Glad to be joining Astia as a client advisor
November 16, 2012 Comments Off on Glad to be joining Astia as a client advisor
In my opinion, entrepreneurs make the world go around: they’re the real ‘job creators’, and I believe that we should be doing everything possible to encourage them. For example, through Kiva I’ve participated in more than a hundred loans to help up-and-coming businesspeople in the developing world. Over the years, I’ve also been fortunate to have firsthand experience working with some exceptional entrepreneurs in the US, Europe, and Asia. I’ve really enjoyed doing whatever I can to help them move their businesses forward.
In particular, I’ve witnessed the tremendous potential for women-led enterprises. I’m especially proud of the work that my wife has done to start and grow her successful business. Thus, I’m happy to have recently joined Astia as a client advisor. What’s Astia?
Astia is a global not-for-profit organization built on a community of men and women dedicated to the success of women-led, high-growth ventures and to the eradication of the need for the organization within the decade.
I’m looking forward to working with the Astia team and their entrepreneurs.
7 Essential questions to ask when creating technical marketing collateral
November 3, 2012 Comments Off on 7 Essential questions to ask when creating technical marketing collateral
A while back, I put together a list of five of the most typical technical marketing mistakes we see at Think88. Over the years, we’ve also observed that the most successful technical marketing collateral initiatives have a certain number of things in common. We’ve distilled this into a list of seven questions that we ask whenever we work with a client to start the ball rolling on one of these engagements. In fact, it’s a core part of our methodology. These questions include:
- How will this new material fit in with the company’s overall messaging and strategy?
- How will you present it to the market?
- Who are the targeted readers for it?
- Will other content refer to this material? Will this material refer to other content?
- What do you want the reader to do after they’ve finished reading this material?
- How will you measure and quantify its impact?
- Will the sales department be involved throughout the design and development process?
Going forward, I’ll be writing blog posts about each of these questions. In my opinion, the only way to succeed and justify the investment in time and money for new collateral is to have satisfactory answers to the above list.
rdschneider 