Rocket Watcher Product Marketing for Startups

For startups, separating what is really important for your product vs. the stuff that is just nice to have is critical. In this post Tim Johnson talks about his favorite question to ask customers: “So What?”

I’ve gathered 4 of the leading experts on Content Marketing together to speak at SXSW: Jay Baer, Valeria Maltoni, David Meerman Scott and Joe Pulizzi. Please vote for this panel!

Product Marketing and Product Management are disciplines where the theory is easily understood but practical execution is really hard. I asked Tim Johnson to share a couple of his favorite “from the trenches” stories to illustrate how shifting the focus from “product features” to “value to the customer” can make a huge difference.

Establishing a marketing foundation involves understanding your customers, identifying major themes, interviewing subject matter experts, and developing a content plan.

Infographics have been popular with journalists for years but increasingly marketers are using them to communicate complex ideas or data in an engaging manner that also doesn’t take up a lot of space. Here are some things marketers should think about when creating Infographics

There are a lot of reasons your marketing might not be smelling like a rose. There’s a saying that when you live in the barn, you can’t smell the pigs. I invite you to poke around your own pen to discover the source of that funky smell coming from your marketing by checking out these five reasons your marketing might stink.

I attended a panel on Neuromarketing at SxSW this year. I assumed that only folks doing TV ads for the large companies would be interested in this stuff but at SxSW I heard marketers at smaller companies talking about it which frankly, scared me. I believe that marketers should ignore Neuromarketing (at least for now).

I hate trade shows as a marketing tactic. Add up the cost of booth space, shipping, and travel, and the number of good leads you need to get to show any kind of ROI is too large to justify doing most shows. And don’t even get me started on how hard it is to be heard above the noise of dozens of other companies battling for the scarce hung-over attention of attendees that are only walking the show floor because they heard there might be free food or booze around somewhere. Here are 5 reasons to shop exhibiting at trade shows.

Next Monday is DemoCamp Toronto which is the must-attend monthly gathering of designers, developers, and entrepreneurs in Toronto’s tech startup scene. I’ve been asked to give a talk and I’d like your input.

I was at South by Southwest Interactive the past few days and got to watch a lot of people present. Some like Clay Shirky and Gary Vaynerchuk were seasoned presenters, others were folks presenting as part of a panel or interactive “core conversation” that had less experience presenting in front of large groups. Here’s a bit of what I took away about how to give a better presentation.