gist of it is that once you come to an advertisers website and navigate away, you may come across ads for the original pages product or services on MediaMath’s affiliated publishers sites. This gives the advertiser the power to remarket to a user that has some interest in their brand, shown by visiting their site.

Overall I think this is a good thing for people looking to get relevant messages in front of them, and good for advertisers looking to get the best ROI.

In a complex world of ad networks, increasing accountability, and the need to optimize campaigns MediaMath is trying to make sense of it all.

For more information be sure to get in touch with them or reach out to me.

Post from: Marketing.fm - Eric Friedman

People, projects, companies, and teams tend for forget the importance of analytics from the earliest stages of a product or service. Its free!

If you havn’t done so, go drop in free Google Analytics code to your website today.

It accomplishes a few things well and allows for accountability and facts in a world where it is needed most.

1. It lets possible investors wrap their head around the idea and traction
2. It allows monetization strategies to form based on usage trends
3. It focuses features and solutions to where heavy traffic is vs. what people say they want
4. It allows you to iterate on something that is a current pain point
5. It shows you the ebb and flow of transactions throughout your site
6. It shows bottlenecks and areas that need optimization
7. It shows sales and conversion funnel metrics to tie advertising to ROI
8. It presents users with relevant and actionable data if you choose to surface it back to them
9. It emphasizes what is working and with is not
10. It allows decisions to be made based on facts vs fiction

I started writing details about each, but a short top 10 list accomplishes my thoughts on analytics well.

You may not be “public facing” or feel analytics is not “mission critical” or throw any other cliche out, but I cannot think of a solid reason why you wouldn’t want to be tracking everything from day 0. Keep your stats private if you want, but make sure you are collecting them in the first place.

There is no such thing as back tracking stats you didn’t collect.

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Post from: Marketing.fm - Eric Friedman

I manage everything via Email.

Yeah, very anticlimactic I know. I use two primary email inbox’s; Gmail and Outlook. Gmail gets about 5 accounts worth of mail and Outlook gets two accounts and is primarily for work. Gmail gets some work related emails that I manage various accounts for various reasons through gmail.com address or other emails.

The way I handle and process items that need processing is to simply tag anything that needs a follow up, action taken, response written, report pulled, or anything else is to simply tag it “to-answer”. In outlook it gets a flag (default is red).

I have made folders, different tags, used colors – nothing works but a simple system that I can sort through at any time. This way, when an item comes in and needs “processing” I can know if it get get done now, or it will be left in the “queue” for later.

Trust me when I say I have used every project management system out there. Its a big part of what I do to checkout the latest email inbox solutions, sorting magic, priority management, and analytics systems and nothing has come close to the efficiency of tagging things for follow up.  I hope to try a better solution one day – but so far I have not found one.

The magic comes in the fact that I label and use descriptive keywords in emails I send and rely heavily on great search. Gmail solves this by living in the cloud. Outlook 2007 has a less cripled search than 2003, which has worked to date. I keep all my email so I have a trail of everything, and lose less items with it all living in one inbox “stream” vs. scattered around folders.

Action items can be scanned and some sit for a week or so before they get handled. Others are in place to make sure I do not drop the ball on something and others do not either. They are visual reminders that someone else has the ball, and should follow up soon – something I can ping them on if an action item stays in the “to-answer” pile too long.

So that is my system. Its powerful search + simple tagging.

I would love to know what you use as I know there is always room for improvement.

Post from: Marketing.fm - Eric Friedman

Amazingly accurate

Post from: Marketing.fm - Eric Friedman

The main takeaway for me over the course of the half day event was that quality over volume wins every time. Many campaigns have an ability to gain a large share of voice simply by throwing media dollars at traditional channels to try to capture market share, but this strategy is quickly fading.

The day was structured beginning with opening remarks by Fred Wilson, and John Borthwick of Betaworks as a primer to how companies in this space are viewed by those that provide capital for them to grow. This was followed by a number of case studies showing the

Seth’s opening presentation:

Social Media Stories 2.0

View more presentations from Seth Goldstein.

No amount of noise will change perception of a product or service and the only way to influence reality is to devote your time towards quality. There were many great case studies from this days events that I am sure are available on the web.

Post from: Marketing.fm - Eric Friedman

When you work on any project there is a saying that you have to decide between Price, Quality, and Time – but you have to choose two. Nobody gets all three, and I completely agree.

When scoping out a project you have to be ready to sacrifice one of the three points in the project triangle.

I really appreciate this lesson as when I talk to folks who are about to embark on a project, they think they can get all three. I think I learned this lesson the first time I had someone else working on a project for me. I ended up losing out on quality, which meant I did not pay a lot and the project happened fast. On the other side of it, the final product was less than great. It was a valuable lesson that you have to choose wisely.

There are many ways to start a project, but understanding that using an outside provider for programming, graphic design, marketing, consulting, or anything else coming from an outside source you need to choose between Price, Quality, and Time.

Post from: Marketing.fm - Eric Friedman

Some people want to create products and companies that enter the world and destroy current value chains disrupting the current flow and create a better way. To me these are the world changers because they want to do things differently, stir things up, and turn processes over to make them better. They are not adding a product or service on top of something that exists today, they are creating something new.

Other people look at a current value chain, company dynamic, or enterprise system and want to bring efficiency, change, and speed where it does not currently exist. To me these are the world fixers because while nothing is really changing, they are bringing a valuable (and arguably more monetizable) business into the world. They bring processes and solutions to the world changers creations – an important part of the ecosystem.

While the nuances are very different, I do not want to get lost in the details of how and why these types of people are similar.

Both involve a very specific plan and goal, and strong narrative about why they will be successful. Both also require two different types of investments theses. One is theoretically more early stage and perhaps higher risk, while the other is perhaps more later stage and while just as risky, a different set of economic fundamentals and principals are involved with each.

So which are you?

Post from: Marketing.fm - Eric Friedman

In an effort to stick with the same question set here they are:
Are you using all your profiles? Everyday? Every Week? Every Month?
Are you gaining the original value from them?
Do you want to have 50+ profiles with your information in them? I feel like this one can’t apply to me anymore since having this many profiles is a large part of my job
and for some new ones this year:
Are the social profiles sustainable, or do they sit dormant?
Do they help you in some way?

This year marks a fundamental shift in how profiles and accounts work as the advent of third party verifications systems mean less accounts. Systems like Facebook Connect, Google Login, and even Twitter now have enough of an audience to reduce the need for creating yet another account on another service.

As I look at the services I use every day, every week, and every month I am trying to determine the ones that add the most value. In a lightweight web world it doesn’t make sense to delete these accounts, but certainly take stock of what you are using and what you are not.

To maintain and organize your accounts many people use browser password trackers, desktop remembering services, but I use a web based service (yes another login – but it connects with all servces) called passpack which allows secure storage. It is also a great way to stay organized and have your data available to you when you need it remotely, as the service is available via any browser.

Post from: Marketing.fm - Eric Friedman