Raising awareness of your product in your target market is where sales begin, and this is where marketing communications activities begin the selling process. With today's multiple channels for content to reach potential customers, the art and science of marketing communications has become increasingly important. Advertising. Web site. Seminars.

Southern California is a hotbed of technology companies that are leaders in their sector. This includes MySpace, CitySearch, Ticketmaster, eHarmony, and thousands of lesser known technology companies. It's been difficult to keep up on all aspects of the technology sector in Southern California.

While the economy in 2009 looks challenging for most companies, the outlook of marketing executives is rather bright and upbeat. Deborah Kania and her team at Brightworks Interactive have just released results of their survey of marketing executives' plans for 2009. Marketing Trend #5: Increased use of analytics tools (e.g.,

There are several new marketing trends for 2010 that will have an impact on practically every marketing organization because of new trends in customer behavior, such as: Shift in consumer mentality from recession to recovery. Changes in how customers make purchase decisions. New technologies for communicating with customers.

Taking a long trip is like marketing. You need to pick a direction, which will determine what to pack -- shorts and sandals for summer, or coats and gloves for winter -- and who you will meet along the way.  . The same is true for marketing. The importantce of choosing the right strategic marketing direction. Not today. What happened to Sears?

One of the topics that came up in my post Mobile Internet Apple Facebook was around open vs. closed platforms. This issue comes up at the start of almost every new startup company in a variety of forms. m constantly struggling with trying to figure out the best way to pull together solutions, especially with how fast things move. That’s it.

I’ve been having discussions with several people recently about the role of the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) in very early stage companies. In December 2007, I described how I commonly take on an Acting CTO Role in a Start-up. used an image from Roger Smith that describes the varying roles of a CTO as the company matures. Gap closed, right?

A post by Fred Wilson pointed me to Dave McClure's Startup Metrics presentation. This is a great presentation and one that I'm going to point out to startup / early stage company CEOs. This kind of a simple model also helps: Define the early proof points for the company. You only build what you need to prove that model. Great stuff.

I generally am working as an acting CTO for about 3-4 start-ups or other companies at any one time. was just talking with someone who asked me to define how that could work and what they meant. Great question. Roger Smith ) This helps explain where I normally play. During Stabilization, often the focus is transitioning to a full-time CTO.

Because I was the Acting CTO for eHarmony at it's start, I quite often get introduced to people who have an idea for a startup company that is based on some kind of matching algorithm. They describe the company as the eHarmony of careers, clothes, jobs, college, tutoring services, doctors, service companies, investments, etc. That feels powerful.