Marketing

Marketing

P-TECH Industry and Education Partnerships

P-TECH EDU & Industry Partnerships for Students

P-TECH EDU & Industry Partnerships for Students

Over the last 18 months I’ve been working on an exciting opportunity for high school students. P-TECH is an AU Gov pilot helping to facilitate pathways in technology into high schools so students are more engaged in STEM subjects and content, earn a VET certificate and are ready for jobs of the 21st Century when they graduate year 12.

I’ve been working with Telstra (Telstra Academy) and PwC (Higher Apprenticeships) so students can earn and continue to learn from Yr.12. The practical VET subjects help creativity and engagement that traditional pathways may not inspire for some kids. #ptechaustralia              Link – P-TECH Information

Marketing

Applied Social Media as part of your Digital Strategy

In November, I’m running a Free Online Short Course with some social media gurus to help you bring upside to your digital marketing and social media strategy. Check it out here, once you’ve signed up you can participate live or just utilise the recordings when you need ! #igetdigital

Applied Social Media

Applied Social Media

https://www.itmasters.edu.au/free-short-course-applied-social-media-marketing/

CX - Customer Experience, Leadership, Marketing

Customer Experience Leadership

This is a great piece on leadership and customer experience CX #igetdigital
Don’t give your customers/clients/students a reason to choose #disruption

http://issue.by/which50/customer-experience/leadership/ CX – Customer Experience

Leadership

Customer Experience Leadership

Communications, Marketing, Strategy, Training

How To – Marketing Strategy Videos

How To – Marketing Strategy

These short and easy to absorb videos will help you get your head around your marketing strategy priorities in a way you can capture the relevant internal and external forces, the strategic priority of the business and target markets which will help you achieve your goals. There is 3 videos in the sequence.

 

 

Communications, Marketing, Strategy

Marketing in their DNA, new orgs doing well #Atlassian, #Tesla, #Uber & #airbnb

Atlassian

Atlassian Values – easy to grasp and empowering

When I picked up this graphic from the #atlassian IPO docs, I was inspired as to the potential of organisations in the current environment, when, if you work for a large traditional organisation, its likely to be all about policy, procedure, restructure/ re-engineering and a narrow funnel to the perceived best positions in the organisation !

While we could go on about that, everyone is far more interested in today and the future. Atlassian, Tesla, Uber and airbnb are all great examples of what customer understanding and clarity around organisational purpose, brings to all stakeholders.

This is the core purpose of strategic marketing and I doubt that these organisations have paid specific attention to marketing, but instead it has been ingrained across their growing organisational worlds, from the start up, its everywhere ! Other great examples of this philosophy include Richard Bransons’ Virgin businesses and Anita Roddicks’ Bodyshop.

All have a vision, clearly communicated, all look to leverage resources (owned or not) in unique and innovative ways, all have transparency with customers through staff blogs, apps with usable rating / engagement tools, all are doing cool customer engaging service/product upgrades/experiences as part of the deal, and all have a lack of respect for the status quo.

I don’t work for these organisations, but I’m already intrigued and while it wont be for everyone, I’ll bet they get the best people for their mission through the door. This further disadvantages those other organisations who talk a big game but are caught up in unclear priorities and lack of customer focus.

I don’t think this exciting world is out of reach for any organisation, but you have to give up some traditions and look to your customers and understand their needs and what value you could possibly represent for them. You also have to empower your people to contribute to the customer journey in a transparent way. In every organisation I’ve worked in or consulted with, there has been a massive capability for unique problem solving solutions internally but its rarely tapped – unleash the good work your brand has already achieved ! The digital environment is a major facilitator of these opportunities and its very cost effective and scale-able, so there’s no excuse for not to be part of this rewarding way to do business !

Finally as an owner or manager, quoting Atlassian “be the change you seek”.

Communications, Marketing, Strategy, Training

Digital Marketing Scrum – impact your digital future

Digital Marketing Scrum

Digital Marketing Scrum

It doesn’t matter if this will be your first or next Digital Marketing Plan, join us with a maximum of 7 other like-minded, non-competitive organisations and people, to workshop our Digital Marketing Plan template to build a digital marketing plan – ready for you to fine tune and present to your management.

Its called a Scrum (check out your project management terms !) because we are bringing people together for a short, sharp and productive meeting to shine a light on the digital opportunity and challenges that the organisations represented in the room are facing.

Bring your device and disconnect from work for the day, we’ll bring lots of ideas, templates and fresh resources to shape your thinking. Bounce ideas off other participants so you can get target market focused, and develop usable tools and media options to meet your goals.

These sessions are planned for Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne in December and again in January 2016 as a back to work motivator !

See our work and join the conversation with the #igetdigital hashtag – empower your digital future.

Click here: Tickets, Times and Dates – Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne

Communications, Marketing, Strategy

#igetdigital for global digitally intrigued citizens – Digital Marketing

Global Digital Community

Global Digital Community

We have been having an awesome time delivering the Digital Marketing Free Online Course  – such great feedback from the the more than 4500 enrolled, global digitally intrigued citizens and those following the sessions live.

Last week when @elishabooth was guest speaker talking digital marketing plans, we introduced the hashtag #igetdigital and the conversation has run across Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Linkedin since then with some great posts about digital issues, great examples of digital and great questions that help everyone involved “get digital”.

This week (week 3) @amashman is hosting and @brijidgroup – James Lloyd is presenting a session on SEO and SEM which will be complimented by the Advertising Opportunity and Digital devices to wrap up. (7pm tonight, 1/9/15, Sydney time !)

Follow the session live or use #igetdigital (twitter) to get involved tonight. Next week, @rich_evans is talking social media and by then most participants will be able to complete their digital marketing plan template.

To access live, enroll here https://www.itmasters.edu.au/free-short-course-digital-marketing/ You can get the recordings of previous weeks and the resources and watch future sessions live.

Enjoy

Communications, Marketing, Training

The Need For Digital Marketing Strategy

Digital Marketing is all around us, specifically the tools for Digital Marketing impact our lives daily through many of the devices we carry and through old school media asking us to follow or like !

From August 18th in conjunction with Charles Sturt University and ITMasters Digital MarketingI’m running a 5 week free online course with 4 live sessions to decode digital and discuss how you need to be thinking about digital as part of your customer communication strategy, given that if you are not, your competitors probably are !

We’ll discuss what the tools for digital are and how to use them to interact with your consumers across a range of digital devices including wearables to develop a workable digital marketing plan. We’ll also discuss integration of digital and analogue media so you can reach customers (B2B or B2C) across their media day.

You need to enroll to access the live and recorded content and any other resources we make available, sign up @ https://www.itmasters.edu.au/free-short-course-digital-marketing/

Marketing

Digital Marketers Top Priorities

talkablebrandsIn a report just released – Top Priorities for Senior Digital Marketers on Marketing Charts, top of the list is “telling our story so we can stand out from our competitors”, this is also a massive challenge for any organisation as the business first has to understand what its’ story is and how that resonates with customers and influential stakeholders.

Its nearly a management issue that marketers have to work with as there is so many facets to your brand story. To be successful you need to to have all your communication touch points grounded in the story and reflecting how it should be told and engaged with, in a credible way. This involves staff (read employee advocacy) being empowered and happy to tell the story and all your media channels and touch points reflecting that story. Poor morale, non customer centric processes, inappropriate calls to action and sponsorship’s, for example, will just tear a hole in the story !  This causes loss of customers, churn and complaints as customers see or feel a gap in what was (probably perceived to be) promised. The amazing flip side to this is that empowered teams, cleverly integrated communications, and a strong organisation vision or ethic will make you talkable and customers sticky, as they invest physically or better – emotionally, in your brand.

Marketing

Microsoft Project 2013 – communicate and manage better

The current version of Microsoft’s Project software (2013) has really improve marketers ability to manage even better projects, campaigns, NPD, events and launches. With great new pre formated reports, communication and stakeholder engagement has never been more available and as we all know, keeping people informed and motivated is critical to project success.

While on the surface Microsoft Project 2013 (MS Project) can look like a complex piece of software, you need to make conscious decisions about how you are going to use it and then stick with that plan –  you can base this on your stakeholder needs and use the software as a tool to help deliver on those. Its true, you can let the software bog you down, but if you have a goal on want you want out of it, and focus on that, it’ll be a great asset for you.

Reporting with MS Project

Reporting with Microsoft Project

For marketers, the software really only needs 4 things to work for you – that list of jobs to be completed, your estimated duration of each of those jobs, your best ideas on how the project needs to flow or the precedence of tasks, and finally who (individuals or teams) is doing each task. With this, you then have a project schedule, important start and finish dates, duration and if you have costs for your resources, a cashflow budget for your project also.

Then you can do some of your own work on the look and feel of the project – milestones, add in some notes on Goals, Scope and Assumptions and the strategic alignment of the project with the businesses needs. You then have a portfolio of reports to build your presentations and communications with, that will get sign off, win over sponsors, motivate your team and other stakeholders and generally make you look like someone who is completely on top of the projects they are responsible for.

There is a lot of tracking and reporting options for when the project is underway, but often in the fast paced marketing environment where you are running multiple, short term projects, its the proposal and baseline plan that is used to run the project.

While it sounds pretty nerdy, we are big fans of MS Project 2013 for Marketing Projects and can help though our facilitated sessions around 1 of your actual, upcoming projects or through our Project Reporting & Communicating 1 day course or the 2 day Project Management Skills for Marketers session.

Book Securely at Eventbrite for all our courses (booking fees included)