Make Your Events and Conferences less Boring

One of the key challenges that marketing leaders facing in planning events/conferences is how to generate dynamic and compelling content that will engage the audience. The de facto approach to conferences remains a back-to-back series of PowerPoint presentations which are interrupted only for lunch and vendor exhibits. While formal presentations remain the best way to educate a large audience about a topic, too much repetition in this format will lead to declining audience interest. I recommend mixing up the format of conference sessions with four alternative session approaches to keep the audience better engaged.

Ten Guidelines for Panel Moderators

A panel can be a very effective technique for sharing information on a particular topic at a conference or tradeshow. The panel format is becoming increasing popular alternative to formal PowerPoint presentation sessions. Many have found that the multi-speaker, informal nature of the discussion tends to lead to more audience attention. However, there are several best practices that should be employed to ensure that the panel does not fall into the pitfalls commonly associated with formal PowerPoint presentations.

Extending Your Customer Profile Library

In my last post I described a best practice that marketing professionals can employ to track, trend and analyze customer profiles. If you are agreeable to the concept you may want consider extending the profile data you track to a broader set of information such as investor filings, press releases, executive biographies and 3rd party vendor case studies.

Building a Library of Customer Profiles for Your Major Accounts

A key factor in any marketing organization’s success is the ability to understand customer needs. Having a repository of customer data both quantitative and qualitative will greatly simplify your ability to analyze market trends. For example, if you need to trend requests for a particular product capability or feature, it is useful to have a repository of all recent RFPs from which to start the analysis. If you need to build a case study for a particular customer, the process can be greatly accelerated if you can quickly assemble everything that you know about the account.

Every Tech Vendor should have an Eponymous Law

An eponymous law refers to a prediction or observation which is credited towards a specific person. Perhaps, the best known Eponymous law in the technology industry is that of Moore’s law which states that the complexity of integrated circuits doubles every 24 months. But Moore’s is just one of many such as Metcalfe, Reed and Amara credited with a technology law. Technology vendors should leverage these types of laws and observations in their marketing approaches. However, there will undoubtedly be scenarios in which none of the existing eponymous laws apply to your market sector. In such a scenario, I would encourage you to create your own. Of course, the law will not be taken seriously by the PhDs in the Silicon Valley community. However, such eponymous laws can be quite effective in illustrating concepts for investors, analysts, partners, customers and employees.

International – A Meaningless Term in Executive Titles

I frequently see executives with titles such as EVP of International Operations, SVP of International Sales or Head of International Markets. These are among the worst tiles a company could give an executive and an example of “Inside Out” thinking. “International” is a relative term. If you are in the US, “international” implies Canada, Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. But if you are in France, “international” implies the US as well as the rest of Europe, Latin America and Asia.

Offer Free Certification Credits for Prospects who Attend Your Webinar

Earlier this week I received a webinar invitation from an e-invoicing company. I probably get 5-10 invitations to webinars a week most of which I ignore. But this one caught my eye. The reason I found this particular webinar more interesting than others was the promotion, which offered a free continuing education credit to attendees. This is a technique I think more technology vendors should experience with to boost webinar attendance levels.