Marketing Tips and Insights

For a number of years now, Indianapolis and Indiana as a whole have been working to grow the state's technology focus and to position Indiana as one of the United States' high tech business hubs.   Progress has been positive in the past few years, as the state has put various business and tax incentives in place to encourage investment in technology businesses and to put an environment in place that helps technology start-ups to succeed.

Well, based on what I saw at this year's TechPoint MIRA Awards, given to the state's top technology firms, Indiana is succeeding.  The number of successful and innovative technology firms seems to be growing at an unprecedented rate.  Below are just a few of Indiana's growing technology sectors and companies worth looking into.

Health Care Information Technology

• My Health Care Manager- Leverages technology to help seniors navigate the difficult journey of aging with an innovative decision support system.
• LocalHealthNow.com- Offers innovative tool's that provide health professionals geographic, situational insight into currently occurring illnesses and outbreaks.

Technology Integration and Infrastructure

• BlueLock- Cloud computing solutions
• Prevel Technology- New database technology that dramatically improves performance and reduces cost

Marketing Technology

• Exact Target- SaaS email marketing
• Cantaloupe- Online video management tools to integrate with email, websites, blogs and social media.
• Delivra- Affordable Email marketing.
• Marketpath- SaaS tools for web content management, ecommerce, blogging, and search engine optimization.  Marketpath helps small and medium sized organizations more effectively and efficiently run their online marketing. 

As a member of the Marketpath team, it was an honor to be included as a MIRA Award finalist with so many impressive individuals and innovative companies that are leading Indiana's technology expansion.   

One of the speakers at this weekend's MIRA Awards stated that Indiana was fast becoming the new "Silicon Prairie" and that Silicon Valley better watch out.  I'd have to agree.  And Marketpath is happy to be part of Indiana's growing technology sector.

Many people are skeptical in regards to the ROI from participating in social marketing initiatives.  This is especially true when discussing the value to businesses of using Twitter.  Not only do many non-marketers question its value, but I have also talked with numerous professional marketers who are Twitter Skeptics.  I have to admit that I was pretty skeptical as well.  I signed up with Twitter about a year ago and started following a few Tweeters of personal interest.  Within a few weeks a cousin of mine signed up to follow my personal Twitter account.  My initial reaction was shock and I mockingly asked him, "why in the BLANKING world would you want follow me- don't you have a life?"

Since then, I've changed my opinion about Twitter quite a bit.  I still think following individuals is, for the most part, a complete waste.  But I've come to realize that Twitter can be a valuable marketing tool for many businesses.  In its simplest form, Twitter is a powerful tool that allows easy "Permission Marketing."  It's not much different then permission based email marketing, where a person has signed up to receive emails or your newsletter.  And as a marketer, an individual that has raised their hand and asked for you to communicate with them, whether via email or Twitter, is a valuable commodity.  Twitter is a great venue for communicating with a group of people who you already know is interested in your product or message.  Still not convinced?  Well, Dell just reported they have already earned $6.5 million in revenue from Twitter over the past two years, and that doesn't include the softer value from advertising impressions.

Is Twitter the end all and be all of marketing?  I don't think so.  Before you even worry about Tweeting, I'd suggest getting the basics right. First make sure you have the right brand message.  Then make sure you support that brand with a website that communicates your value, is easy to use, has strong, relevant content, and can be easily found on search engines.  Start with a strong content management system that allows you to keep your marketing message fresh, and that has tools to maximize your search engine optimization (SEO).  Then go out and start Tweeting!

I attended the Techpoint Innovation Summit '09 this week and listened to a thought provoking speech by Harvard Business School Professor and bestselling author Clayton Christensen.  Professor Christensen, author of "The Innovator's Dilemma" and "The Innovators Solution" spoke on the topic of disruptive innovation and described a very interesting approach to thinking about product improvement and innovation.  You can view a portion of a speech in which the professor describes hiring a milkshake to do a job.

As I listened to Professor Christensen talk about milkshakes, I got hungry and also starting thinking about Marketpath, the company I recently joined, and how innovative an organization it is.  Sitting there, I quickly came up with the following list of Marketpath innovations:

• Marketpath introduced one of the first Software as a Service (SaaS) Web Content Management offerings.
• Marketpath launched one of the first Software as a Service (Saas) products in the State of Indiana.
• Marketpath introduced SEO friendly tools (including URL re-writing) into our CMS in 2007, allowing non-technical users to optimize natural search results and site traffic.
• Marketpath Storefront was launched in 2008, integrating our ecommerce platform with our Content Management product to bring ease of use and SEO tools to the world of on-line selling.
• Marketpath integrated Blogging Software into our Web Content Management System (WCMS) in 2008 to improve Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and increase usability.

All of the innovations listed above, and many others from Marketpath, were designed to allow non-technical marketers to successfully and easily run their interactive marketing programs.  In the future, look for more innovations from Marketpath that matter to our customers, but disrupt our competition and industry. 

Here's to innovation, disruption, and milkshakes!