Social Good

Introducing Philly Marketing Labs… from Marketing Dreams to Results

November 2nd, 2010 by admin | No Comments

Philly Marketing Labs is a new brand dedicated to helping Mid-sized companies maximize their Web marketing and Social-Search footprint. Through the use of the Science of Conversion Optimization, Actionable Analytics and an embrace of the Human Element, we provide Visibility to Profitability(TM) for our clients. Founder Skip Shuda describes how it came to be and the numerous chefs who were involved in cooking up our new brand.

The ideas for a good company name have always come from my closest personal advisors. In 1993, my wife Lynne helped me brainstorm the name for the company we called Destiny. The name reflected our desire to be an “Engine for Change”. The company grew to 120 people with $17 million revenue building eCommerce and Reporting front-ends for Financial Institutions and their clients. But the most remarkable thing about that company was its culture. To this day, many of us who lived through it long for a people-centric, productive environment like Destiny. And yes, I did own the domain name www.destiny.com for a while… I am the man who sold Destiny.

“Post Destiny” was the rather uninspired name which I used to fill out a business card template on Vistaprint in early 2003. After two years of running as Post Destiny, I asked my trusted advisors to review my web site. My close friend and advisor Raef Lee said, “You don’t need a new Web site. You need a new name.” So, I looked at the focus of our business. We were working with Technology Entrepreneurs to help them realize their dream. As anyone who tried to start a company can tell you, the early days can be lonely. We often provided the team for these fledgling startups. And hence, Team and a Dream was born.

Fast forward to March, 2010. Our work had begun to shift. We were excited to be working with some bigger companies on their Internet Marketing initiatives. There were a lot of differences between working with established businesses vs. working with startups. In particular, when a company already has a stream of sales, it is easy to see if your marketing efforts are having an impact or not. We were having an impact with measurable ROI.

I had been working with ClickEquations while I was also growing Team and a Dream. I sat down with CEO Lucinda Holt, a long-time friend and advisor, to talk about Team and a Dream. Lucinda is a master business strategist. She understands the ebb and flow of markets with an uncanny ability to quickly grasp what will work and what won’t work. She encouraged me in our current direction. At ClickEquations, she had come to understand the incredible power and competitive advantage that could be taken from an analytics and best practices based approach to Internet Marketing. She made some very practical suggestions… build a great team, streamline your methodology and change your brand. “Team and a Dream was great for entrepreneurs, but now you are serving up & running companies. Companies with revenue want to focus on results that are derived from your attention to the intersection of Social and Search. Analytics are critical to that success. You need a brand that communicates your new value proposition.”

The name didn’t come for many months later. In a strategic brainstorming session in August, 2010 five of us gathered to discuss the future for our company, which we had started calling NewCo.

We looked inside ourselves. We were a technical bunch. I have a BS and MS in Computer Science. Jason Lomberg is an HTML programmer as well as a deep-dive, numbers-driven SEO. Bechara Jaoudeh is always showing me the latest tools, tweaking analytics and tracking results for clients. And so it went.

In fact, we considered calling ourselves the “Dashboard Mechanics” for a while since we were SO analytics focused. I even spent a while editing mechanic’s coveralls onto our team!

Somehow, the analytics focus wasn’t enough. We were helping companies understand human behavior in their Web site’s Conversion Architecture. Our newest team member, Steve Levine, spends a lot of time building market research efforts to understand customer behavior relative to a company’s value proposition. We knew that the human element was an important part of our future.

When we looked closely at our new focus, we were able to boil it down to three things:

1) Conversion Architecture. There are specific things that are proven to work in Internet Marketing. The science of Landing Page Optimization is grounded in an understanding of how different types of people approach a Web site or interact with a brand online. Over the years, we’ve embraced the work around Persuasion Architecture, Integral Theory’s Quadrants and Landing Page Optimization from the team at Marketing Experiments.

2) Actionable Analytics. Knowing how to segment data effectively and measure the right things is central to good Web Analytics. My work with ClickEquations (and especially world class analyst Adam Figueira) has opened my eyes to the power of making the analytics actionable. Developing recommendations from deep insights in the analytics is a hallmark of our work today. A big nod to Google Analytics Guru Avinash Kaisuik is in order as well. We’ve reviewed some of his seminal work on Web Analytics 2.0 in this blog.

3) The Human Element. This is where the magic really happens. The intersection of psychology, anthropology, sociology and network theory is a pretty cool place to work. The cerebral cortex of the collective human race is forming right before our eyes! Social channels are mixing with the already knowledge-rich Internet to create conversations that no-one could have anticipated a decade ago. We follow the work or Psychology and Social Media Scientists like Robert Cialdini and his book on Influence, Michael Wu and Dan Zarrella on this front.

The Human Element keeps us guessing. And so there is an experimental component to all real Internet and Social-Search marketing efforts that push the boundary. You have to integrate thoughtful experimentation, insightful analysis and an understanding of human nature to be successful in this world. Marketing Labs seemed to fit the bill.

At the end of the day, we are people too… which leads us to the last element of our new brand. What common theme seemed to capture who we are as a group? Philadelphia – or Philly – is a great city and our (adopted in some cases) hometown. Steeped in the experimental and scientific work of Ben Franklin, the revolutionary spirit of the USA’s founders and the workingman’s competitive ethic that allowed Rocky Balboa to stand up to the world’s Goliaths, we felt that Philly captures many of the values our team holds dear.

In an embrace of our hometown of Philadelphia, we are now Philly Marketing Labs.

The story continues…

Jackie Russo-Casey, our logo designer, did a fantastic job of coming up with some creative angles for Philly Marketing Labs. Whether you see our logo as a magnet pulling the signal from the noise, a conductor of an orchestra or a magician tossing a fire into the air, it seems to conjure up images for most individuals that are consistent with the direction and value of Philly Marketing Labs.

BTW – our newest team member, Gloria Bell, is very much focused on the human element and the importance of striking up a conversation with our friends. Gloria suggested this post as a next step in our re-branding efforts.

As you can see, it takes village to create a new brand. I’m grateful to be part of the emerging village we’ll call Philly Marketing Labs. Please leave us your reactions to our new brand. I’d also love to hear your story of how your company brand came to be.

- Skip Shuda

Take a stand. Give back to new generation organizations.

March 6th, 2010 by Skip | No Comments

Strikes across the Middle East lead to overthrow of governments. Massive teacher, police and fireman layoffs criss-cross the country. Strikes in Wisconsin lead to a shutdown of the schools. A project called Responsible Wealth calls for wealthy individuals to contribute their fair share to solving our country’s economic woes. Unemployment in the US hangs around 10%. In watching the news lately, it seems ever-more clear that our old ideas of how business works, how we earn money and how we live our lives, is never going back to the old ways of being.

The private sector needs to step up and become part of the solution. All over the world, people are offering to help rebuild homes, to reduce their environmental footprint and to offer new sources of news, beauty and knowledge – at a fraction of the cost it took to produce them.

I also believe that freedom and creativity run side by side, leading all of us to better solutions, better experiences and richer lives. Yet I have a confession to make. I have been free-loading on information and creativity services that help me live a better and richer life. And I’m resolved to stop.

So I’m helping in three areas to put my money where my mouth is. In all three cases, I have derived benefit from a service that is freely offered – and I can easily avoid paying. However, because I want these services (and new ones like them) to continue to thrive, I took a stand and paid up for an annual membership.

1) I signed up for Pandora One. I love Pandora. I have dozens of music channels that fit my mood. While the commercials can be annoying, I have happily listened for years to hours of music before deciding to spend the $36 and buy a year of commercial-free Pandora One.

2) I subscribed to WHYY, my local Public Radio station. I’ve been a subscriber for years – and listening regularly without contributing is just plain wrong.

3) I donated to Wikipedia. Founder Jimmy Wales caught me with his appeal (after about 10 visits to research various topics on Wikipedia). Even though this crucial resource has 395 million unique visitors from around the planet each year, Wales doesn’t accept a salary. The organization is run by volunteers and only uses donations. If you value citizen-journalism and collaborative knowledge sharing, donate to this knowledge sharing project.

How are you taking a stand to support the new generation economy and innovative business models?

Social Media Crowdsourcing for Social Good

October 6th, 2009 by admin | 1 Comment

We had the opportunity to attend a remarkable meeting about “Social Media for Social Good” sponsored by the Social Media Club Philadelphia. The first hour included a panel discussion featuring speakers from 3 local causes. The last hour, attendees were encouraged to brainstorm a broad range of Social Media strategies and tactics for a non-profit benefitting children and their families.

Northern Home for Children (@NorthernHomeFC) is the nation’s oldest orphanage and child support non-profit. Annie Heckenberger (@anniemal), of Philadelphia-based ad agency Red Tettemer, raised them to the group’s attention. She wanted to brainstorm on ways that Northern Homes could better utilize Social Media. Annie wrote the first idea down and stood at the whiteboard, marker ready. She was not disappointed.

The flurry of ideas did not end for a full hour. The moderator Gloria Bell (@gloriabell) did a wonderful job directing the chaos. There were still four hands in the air with fresh ideas when she reluctantly called an end to the brainstorming.

As a result of this impromptu brainstorming, they have already shown remarkable results. When the SMC-Philly meeting started, @NorthernHomeFC had 3 followers. Today, just five days later, they are up to 126 followers. Mary Fran of Northern Home tweets for them. She reported that they have already exceeded their first Twitter challenge of 100 uniforms in 100 hours (@anniemal contributed this first idea).

While it was my first meeting, our colleague Marilyn Moran (@PhillyMarketing) is a social media veteran and member of the @SMCPhilly operating board. Marilyn confirmed that what happened on Tuesday night was indeed unique.

The range of ideas ran the gamut of tactics to strategy including: platforms, audiences, content, memes, talking points, comparable non-profits to study, strategies and campaigns.

While the results that came out of this particular brainstorming would take a small e-book to fully capture, here were five of my favorites:

The 100 uniforms in 100 hours was a call to action that was easy to get behind. Targeted, focused and with an interesting story behind it. It turns out that many kids in economically distressed situations can’t attend public schools because they don’t have the $20 for the required uniform! It sounds crazy, but this is exactly the kind of plight Northern Homes is struggling to overcome.
Follow Journalists on Twitter. Susan Jacobson (@susanjacobson), Professor at Temple University’s School of Journalism, reported that journalists are quickly moving to Twitter. They are publishing their editorial calendar. Christine Cavalier (@PurpleCar) layered on that the Journalists can be easily monitored as a group using a tool like TweetDeck or Seesmic desktop.
But what if the staff at Northern Home doesn’t have the time to write relevant articles for the journalists? “Consider crowdsourcing!” one SMC Member exclaimed. “Just ask your followers if someone could help with an article on a topic by a certain date.” What a great way for someone to make a contribution if they aren’t able to help financially!
Collecting money online? Consider using the Chipin Widget . These widgets can be customized to your needs and embedded on the web site.
Finally, taking inspiration from @headmutha Rocky Turner, the organization called Mothers Fighting for Others was highlighted by one group member as a successful Twitter fund-raiser. A quick check of Rocky’s Twitter stream revealed what seemed to be a globe-trotting, world-changing mother hoping to just “pay it forward”.

Now, a lot of this content needs to be organized, prioritized and otherwise scrubbed before Mary Fran has a full-blown Social Media Strategy. But I’m betting she saved weeks or months of time learning the hard way. Furthermore, the collective wisdom she tapped into was far beyond what any single agency could provide. Hats off to @anniemal for pulling the wisdom of the crowd around this one pressing need.

Got me wondering if any of you are using crowdsourcing to help with aspects of your marketing campaign strategies? We’ve used a variant of this approach by have the public provide usability and aesthetic feedback client Web sites through usertesting.com. I’ve also seen a number of people crowdsource their logo at 99designs or similar sites.

This blog post covers crowdsourcing for a social media strategy. What other areas could benefit? In what ways have you used crowdsourcing to help your team or your clients? What problems might you see with crowdsourcing a marketing strategy?

Also: if you were at at the SMC-Philly meeting, what are your thoughts? What did you like or not like about the impromptu brainstorming? Did you find it worthwhile? Did you learn something from it? What are other ways you can crowdsource social media strategy?

Please drop us a comment and let us know what you think about crowdsourcing your marketing?

Credit: Crowdsourcing Pic

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