In a time when advertising is sometimes less effective, social media platforms are shifting, and the economy is possibly headed for a downturn, many companies are rethinking their marketing strategy and reaching to connect with the right clients in a lasting way. But instead of rapid growth and expansion, many companies are focused on managing…
If you are just getting started on your journey as an entrepreneur, today’s post is for you. Today we have a guest post from Dean Burgess, who writes about small business topics at Excitepreneur.net. We are running a small series of articles on Cronicle aimed at the small business owner often left out of tech…
Looking for a career shift or boost in your tech career? Google’s Grow With Google program is offering professional training and certifications in tech skills that are extremely affordable, or, with a new program designed for rural northwest Michigan, completely free. The program is used for finding entry level workers in tech by Wells Fargo, SiriusXM, Salesforce, Ford, Verizon and Crate & Barrel.
Do you have a content marketing program you have struggled to get off the ground? Would you like to find a way to make content marketing for tech startups and small business more efficient and affordable to run so you can include it in your marketing program? We’re currently running customer discovery interviews to gather information about how we might offer more solutions to more companies in the tech space. If you would like to be a part of our customer discovery interviews, please contact us to schedule a call and tell us about which needs you have in this space that have been hard to find solutions for.
So you’ve got your startup running, now how do you do PR outreach and content marketing? A great media pitch is similar to your startup pitch you gave to investors, but it’s kind of flipped on its head. Content and media pitches are different in key ways that could make or break your business’s marketing plan.
Have you been using online grocery lists or shopping services? Noticed that they’ve significantly improved their ad recommendations for foods you might want to add to your cart? There’s a reason for that. Ann Arbor’s AdAdapted is a startup focused on improving the online shopping experience, from not getting you off track when you want to one-click add something to your cart and keep browsing, or making sure consumer packaged foods companies send you the right targeted ad for something you actually would like to buy along with the rest of your list. If you’ve recently used a “start your cart” function at an online grocer based on products you’ve previously purchased, you know how convenient this can be.
Nutshell is a newer staple in the Ann Arbor tech scene the last 10 years, founded by several people — Andy Fowler, Guy Suter, Ian Berry, and Lindsay Snider — who had worked together in a regional dialup ISP and subsequently started a bitleap data backup startup that updated companies’ data to the cloud in the early aughts. This company was acquired by Ann Arbor’s Barracuda Networks, and the band got back together in Ann Arbor a few years later to create something new: a CRM software solution. The idea? Create a CRM sales process and make it repeatable. Now the company that became Nutshell has grown, and released its second major product, that takes CRMs to a new level.
One of the questions we receive most at Cronicle when speaking with new startups or small businesses considering content marketing is: “When should I start content marketing for my startup? How do I know what kind of content marketing to focus on?” It’s not very helpful to say, “Start as soon as possible.” That’s because good content marketing requires some planning. Content marketing is a sustained effort to produce informational content for prospective clients or your community. There is one key that we wanted to pass on to you if you’re putting together a content marketing program, and that is this: Content marketing should start when you have the most news to share, and should be targeted in the right tone for the right audience. Here’s how to figure out what that means for your business.
Gary Goodman is the latest hire to be added to Ann Arbor-based website creation agency Human Element. He is joining the strategy team as an expert in e-commerce. Goodman previously served as Digital Marketing and eCommerce Manager at Equal Exchange, as well as owning and operating his own luxury silk bedding company, which utilized both Magento and BigCommerce, two platforms that Human Element specializes in to assist businesses in improving e-commerce on their online portals. According to Human Element’s Director of Marketing Jenn Hayman, “In both roles, Goodman put to use his expertise in content marketing, SEO, SEM/CPC, and Marketo for marketing automation to drive new customer acquisition and continuous revenue growth.”
So you’ve started a company blog, guest posted for other media outlets and blogs, interviewed with podcasts or mainstream media, and pursued public speaking. That is already an incredible plan for content marketing, one that takes time to carry out and requires longterm consistency far beyond your company’s launch. If your tech startup is finding its sea legs on content marketing, there is one more set of ideas to consider, just to see if it fits your situation. That content marketing idea is: white papers or engineering as marketing.
