Is Your Content Targeted? Work Smarter, Not Harder

There is a general theme in a lot of the content that’s making its way out to sites like KISSMetrics and the Content Marketing Institute, where marketing professionals get a lot of inspiration. While most marketing consultants focus on technical tips for narrative-building strategies, content marketing strategy comes down to this: work smarter, not harder. So, how does one work smarter not harder?

"No matter if your business is online or in physical locations, web content is 
becoming the prime vehicle for sales. Companies commissioning better web content 
are waking up and realizing that this could make all the difference in taking 
them to the head of the class."

Approach 1: Autopilot

A lot of top-level managers feel like as long as content is relevant to the space, it will naturally be shared, consumed, and do its work effectively. It’s quite evident in the huge flood of generic marketing material swamping the web. Look at practically any industry, from auto parts to annuities, and you’ll find a large number of sites with extremely similar material. Some critics characterize this stuff as “fluff” or in the parlance of journalism–“puff pieces.” It could also be called “middle of the road’ or “safe” content. What it is, essentially, is a tried and true practice that has become calcified.

Approach 2: Taking The Wheel

Some of the most forward thinking companies are changing the ways that they promote themselves. Using data, content marketers can craft non-generic, unique pieces that provide a fresh perspective on an industry issue that readers are interested in. One way that businesses are able to use data to determine the type of message to send is through Markerly. A content campaign on Markerly will tell you how different demographics have engaged with your content. We’ll go even further to tell you what quotes or photos they were engaging with the most. Sometimes its best to listen and respond. You can use this data to connect with your potential customers on a deeper and more personal level.

You might be surprised what you find out about your potential customers by how they organically interact with your content behind closed doors.

How to Take The Wheel

There are two main ways to accommodate this content upgrade. One is to get someone in the driver seat who profoundly understands these industry issues. That person acts as a head editor or point person for guiding and targeting content assignments to writers. Rather than giving individuals on a content team a simple set of keywords and expecting them to come up with meaningful content, adding this top-level role to a team ensures that writers will be out there focusing on what their audience wants to hear about.

Some companies don’t have the manpower or the inclination to appoint a point person like this; that’s not a problem. What some of these companies do involves hiring ex-journalists or others with a self starting capacity and a knack for creating targeted content. Companies simply set these “content sleuths” free, and what they come up with is a surprisingly robust website that boosts visibility for the brand and gets organic rankings and page views.

Conclusion

To be sure, this more sophisticated content strategy won’t come cheap. The company needs to make the decision to invest in this more sophisticated approach. But while some are reluctant to adopt new technology even if they yield better results, others have seen even modest investments in “new wave content” pay off big in terms of ROI. Times have changed. Whether your business is online or brick and mortar, web content is becoming the prime vehicle for sales. Companies commissioning better web content are waking up and realizing that this could make all the difference in taking them to the head of the class.

Markerly makes publishing tools that we’ve proudly been using since their alpha stage over a year ago. Right click on anything on Nibletz and watch Markerly go to work. For more info visit markerly.com

Back to Basics: How Online Content Can Drive Business Sales

Each month, companies introduce hundreds of new tools to help business owners attract traffic online and generate leads and sales. Some business owners spend an incredible amount of time and money buying and learning how to use these tools, only to achieve mediocre results. Fortunately, one tried and true strategy — content marketing — remains a simple way to attract the targeted traffic you need to grow your business.

Sarah Ware, content marketing, startup tips, Markerly

What is Content Marketing?

Simply put, content marketing is the process of crafting and publishing engaging, useful content that your prospects want to read.

In most cases, the content is not an advertorial designed to sell your services or products, but an article or post designed to build visitor interest and keep readers coming back to your site. By publishing content that is useful for your readers, you can build a sense of trust that makes visitors want to buy from you.

whale2

For content marketing, trust is everything.

Advertising through content campaigns can take several forms. One of the simplest ways to distribute articles and other content is by publishing these pieces on your business website or blog. You can distribute press releases to hundreds of free and paid sites to tell potential customers about news, product launches, and other information related to your business or industry.

You can also promote and distribute content via social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. This gives you the added advantage of social distribution because people who see value in your content will naturally want to share your posts with their friends, family members, and business associates.

How Can Content Marketing Help Your Business?

Learning how to advertise through content offers several advantages that can help you build online visibility and attract new customers to your business:

Well-crafted content can help your site and blog pages appear prominently in search engine listings. When you write and publish exceptional content that provides information relevant to your business and target audience, search engines will likely place high value on your content pages. This means that they might appear on the first page of results for a particular search instead of being buried beneath thousands of other page listings. Of course, in order to rank high, you need to focus on one or two keywords that are relevant to your content. Resources such as the Content Marketing Institute can provide you with valuable information on crafting content and including keywords.

Engaging, useful content helps visitors perceive you as an expert in your industry. Helping people improve their lives through online content builds trust while establishing you as the “go to” authority to meet their needs. As a result, when it comes time to make a purchasing decision, your company becomes the obvious choice.

You can use content as the start of a “sales funnel” that naturally leads visitors to a purchasing decision. As noted above, your content should not be overtly promotional; however, skilled copywriters can weave in phrases and subtle “calls to action” that can motivate readers to take an additional step, such as signing up for an email newsletter, requesting product information, or attending a free webinar. You can also use tools like HubSpot to help you manage your sales funnel so you can more effectively guide prospects through the sales process.

Getting started with Hubspot:

hubspot1

Hubspot is an automation tool that allows the user to preset interactions with customers or site visitors. It starts with interaction. The first step is to draw readers in via social media or email. The next step is directing that traffic to the website or blog. The last step is to organize visitors for further actions. Hubspot isn’t alone in using this traffic flow. This is just how the cogs of content marketing turn.

hubspot2

Hubspot automates the process of sending emails, analyzing customers, and adding delays. The actual interface looks something like the screenshot above.

Online content can give you valuable information about your visitors. By inviting interaction via blog comments, social media posts, and feedback forms, you can learn about your potential customers’ needs and wants. If you provide them with valuable content, they will be happy to share their thoughts, opinions, and suggestions. You can also use analytical tools such as KISSmetrics and Markerly in conjunction with content marketing to learn even more about your visitors and prospects.

Getting started with Markerly:

markerly1

Markerly provides brands with detailed reporting on how different demographics engaged with different bloggers, quotes and photos. Markerly helps brands discover what is and isn’t working with their content campaigns, and uses that data to turn content viral.

Getting started with Kissmetrics:

kissmetrics-1

Kissmetrics allows users to get in-depth data on the customer. It looks something like this. It keeps track of how often the customer visits, what they buy, how much they spend, as well as activity before and after they signed up.

How Can You Help People Find Your Content?

In addition to social media posts and search engine listings, you can use a variety of other strategies to help visitors find your marketing content. You can add your blog to a directory such as BlogHer to put your content in front of interested readers. If you have time, you can increase visibility by writing guest posts for relevant blogs and websites. Also, visiting similar blogs and leaving thoughtful, relevant posts can attract potential customers to your site.

Getting started with BlogHer:

blogher1

BlogHer is a specialty directory that helps get blogs written by women out into cyberspace. Interested contributors simply have to meet the guidelines, apply, and get listed. Some of the guidelines include a 30 day old blog, written by a woman or a group of women, or certain exceptions for interested men. Choosing an applicable niche is a great way to get your blog out there.

Content marketing is not a shortcut to success. In order to make this strategy successful, you should commit to consistently publishing well-written, insightful articles and posts. There is no “magic button” for attracting traffic; however, content marketing is among the most reliable strategies available.

Why Brands are spending $43 billion on stories this year, and you should too!

Startup Culture: Offering Your Courageous, Daring Employees Something Intangible

ProdigiArts, Startup Culture, Startup Tips, Memphis startup

(cultureclub photo: alanpringle.com)

Who would choose to work for some entrepreneur they met at a coffee shop, for little pay, unconventional hours, and without promise of Google-like fortunes? They may have a fantastic idea that will solve some great problem in modern society, but right now their eyes are bleary from too much caffeine and a scalding Macbook. It’s hard to believe in them.

Startups not only face difficulty in convincing prospective investors and clients, but also potential employees whose talents would make a valuable contribution to the ever-growing company. Capital might not be the greatest resource at your disposal, but your people are.

As entrepreneurs, it’s easy to fantasize about the kind of company culture you’d like to foster in the future: throngs of employees working diligently and creatively, in between collective games of Call of Duty. In reality, culture building happens the moment one other person says ‘yes’ to joining your crazy idea for a company.

The famed animation studio Pixar faced the same struggle to build culture. The production house that totes 27 Academy Awards on its mantle started out with sleep-deprived, passionate people who took a chance on an idea they believed in. Since its inception in 1979, Pixar has taken many directions, from producing special effects for Star Trek to working on a commercial for Listerine. Despite the change in vision, structure, or ownership, the individuals who were so passionate about their craft and creating a company notable for what it offered the world made Pixar great. By no means did this happen without investment and capital, but it started with the right people.

In James Collins’ celebrated book Good to Great, he emphasizes recruiting the right people, who are flexible and put in their time and energy day after day, even when the vision or direction of a company might take a detour. He says that while vision is essential when starting a business and gaining employees, “If you begin with ‘who’ rather than ‘what,’ you can more easily adapt to a changing world.”

One of the really important features of our company culture is a strong emphasis on trust and validation. In our industry most young, ambitious animators want to go work for the larger, more legendary studios in New York or Los Angeles, where they will probably be made to work longer hours and receive little credit.

While this is the reality of many recent graduates and young professionals in their career development journey, we try to value and recognize each accomplishment made, whether that’s with bonuses for especially noteworthy projects or getting taken out to lunch because someone forgot to bring theirs for the day. Every person, no matter how old or how young, desires a place in a community and to feel like their work is valued and contributes to something greater than themselves. We may not have the notoriety of a large studio, but what defines our culture is how satisfied and ambitious those brave souls are who have joined our growing studio.

Investing in human capital proves to be just as important as your real capital. Find those select few who invest their time, talents, and future in your company, because those are the ones who will be there at the end of the day, even when financial backers may not be.

Joshua Colfer is with ProdigiArts a Memphis animation, design and development firm. See what they can do for your startup visit them on the web at prodigiarts.com

Why Brands Are Spending $43 Billion On Stories This Year–And You Should Too

Did you know that 90% of consumers find custom content useful, and that 7 in 10 consumers prefer content campaigns over display advertising? That’s why it’s so important to focus on a content strategy – it builds trust and relationships with your customers.

Even though content campaigns have many shapes and sizes, the main goal is the same — attracting customers to you through quality content. Over at Markerly, we call them STORIES.

Why STORIES are Important

S EO. Stories build your SEO. The more content that you have out there, the higher the chance that Google will feature you.

TRUST. Stories build trust with your audience. Educate your potential customers instead of being overly sales-y.

ORGANIC. Incorporating a pull strategy to attract customers to you, instead of a push strategy attracts customers more organically.

RETARGET. When you use Markerly for your content campaigns, you will target niche audiences that are most likely to engage with your content. If you want to target married women who live on the West Coast that are into fashion, we can run a retargeting campaign to that specific audience.

INSIGHTS. Another benefit of using Markerly for your content campaigns is the ability to run polling within the content. While running your campaign, you can ask the readers questions about your brand and we can collect emails and demographic information .

EVERGREEN. Unlike display ads, content never disappears from the web–it’s always there, searchable, and improving your SEO and thought leadership.

SOCIAL. You’re not going to share a display ad, but you will share a thoughtfully written post.

STORIES and Your Brand

STORIES are the most organic and effective way to build your brand online, and that’s why over 43 billion dollars have been spent on content marketing this year alone! Whether you are already advertising through content, or you are exploring your brand’s options, you’re in good company. Over 39% of marketing, advertising and communications budgets are dedicated to content marketing.

Taking the time to incorporate a pull strategy to attract customers to you through quality content instead of the generic push strategy (spraying ads out that add no value) is the future of advertising and already yields better results and conversion rates. We’re excited that more and more brands are moving towards STORIES so that they can improve their ROI and take their market insights to another level.

What SEO And The Matrix Have In Common

When writing for blogs and websites, you may feel like you are entering a world with a different set of rules – especially as you try to understand how to write for SEO.

Do you remember the movie The Matrix? In it, the main character Neo discovers that the world he has been living in is actually an elaborate computer program. When he is rescued and taken to the real world, Neo learns techniques that will give him an advantage whenever he re-enters the matrix.

The following will help you learn some of the rules of SEO and hopefully give you an advantage in your daily online writing. SEO is important, but it can harm you if not done correctly. Relevance is everything, and SEO is a game you need to win at.
What is SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is a means of boosting your website or blog’s ranking in web searches. The higher you rank, the more likely it is that the person doing the search will actually click on your link.
Identifying your Keywords and Phrases

Perhaps the most important tools that SEO writers have are keywords and phrases. These are words or phrases that a potential searcher might key into a search engine in order to find specific information. For example, if someone was looking for information on vegetable gardening they might search: gardening, vegetable gardening or planting seeds.

You might start by writing a list of all the keywords and phrases you think would be used by the searcher and then work them into your content.
Keyword Density

Don’t let keyword density harm you! Keyword density – how often you use a keyword – will also play a huge factor in your search ranking. But be careful not to overdo this as sites with very high density are likely to be labelled as spam by search engines. Sites that use too many keywords also result in very high bounce rates. These sites are overly optimized and provide low value for the reader. Identify your goals, and if the goal is to keep readers engaged, make sure you are not optimizing purely for SEO, resulting in a quick page view and a bounce.

Content has to be interesting, engaging and relevant. That’s why Markerly weighs page views and engagement rates differently. Some pages with very high levels of page views have extremely low engagement rates – meaning that the real estate is essentially worthless. Other pages with very thoughtful, well-written content have very high levels of engagement and a lower number of page views, but for anyone looking for real impressions, this is the metric to measure.
Links

Have you noticed that more and more websites and blogs are incorporating links to other sites/pages in the body of their content? Using this technique not only makes your site more SEO friendly but if the searcher discovers that a particular blog or site isn’t exactly what he was looking for, it gives you first dibs on directing him to another of your pages (or at least a page that you endorse) rather than allowing him to search again and possibly end up on a competitor’s site.
SEO Plugins

Even the best writers can benefit from a little computer analysis. SEO Plugins are programs that analyze your writing and “do the math” to help determine how SEO friendly your particular content is. They will show you what areas are good and what you could do to beef up your SEO. There are many of these programs and several can be downloaded for free online for bloggers. Markerly optimizes SEO for bloggers with free micro-content a sharing tool that emails bloggers once a week with the most popular words and quotes that readers are copying and sharing. This helps bloggers better understand their audience to write more content that resonates with their reader’s interest levels.

Markerly also optimizes SEO for brands that use Markerly to advertise through content campaigns. Markerly monitors search queries, traffic referrals, most engaged with quotes, specific content shared to social media, copy and paste and keywords and phrases within different demographics and amplifies the reach for brands.
Stay Human

Finally, remember that after SEO has done its job, your reader will be human, meaning, they will either move on to more interesting content or stay engaged. If the writing is boring or difficult to understand your reader will move on. On the other hand, create engaging and useful content and you will keep them coming back for more.

That’s why Markerly ranks engagement over page views when monitoring content campaigns. Markerly tracks when readers are selecting text, hovering over specific content, copying content, right clicking and pinning photos, selecting text, scrolling down the page, sharing to social media, discussing on social media, clicking on links, and more. Markerly knows when content is engaging, when page views are being faked by bots, when content is overly SEO optimized (high drop off rates) and when a writer has successfully done their job.
Before you head back into the Matrix, remember one thing to win at the game: SEO is important, but more importantly, relevance is everything.

Now check out the Top 5 Reasons Startup Founders Blow Through Money!

Making Your Business Money is Important

Startup owners need to make sure they focus on making money for their business. This is the glue that holds the corporate word together. Money makes the business world go round, and you need to make sure you are doing all you can to make plenty of money. Of course, it’s important to also focus on being a legitimate and ethical business too. But, if you want success you need to make money, so this should be the principal focus.

Luckily for you, there are quite a few things you can do to achieve this. You can make changes that will save your business money, and make it money at the same time. It’s important to think about the different ways you can make money as a business. These are just a few of the most effective to help you when you’re trying to build up your company.

Customer Service

The main thing you can focus on that will help you make money easily is to work on customer service. This needs to be one of the major focuses for you as a brand. People need to associate your business with excellent service. The better customer service you can provide, the more people you’ll attract to your company. If you can impress customers, they will be more likely to do business with you. And this is one of the most effective ways to make more money for the company. So try to focus on this as much as you can when you start out as a new business.

Unique Selling Proposition

All new businesses have to have a unique selling proposition. This is something you will have read about, and you’ll need to have perfected when starting out. Basically, your USP is the thing that sets you apart from your competitors. It’s the element that attracts people to the company. You have to have a USP so strong that people can’t help but use your company. When you’re trying to make more money as a brand the unique selling point will be instrumental in helping you achieve this.

Investments

Another option you might think about taking is to make investments as a business owner. Business investments can be a little more convoluted than personal investments. They are a great way to become more lucrative and make more money. But, at the same time you need to make sure you understand what is involved. It might be a good idea to check out Alternative Investment Coach to get some ideas. Investment is a great way of making some extra money in a long-term sense. But be sure you know exactly what you need to do before you start spending any money.

When you run a company, the end goal is to make money and become successful. Business is all about profit margins, so you need to make sure you play the game a little bit. It’s important to make money for your company as much as you can. And there are plenty of ways to do this so you can have a lot of irons in the fire. Try to give yourself as many options as possible to ensure the best chance of success.

Creative Marketing in the Ubiquitous World of Advertising For Startups

Sometimes companies get ideas; good ideas. They discover ideas about who they are, what they want to accomplish in the world, and how they can solve some problem that no one has found the answer to just yet. The issue is, they aren’t the only ones. That’s where advertising comes in.

Advertising takes on many forms and uses many media. But, it always has the simple objective to communicate, capture, compel, and move audiences to action. In the past, this translated to the purchase of a product/service. Today, marketing specialists extend that definition to an ongoing engagement with their brand through social media, subscriptions, or online sharing.

Each of us knows the plethora of advertisements that plague our home pages, browsers and selected blogs, and how agencies spend insurmountable funds to market to users everywhere. With this onslaught of advertisements, companies must carefully decide how they are going to meet audiences in memorable and lasting ways that make them stand apart from their competitors. Retention and engagement have always been the major goals of advertising; but with the persistence of ads into every level of the lives of consumers via television, social media, and innumerable web pages, companies now find themselves in a world in which they must consistently re-evaluate how to accomplish those objectives. One way that organizations solve this problem is through the incorporation of creative and non-traditional mediums into their marketing, like animation.

Jon Collins of the VFX studio Framestore recently said in an interview: “If you can keep a viewer in a world and stimulate those senses, they will not only engage more deeply with your brand, but their recollection of that positive experience will sustain for far longer.”

However, there is a danger in creating a world that is overly stimulating to the viewer, because they end up rejecting that vibrancy in an effort to maintain a kind of visual homeostasis. Advertisements must also be tempered with a strong and carefully crafted design that appeals to people’s sense of balance, color schemes, character associations, etc, without turning them off to your brand.

While there is no scientific formula for accomplishing this task, creative specialists use techniques like focusing on one subject while blurring out the background, using particular color patterns, or utilizing symmetry to balance out an environment. The reason for this meticulous approach to curating content for viewers is the same reason that athletes train for months on end for a brief moment in the spotlight. Sometimes a brand has only one opportunity to interact with an audience member and communicate what it is and why it is worthy of their attention. And audiences are a fickle sort. With the accessibility to perhaps hundreds of alternative products or services, brands must make that one interaction a meaningful one that the viewer will remember long after the video has ended.

Part of why we gravitate towards animation as a medium is because you have the ability to communicate something as complex as sustainable business practices or a commitment to ethical animal treatment (as FedEx and Chipotle both did this past year) through imagined worlds and characters that take the viewer into a beautifully crafted narrative. While you can control things like lighting, environment, and subjects while shooting in video to a certain degree, animation can create worlds and characters beyond what is only in front of us. This allows us to control things like lighting, texture, movement, and time that we would not have as much control over if we filmed subjects through a camera. All in all, video and animation are not in competition with one another, for both are tools to be utilized for the creative dissemination of messages.

At the core of who we are as human beings is the desire for meaning and significance. Advertisers try to cultivate that kind of experience in a brief interaction that connects audiences with a brand that will last long after the meeting has ended. While the time and effort that companies spend towards this endeavor is great, the hard sought after relationship with the customer is truly the golden egg.

Check out Prodigi Arts at prodigiarts.com

If you’re serious about email ditch Mailbox for this Austin startup today.

Top 5 Reasons Startup Founders Blow Through Money

There’s a lot of reasons why companies don’t make it, and sometimes it’s not that the idea or product isn’t good — it’s just that you run out of money. Even though we know that blowing through money is a “bad” thing, I’ve been talking a lot with founders and investors about what “bad” means. What have they noticed as common themes when they sit down with founders that exhausted their money too quickly at the seed stage? So here are the top 5 reasons startup founders blow through money.

Let me know your thoughts and if this aligns with what you’ve personally seen. What have you regretted spending money on, or what do you roll your eyes at as an investor?

1. “I have a business meeting in Thailand!”

We all know these founders. They travel somewhere new every week. Their meetings take them around the world–frequently. They are always tired and busy from travelling, and they make sure to check-in at every luxurious hotel they stay at.

Why this fails: The desire to pre-maturely live a life of luxury through funding raised for business development extends to other poor choices. It goes — fast.

Understanding this entrepreneur: Typically extroverted and commands control of the room. Works efficiently on little sleep and cares a lot about appearances.

Can benefit by: Making sure that meetings are efficiently scheduled. One entrepreneur told me they combat this by making a “day trip” rule. If the meeting is important enough to fly for the day and return, it’s a go. It helped this entrepreneur cut down on meetings that could be conducted via phone without sacrificing quality.

2. “That’s way too expensive!”

This is another extreme–founders that don’t want to spend anything and opt for cheap solutions…cheap everything. This sends bad signals to clients and investors and often costs the entrepreneur more in the form of lost opportunities.

Why this fails: Some founders are very conservative. They need money in the bank–a cushion. They are risk takers with anxiety and they want to ensure that they get the results that they need for the next raise.

Understanding this entrepreneur: Typically introverted and mathematical. Usually overly conservative in their predictions.

Can benefit by: Giving up some control and working with investors and advisors to create healthy budgets.

3. “It’s a marketing spend!”

We all enjoy celebrating successes of startups for special launches or funding announcements. Sometimes startups plan evenings with open bars and chalk it up to a good use of marketing dollars. Chances are this isn’t the best use. Same can be said for overly-spending on trade shows, fancy promotional videos, or sponsoring an event before the time is right.

Why this fails: Marketing is extremely important, but many startups will exhaust their “marketing spend” without focusing on basic things first — like establishing a healthy blog presence, or discovering ways to become “experts” in a topic by speaking at conferences. If you’re spending money on marketing and you don’t have a blog, you’re doing it backwards.

Understanding this entrepreneur: Typically extroverted and creative and full of ideas. Too focused on big picture instead of steps to get there.

Can benefit by: Forcing themselves to write plans about their spends. Marketing is about ROI, so if you are planning on spending money you need to know what a worthwhile conversion will be for you. Are you looking for customers, users, app downloads? What result will make you happy?

4. “We’re going to hire salespeople!”

A great mentor told me that you only need one salesperson. She didn’t mean literally one – but she meant that you, as a founder, need to be able to sell your product yourself before trying to hire others to sell it for with/for you. Managing a sales team without getting your hands dirty in the sales process only makes you disconnected from your product, and will frustrate future early sales employees.

Why this fails: As a founder you are the product, don’t expect to hire and watch the numbers soar. Your product won’t sell itself unless you sell it first. It doesn’t matter how many sales people you hire if you don’t have the sales process down in the first place.

Understanding this entrepreneur: Typically they don’t have a background in sales and think that hiring sales employees will magically make numbers appear on a sales board. Typically technical, sometimes egotistical.

Can benefit by: Selling the product. That’s all there is here. If the founder is technical and won’t be doing sales, someone on the founding team must be a hustler. Founders are either selling or building. Choose one and do it well.

5. “I’ll never work for anyone, ever!”

This entrepreneur is right out of college. They don’t want to get a job, or can’t last at a job for more than a few months. They have great ideas and plans and want to change the world, but need some reality first. These founders just spend money in all the wrong places for all the wrong reasons, which could be anything from 1-4 mentioned above. Great mentors seem to make or break these types of entrepreneurs.

Why this fails: If you haven’t had a job before you may lack judgement of certain realities and what it really requires to start a business.

Understanding this entrepreneur: Typically driven, these founders need to get broken in a bit before reaching the point of being able to successfully manage others.

Can benefit by: Getting a job and showing that you can work well with others and under the management of others. The goal is to show that you are able to learn and adapt.

Sarah Ware is the co-founder and CEO of Markerly, next generation publisher tools. Markerly is a recent graduate of 500 Startups. Nibletz has used Markerly’s publisher tools since their launch last year. Right click on anything on the site and see the magic happen.

Last year Sarah appeared on Bad Ass Female Founders From Everywhere Else and the “I Survived An Accelerator Panel” hosted by GAN’s Pat Riley,at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference! Find out more about the next everywhereelse.co here.

Is Your Startup Launch Ready? Add These To Your Checklist

(photo: Floridatoday.com

For some the real joy in a startup comes from actually launching. Some startups spend a few months preparing for launch while others have taken up to two years (if not more). There are hundreds of things that can go onto your launch checklist.

Spencer Fry, a 28 year old serial entrepreneur who founded TypeFrag (2003), Carbonmade (2007) and Uncover (2012) has a lot of experience launching startups. He penned “Startup Launch Checklist” on his blog at spencerfry.com. Here are some of the highlights from his checklist.

Web and Marketing tips:

Complete Homepage copy: One of the pages we left for last – and I know many new startups do – is the copy for the homepage. You need to write about whatever you’re selling in a clear, concise and engaging way. If you can’t quickly capture the interest of a visitor to your service then you’re going to immediately fail. This leads to my next point.

Contact page copy: For us it’s a matter of making sure that we list all of the different ways visitors to our service can reach us. It’s not enough to simply provide an email address nowadays. Lots of customers want to reach you on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks.

Determine FAQ strategy and write it: One of the things I like to leave to the last minute is writing the Frequently Asked Questions. If you write it too early, then chances are your service will have changed and it’ll become outdated. Writing the FAQ will also help put you in the mind of a customer right before launch. It’s a great last-minute exercise in making sure your app is clear.

He has five more web marketing tips here.

Modeling

Model our potential revenue: You should never found a company without a good idea about how you plan on making money. Even better, you should project how your potential revenue stream will grow over time.

Set monetary/sales goals: After you’ve modeled out your potential revenue growth, setting sales goals will give you a better understanding of when you can raise money on good terms or quit your day job and bootstrap. It’s great to have numbers to work toward that aren’t arbitrary. Knowing exactly how many users you need over a projected time frame helps to determine whether you’re matching projections.

Launch Day

Add to various services around the Web: To help with SEO and to possibly get the word out, sign up your new app with Crunchbase, AngelList, StartupList, Listio and others.
Press Coverage: Every successful app has a great short term and long term press plan. However, right after launch you should ask yourself how much press you actually want. Do you want to reach out to blogs for coverage? Do you hope to get on Hacker News? Sometimes you might want to delay press coverage until you’ve had a chance to fix up the bugs.
Email friends and family: Last, but not least, you should email your friends and family about the new app you’ve built. Chances are that leading up to its release you’ve been so busy that you haven’t had time to update them. Now’s the time!

There are plenty more tips including 17 programming tips, sales tips and more here at spencerfry.com

We’re sneaker strapping again across the country and at SXSW13 Check this out

See The Evolution Of SXSW In An Infographic

We’re gearing up to start covering SXSW on-site. Our coverage actually begins tomorrow at SXSWedu. The educational shoulder festival is gaining momentum and is now a full four days of programming. We’re covering SXSWedu and SXSWi this year. We’ve covered their other big shoulder event SXSWeco in 2011 and 2012.

This is my 12th year attending SXSW. It started for me as going for the music festival when I worked in radio. I’ve spent the last four years covering SXSW as a tech journalist, the last two as nibletz the voice of startups everywhere else.

SXSW began in 1987 as an alternative music festival. In it’s inaugural year there were 700 registered attendees. Last year the music festival portion of SXSW saw over 12,000 registered attendees and since 2010 SXSW interactive has drawn more attendees than the music festival. SXSW music is the largest festival of it’s kind with more than 2500 “official” performers and over 100 venues participating.

The team at activ8social, a creative marketing agency that specializes in social media put together an awesome infographic that shows how SXSW has evolved since 1987. They humbly suggest that the infographic is awesome and after checking it out, especially for along time attendee, I must concur.

The highlights of the infographic and activ8social’s research are:

Since 2010, SXSW Interactive has boasted more attendees than SXSW Music.
Most of the attendees of SXSWi are between the ages of 21-40.
More than 50% of the attendees work in creative or management.
People at SXSWi have deep pockets! A quarter of the attendees have a combined household income of $100,000-200,000.

Some of the biggest names in startups have launched at SXSW. Most notable are probably Twitter and Foursquare in the past few years. However, the 2006 SXSWi keynote panel included Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia and Craig Newmark the founder of Craigslist. The infographic also highlights Sarah Lacy’s biggest interview faux pax when in 2007 the audience turned on her while interviewing Mark Zuckerberg. In fact, her now good friend, contributor and confidant Paul Carr actually spoke very critically of her during that particular interview.

We’ve got more SXSW13 coverage for you here.

Glimpulse To Debut Breakthrough In Human Expression And People Search At everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

Glimpulse will debut the latest breakthrough in human expression, on the main stage at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference. Glimpulse has been selected as one of only two companies out of nearly 100 startups in the Startup Village to present to the entire audience during the morning general session. Glimpulse will make its eagerly-awaited public announcement and demonstrate how this progressive product will literally change how people see each other.

Backed by research in human expression and social dynamics and using innovative technology, Glimpulse’s highly anticipated products will enhance communication and make human and social interaction richer, faster and more authentic – on and offline. Glimpulse has been developed by a core team of accomplished executives, investors and advisors. These influential leaders include the former COO of AOL, the former President of National Geographic, the current President of Rosetta Stone, the head of Harvard Business School’s Marketing department and Social Enterprise Institute, the former SVP of Ogilvy’s Social Media Practice, the best-selling author of Likeonomics, and many more. Many Glimpulse team members will be in attendance and will be available in the Start-Up Village during the conference.

Paresh Shah, the founder and CEO of Glimpulse, states “My team and I are so excited to debut our company at Everywhereelse.co. As the largest start-up conference in the nation, it is the perfect forum for us to launch our product. We have been working on the business for over a year and now are ready to make a positive impact in the worlds of business, technology and human interaction.” Rohit Bhargava, former founding member of the world’s largest team of social media strategists at Ogilvy states, “Glimpulse is one of the first in a new line of expression technology companies that we will see in the coming years. It imagines a world where your personality is as visible as the shirt you’re wearing … and has the rare potential to reinvent how each of us expresses ourselves to the world.”

One Glimpulse advisor, Kim Partoll, former COO and EVP of Marketing at AOL, follows with “Glimpulse is a new way for people to experience, expand and enrich their social networks in everyday real world interactions. Glimpulse moves self-expression from the realm of the written word and photos into one of rich imagery and real-time display of individuality.” Kyle Sander, Founder of Nibletz.com and the voice of start-ups “everywhere else,” welcomes Glimpulse to the premier line-up of companies attending the conference. He states, “We are thrilled that the Glimpulse team has accepted our invitation to debut their company at Everywhereelse.co. We believe Glimpulse is a prime example of the next generation of companies that are creating transformative experiences for consumers, brands and businesses. We know the attendees at our conference will be thrilled to be the first to hear about this new exciting company.” Paresh Shah will be presenting for Glimpulse at 8:30am on Monday, February 11^th.

For more information about Glimpulse, please contact Ross Dalton at Ross@Glimpulse.com.

Glimpulse provides a new human expression platform that can integrate with existing social networks to enable people to get to that ‘third conversation’ in a way that’s fun, rich, and faster than traditional options – both on and off-line. Combining leading-edge technology with breakthrough cognitive psychology and human behavior research, Glimpulse’s products will increase positive interactions and instantly enhance both personal and business relationships. Stay tuned.

Glimpulse is presenting at the largest startup conference in the U.S. everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference tickets can be purchased below.

Event registration for Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference powered by Eventbrite

What’s Not To Love About BagServant, A Startup About Handbags?

Every woman is always looking for the most stylish and affordable handbag. Shopping for handbags can be a real pain. I know when I go into a mall with a Coach Store, Dooney store and department store, I’m at a loss because I can never make the right decision. Lord knows I can’t afford them all.

Wimbledon startup BagServant is here to help women everywhere find the latest greatest bags. Not only are they the only search engine devoted to handbags from just about every designer but they also have virtual concierge services. Their concierge can help you figure out just want you want, and of course when you want more, you just go back to BagServant.

Lenka Gourdie is the woman behind BagServant. She has a background in consumer marketing and worked for one of London’s fashion manufacturing houses as well. She and her staff have an impeccable eye for the latest trends, styles and of course fashion.

Some of the best fashions in the world come out of the UK and that holds true at BagServant as well. We got a chance to talk with Gourdie about her startup and London’s exciting startup scene. Check out the interview below.

Styku Has Created An Online Virtual Fitting Room Using Microsoft Kinect VIDEO INTERVIEW

Los Angeles startup Styku has done something rather innovative utilizing the Microsoft Kinect platform. Using four Kinect sensors, Styku has created a way to do a full body scan and create an online fitting room.

According to the company you can actually use just one Kinect at home but to get the most accurate measurements you can go to a retail partner that has their technology installed and have a body scan done. From there the magic happens.

On the back end Styku takes the body scan and matches it to a stores inventory to show you exactly what sizes they recommend for you. In shopping for clothes, size can actually be a mystery. Women and men can go into one clothing store and have one size selected and a different store which has clothing cut a little smaller or a little bigger and have a totally different size recommendation.

Styku combines the inventory and specifications from a stores entire inventory, with the exact measurements garnered from the body scan, to offer the exact fitting size.

Check out the video interview below and for more info you can visit styku.com the smart fitting room.

The grand slam of startup events continues next month in Memphis Tennessee for eveywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

Techstars Hackstar Launches Her Own MassChallenge Startup ZoomTilt, 99Designs For Video

Anna Callahan is a Techstars hackstar turned startup founder who went through Mass Challenge. With all that startup pedigree we know her startup ZoomTilt is already destined for success. The magic comes into play now that they’ve completed MassChallenge and were named a finalist.

But what is ZoomTilt?

Well think 99designs. Callahan loves film making, in fact it was reading a script while working as a Techstars hackstar that made her decide to take the plunge into launching her own innovative idea. The idea, link filmmakers to people who want to build a brand using short films, mini tv shows if you will. If you’ve got a brand and want to see film and tv stars in a video featuring your product, ZoomTilt is the answer. If you want to have an engaging YouTube mini series or Facebook page video series that highlights your brand, ZoomTilt is the answer.

Callahan tells nibletz in an interview that they’ve got hundreds of film makers waiting for the chance to work on your brands short video project. By leveraging the talent and creativity within their network ZoomTilt is able to offer unparalleled, engaging video marketing solutions without a gigantic budget.

So after joining cofounder Chris Bolman, and ditching their first name, CrewTide, which Callahan says made people think they sold nautical supplies, they hunkered down over the summer as one of the 125 startups in MassChallenge and emerged as a finalist.

We got a chance to talk with Callahan about ZoomTilt, in what’s been one of the wittiest, fun and creative interviews to date. Here it is: