Tag: Marketing

One of the many reasons I love the work I do as a freelance journalist is that I get to spend a lot of time talking to emerging Australian technology companies. There is a vast wealth of incredible innovation in this country, embodied within hundreds of companies that will reshape the world in their own small way.

For anyone who has ever been part of a team working late the night before a tender document is due, you’ll appreciate the...

It's a concept that has taken on many names in recent times, including buzz marketing, viral marketing, word-of-mouth, word-of-mouse and stealth marketing. Whatever you call it, the concept is simple: using customers to create a conversation about a product or service.

It's a concept that has taken on many names in recent times, including buzz marketing, viral marketing, word-of-mouth, word-of-mouse and stealth marketing. Whatever you call it, the concept is simple: using customers to create a conversation about a product or service.

While sometimes apocryphal, start-up failure rates tell a sombre story: most start-ups don't see their third anniversary. This high attrition rate has many causes, but a primary factor is poor cash flow management.

Book Reviews

If you are at all interested in how technology and the internet are shaping media and culture, then pay a visit to aftertv.com, a website hosting a series of podcast interviews by digital media critic, Andrew Keen.

Sick and tired of venture capitalists slamming their heavy, oak doors in your mush? Heck, even a cash injection of 50 grand would get your bright idea to the next stage, right? Fear not. Help is at hand.

Greetings Anthillians! I've been sipping a glass of fine wine and contemplating the grapevine. Word of mouth has to be the most powerful form of advertising. How else could a brief conversation by the water cooler precipitate the purchase of a $300 dollar bottle of plonk? Professional antagoniser, Ray Beatty, is on the case.

If you've ever received an invitation to a wedding being held interstate or overseas, you'll know that sharing the love can be expensive and time consuming. But with technology doing more and more of our leg work these days, more palatable options were bound to emerge.

How you meet, greet, and treat a customer is purely a matter of choice. Your own attitude and commitment to care is all that...

Lists. Endless lists. The latest curse of the web are those endless swimming pools of customer data - most popular, most active, most tagged or downloaded. Personally, I hate them. They tell me nothing, other than other people's aggregated bad taste. Worse, they miss one of the internet's most subtle and powerful features - the discovery power of networks.

Lists. Endless lists. The latest curse of the web are those endless swimming pools of customer data - most popular, most active, most tagged or downloaded. Personally, I hate them. They tell me nothing, other than other people's aggregated bad taste. Worse, they miss one of the internet's most subtle and powerful features - the discovery power of networks.

I recently had the good fortune to host the Commercialisation EXPO 2006 conference held in Melbourne. It covered all the right areas and was a great success, but it is clear that one troubling issue remains - the chasm between innovation and marketing is as wide today as it has ever been.

I recently had the good fortune to host the Commercialisation EXPO 2006 conference held in Melbourne. It covered all the right areas and was a great success, but it is clear that one troubling issue remains - the chasm between innovation and marketing is as wide today as it has ever been.

You might think that your product or service is the best in the world, but you might also need your head read. Market research is one of the best ways to get into the minds of customers. And it's no longer the expensive and exclusive domain of big corporates. Hell, you don't even need a clipboard! Jodie O'Keeffe reports.

Your strategy is your objective for the pitch and the tactics and specific actions you employ to achieve that objective. A great way to get the objective clear is to imagine the pitch is over and you have won. If, at the company's next board meeting, the selection committee were asked to succinctly explain why they selected you, what would they say? We call this The "Board Room" Statement. For example, your Boardroom Statement might be: "We selected them because they had good ideas and enough experience to do the job, but more so, a level of enthusiasm and desire to work with us that none of their competitors could match."

Direct marketing is a form of advertising that requires a direct response from the consumer. This includes mail, catalogues, advertising, telemarketing, direct selling and email initiatives that are delivered directly to the individual.

Being the first to react to changing customer needs and preferences is often the difference between business success and failure. Witness, for example, how quickly Sony lost its early dominance of the portable music device market to Apple, which responded faster and more innovatively to demand for digital audio devices.

Pete Thomond spent the past four and a half years working out the secrets of successful innovation. The British academic and business consultant was co-manager of the "Disrupt-it" project, a €3 million European Commission co-sponsored programme of research and business tool development. Now he's spreading the word downunder, as a Research Fellow and innovation consultant at the Brisbane Graduate School of Business. At 29, he's young, but how many people do you know with a PhD in disruptive innovation?