Quick shout out to my fellow Vancouver Entrepreneurs. Peace out, y’all.

Thus, the acid test:

Can a competitor’s product name be substituted? If so, you haven’t differentiated yourself.

The seminar also included some excellent overviews and self-assessments entrepreneurs ought to be taking while refining their messaging and taking their product to market. Definitely worth a read.

On related news, here’s a quick shout out to a few of the very cool entrepreneurs I’ve met at the NVBC seminars over the past month. All of these people seem to have big ideas, solid business plans and bright futures (Angel investors, where are you?).

Bradley Coleman, co-founder of ProxyDemocracy. Think “corporate governance”. ProxyDemocracy provides a set of tools to help investors use their voting power to produce positive changes in the companies they own. Seems timely, eh?

Eric Brooke, owner of Ignitia. Eric is frequently engaged in a leadership capacity or as a strategic adviser to executives, as well as to offer his wealth of expertise in communications and marketing. Very smart guy.

John Gray, CEO of SKRIPT Foundry. SKRIPTfoundry specializes in multifaceted solutions using Web standard coding practices. John’s got serious ambitions for this company and it sounds like they’re on the cusp of big things.

Ian Clark, President of RealSpace. His company creates innovative solutions for interactive 3D. Good for training in a virtual 3D world for employees in a range of industries. Their offering sounds awfully useful.

Positioning: How to Stand Out in a Cluttered Market

This was in response to Vancouver Sun Managing Editor Kirk LaPointe’s remark that bloggers, Tweeps and Facebookers seemed to be missing niche opportunities. He pointed to the lack of resources “traditional” media outlets were throwing at the Vancouver Paralympic games, seeming to suggest that bloggers ought to fill the vacuum. A participant from the audience suggested another example, where coverage of the Olympics protests petered out significantly after the first day.

With all due respect to LaPointe and the lady from the audience, I think their critique misses the point. It’s true that some social media creators, a very slim minority, do develop entirely original investigative pieces that are on par with reporting by paid journalists. But the vast majority of social media content developers prefer to piggy-back on the efforts of traditional media, focusing on offering alternative opinion rather than alternative raw data. Individually and collectively, social media makers largely don’t have the resources to do anything else.

Sure, we create all kinds of original content, from photos and videos to really thought-provoking essay-type blog posts. But as a rule, we don’t pick our themes from whatever the newsmakers have deemed unworthy of their attention — at least, not if we want people to actually see what we’re creating.

Why didn’t more bloggers cover the rest of the Olympics protests? I suspect it was because most realized that the real story was the hundreds of thousands of happy patriots gathered in our public spaces and an outpouring of positive feeling — not a few hundred increasingly fractured and inarticulate protesters accompanied by masked thugs intent on useless violence.

Why aren’t more bloggers covering the Paralympic Games (NOTE: the lack of coverage is only relative to the Olympic Games that preceded it. Bloggers, like regular media, are covering these Games)? The stories of courage and overcoming adversity are there to be recorded in spades, perhaps even more than with our Olympic athletes. In their absence, sponsors, reporters, bloggers and the general public have once more indicated something a little bit ugly about our society. Perhaps that is the real story here.

The bottom line is that when traditional media does its job well of investigating and providing the raw stories, social media makers can then do their job of being the gateways to that content through hyperlinks and also providing alternative opinions. There are benefits going both ways.

The basic philosophy applies very well to written content as well. Less is more. Get to the point in the first line because if you don’t grab your audience’s attention instantly, they’re clicking on to the next website.

I heard a number of excellent elevator pitches this morning while attending a High Output Business Networking session at Buzz Coffee in downtown Vancouver early this morning. But the best one was delivered by Craig, the founder of Under the Piano, as he introduced himself to the group of business owners and professionals. Going from memory, I believe it went like this:

Hello, I’m Craig and my company is Under the Piano. I provide a unique form of relaxation… I play a grand piano and my customers lie under it while the music is playing for about 45 minutes. They feel the vibrations of the music go through their bodies as they listen to a unique composition that I’ve created just for them. It’s very relaxing. Most of my clients lately are couples and as you know, the spring wedding season is coming up soon, so if you or friends would like to experience something very unique, I recommend that you call me at Under the Piano to schedule a session.

Just as Craig finished, a colleague stood up and delivered a fantastic testimonial for his service, emphasizing that it was an unforgettable, romantic and positive experience. I could tell from the reaction of the other attendees that Craig was going to get a lot of direct and referral business from this one event.

It wasn’t just Craig’s fine delivery or the testimonial that made the attendees lap up his presentation. The words themselves were important. They could translate with very little adaptation onto a web page.

You’ve got a concise description of what Under the Piano does: “I play a grand piano and my customers lie under it while the music is playing for about 45 minutes.”

The value proposition: “They feel the vibrations of the music go through their bodies as they listen to a unique composition that I’ve created just for them. It’s very relaxing.”

A definition of the target market: “Most of my clients lately are couples and as you know, the spring wedding season is coming up soon…”

The call to action: “If you or friends would like to experience something very unique, I recommend that you call me at Under the Piano to schedule a session.”

Brilliant. My hat’s off to Craig.

Craig had to leave before I got a chance to meet him, but I did get to talk with many excellent entrepreneurs who offer a wide range of services. Hat tip to the following local business owners and experts:

* Bonnie Sainsbury, Duet Media. Bonnie brings creativity, new imaginative concepts and the most effective best practices in the social media world right to your door.

* Des Dougan, Dougan Consulting Group Inc. An affordable solution for planning, supporting and implementing information technology to meet your business needs.

* Jamie Graham, Vertical Grain Design. Vancouver-based web design and programming.

* Jen DeTracey, Lift Strategies. Assisting organizations in becoming more distinctive and more profitable through strategic marketing.

* Julien Fontbonne, Virtually Canadian. Providing guaranteed search engine results or your money back.

* Kerry Plowman, WestCoast Internet Marketing. Build your future with lead generation strategies.

* Lara Hildebrandt, Quadrus. Lara works with individuals and businesses to build the financial security plan that best fits their needs.

* Michael Koro, Financial Design Group. Insurance and investment planning.

Business Networking Done Right?

I contacted my friend, Kathryn Haley the owner of the recently-launched Vancouver-based business Home for Her to ask her about her experiences in setting up and maintaining the content for her online presence. Kathy’s business serves independent women homeowners by providing guidance and creating confidence in all areas related to owning a home. Because of the nature of her specialized business, she needs to communicate very clearly what she has to offer her target market.

Here’s what she wrote when she had put the finishing touches on the website:

This site is finally ready to go live and I am filled with excitement, exhaustion and hope.

I am excited because this process has taken me far out of my comfort zone and I have discovered I thrive on that feeling. I must…I seem to put myself there a lot these days.

I am exhausted because setting up websites is not my strength, and it has taken a lot of tweaking, screaming and several bottles of wine. It is a work in progress so please give any feedback or comments to help improve your experience.

There you have it. Putting the website together in the first place is not an easy thing. Frankly, this early step in developing a business can be so intimidating that some people realize that perhaps they weren’t ready to become entrepreneurs after all and quit the project entirely. (That’s awfully sad, but if you can’t do it yourself and you don’t have the budget or willingness to out-task the web copywriting, there aren’t a lot of alternatives — unless you’ve got one of those businesses that can thrive just fine without the web. Selling crack, for instance…). But those who do launch often find themselves re-energized and full of purpose as soon as their business goes “live”.

How do you maintain the website content? Well, you’ve got a few options. First, write the stuff yourself. Again, if you haven’t got the time or talent, the next option is to hire a copywriter, such as… me.

A third option which I often make use of myself to supplement my own efforts and maximize content freshness, is to cross-post content with strategic partners. Of course, it also helps build links which help gather Google juice to turn a lonely website into a well-trafficked, SEO-friendly site.

Whichever method you choose has benefits but can also pose challenges, as Kathryn notes:

The written content for the site comes from myself and from guest writers. I have posted a couple of articles that I have written myself. The content comes from conversations I have with design clients or friends and simply thinking about some of the biggest problems I have had to deal with over the 13+ years of being in the renovation industry.

Once I determine a topic and actually start writing it usually only takes about 1 hour to finish it. My challenge is getting into the head space to write… I find myself second guessing whether readers will think the posts are silly.

What kind of content seems to work best for Kathryn? It’s important to mix it up:

I believe it is the variation of writing styles, topics and experts that provides the best experience for the reader. It creates a ‘something for everyone’ site that has mass appeal. The variation of topics also allows me to use SEO on a wide range of keywords, maximizing exposure to Google and other search engines.

The site also benefits from the cross promotion that each writer brings.

Are you having difficulty launching your website? Or are you finding it difficult to ensure the content on your website is fresh and Google-friendly? If you would like a free consultation about your website content strategy or need a copywriter to get your articles written, go ahead and contact me

If you have other tips about creating and managing website content or just want to reply to this post, please leave a comment!

Is This Content Still “Fresh”?

Marketing in it’s purest form is not about selling, it is simply a form of communication and as such is a neutral concept that can be used for good or for evil.

I’ve had newsletter subscribers tell me that even though they are not in business or marketing, they read my newsletters cover to cover and always find something that helps them. From the librarian who wants kids to know about the many fun, educational programs they can become involved in, to the kindergarten teacher who needs parents on board with her classroom policies, they find ideas on improving communication and getting better buy-in whatever their valuable, beneficial message.

Have you used a “marketing” tool or idea in a non-marketing context? I’d love to know about your experience. Leave a comment.