The archive of Farimah’s and Sue Hanson’s (of PR with Panache) webinar sponsored by Agile Minds on March 14 is now available. Sue started with the point that lead generation is much more difficult when there is no brand awareness, and brand awareness starts with your story. If you want to build a successful business, you have to have a story; one that makes the audience feel something. A story doesn’t try to get your audience to buy, it gets them to buy in. A story helps build brand awareness, or in other words it achieves buy in, if the audience feels it is relevant (it’s about a problem that they feel they need to solve) and if they can relate or identify with the people who are solving the problem using your solution. The place to start building your story is to talk to your customers and find out what caused them to seek you out, and what results they are receiving. Farimah explained that a recognized brand makes lead generation much more effective because it creates an element of trust, it keeps your company on top of mind when they have a problem you can solve, it creates leads by itself, and it makes other lead generation activities (such as email, cold calling, and conferences) more successful. Without brand recognition, and without an investment in brand recognition, all other lead gen activities are more difficult. When it comes to the specific lead gen activities themselves, Farimah said that targeting is critical. Who owns the problem that you solve? Who has to fix it, and who pays the consequences if it is not fixed? Who makes the decision on what to buy to solve the problem? Who influences the decision? Who can be an impediment to the buying decision? Know your audience, and target your activities, messaging, and lists to reach that audience. Many of Academic Business Advisor’s clients use conferences as both lead gen and branding activities. Put yourself in the shoes of conference attendees. If they glance at your booth as they walk by, is it obvious what you do and what problem you solve? Too many booths show happy or struggling kids or teachers, but fail to communicate what the companies do. All successful lead gen activities make a compelling offer. Often good information (such as a webinar or free ebook on a relevant topic) is more valuable to potential prospects than an offer of some limited time free use of your product or service. Farimah and Sue stressed that whatever activity you perform, your followup activities should be pre-planned. If you offer a webinar...

This post is was written by Cathy Toohey of The Toohey Group who had some reflections on the 2013 Florida Education Technology Conference or FETC. Cathy is an independent educational marketing consultant. For the past 25 years Cathy has worked on a wide-range of products and programs from early childhood to professional development. FETC was very well attended and enthusiasm was extremely high. As a marketing consultant my overall take-away word from the exhibit hall was MANAGEMENT. FETC (Photo credit: GreenNetizen) Everything seemed to focus on the process or the device for management. There were exhibits for managing the data, the cloud, the content, the teachers, the kids, the community, the standards and the devices. Sometimes it is helpful to see the exhibits through the eyes of a “mystery shopper” and here are some tips from those marketing eyes. Don't just swipe my badge Ask how I like the show, the weather, anything to seem somewhat engaged with the customer and your product Remember the person in the exhibit area (unless another vendor) is a customer in some shape or fashion A simple or silly give away still works if no other reason than to help with #2 Using a personal device in the booth is not a welcoming message Engaging demos do gather a crowd If you are a no-show, ask a friend to take the booth name and # down from the curtain Too many matching T-shirts in a booth draw attention to the fact there are more reps than customers in the booth Not everyone is focused on the (fill-in-the-blank) so find out what I need before you start your pitch Make sure your reason for being at the show is purposeful and that your message is clear, Facebook likeable, and each of your reps knows the focus Related articles Best Websites from FETC 2013 Attending the Florida Educational Technology Conference and Measuring One Rural District's Growth in Using Technology FETC 2013 et...

This post is written by Farimah Schuerman, Managing Partner of Academic Business Advisors. Are you a senior manager of a company that develops and sells instructional solutions, especially for math and reading? If so, you've felt the pain of the recession and may wonder how you can best survive the "new normal." One way to ensure your company's survival is to see the current situation from your customer's view. What's causing them to more carefully consider every purchase may run deeper than you think. The rush to meet the guidelines for the Common Core standards and the anxiety around meeting the objectives of the related assessments is masking a much deeper and more daunting challenge school districts’ leadership team: Change Management.  While leaders of commercial enterprises have understood and embraced practices that guide a corporation through change when outside forces require it, this has never been a part of the education culture.  Now, school personnel at all levels are being bombarded with change. If you understand the forces behind the change and can help administrators cope and adapt, you could find your business thriving, even during a down economy. Three Forces  Driving Change: What’s the Impact on School Administrators?   Driving Force #1: Common Core Standards Are Forcing New Processes The shift to Common Core has required districts to take a long, hard look at which processes they can keep doing as before, and which must change.  Teaching is shifting from knowledge-based, to learning-based approaches. It’s not what the teacher knows, it’s what the students learn; students need to grasp concepts, not commit facts to short term memory, and to demonstrate that they can apply what they have learned to new problems.  Good teachers have used this approach for years with success, but many others have not. Successful companies are already reacting to this catalyst and providing leadership, producing instructional materials, particularly in reading and math, that use the latest cognitive research to help teachers help each student learn. Driving Force # 2: Professional Development That is Results-Oriented This leads me to the second pressure point: meaningful professional development (PD) and related evaluation.  Teachers need to be prepared not only to align instruction to the Common Core Curriculum, but how to extract the best learning.  This involves disrupting traditional classroom strategies based on the new realities: the use of new technologies, mainstreaming students with special needs, and problem based learning, just to name a few. We hear the terms "personalized learning" and "individualized instruction" which expand on the concept of differentiated instruction. I wonder how many teachers are equipped to teach this way, especially as class sizes grow larger...

On February 29, 2012, we hosted a webinar for one of our clients, HELP Math. We have believed for three years that HELP Math has a unique and effective approach for teaching math to both ELL and Special Education students, and our beliefs have been backed up by studies. For webinar attendees, the purpose of the webinar was the following: Provide a basic understanding of Sheltered Instruction techniques; how they provide the language underpinnings to teaching what would otherwise be complex topics. Demonstrate, using classroom examples, how teachers could use these techniques in Math instruction Show how educators could use these techniques themselves Explain how HELP Math utilizes Sheltered Instruction in its ELL and Special Education Math program Show how one district used Sheltered Instruction, and HELP Math in particular, with its ELL students, how they made their decisions, the implementation steps, the issues they encountered, and the results they achieved. For the client, the goals were slightly different. They wanted to get in front of new schools and districts. By providing them with real information and value, they wanted the districts to be open to trying their product. Sheltered instruction presents skills and concepts in a way that allows students to comprehend and learn both the content and the language used.  Our Sheltered Math expert was Lynda Franco, and our practitioner was Marcia Thompson. Marcia demonstrated how to use visuals, demonstrations, hands-on activities, and concrete examples so that language does not become a barrier to student learning. For example, the problem below is as simplified as it can be in English, but would a student who was struggling with Math language be able to understand? Would this student be able to piece together what was being asked, and how to go about solving the problem? Your class is making kites.  You have purchased 15 large sheets of paper to make the kites.  You need 2/3 of each sheet of paper to make 1 kite.  How many kites can you make?   Marcia showed that if you show the students what a kite is, if you demonstrate 15 pieces of paper and divide each into three pieces, you can present the problem so it is understandable to English Language Learners and Special Education students. Below is the 1 hour recording of the webinar. The webinar actually begins about 2 minutes into the video, the video will require the ability to play a Windows Video file, and for those of you reading this in an email, you may need to go to http://academicbiz.typepad.com to play the video. The feedback from the 90 attendees is that they were engaged and felt they...

This is article is primarily for those who are running Ed Tech companies, want to, or are interested in marketing. If you are putting most of your Internet dollars into lead generation and advertising, you are barking up the wrong tree. Marketing is the use of communications channels to drive sales. In their free book, The Zero Moment of Truth, Google quotes Bob Thacker of Gravitytank: Engagement with the customer today isn’t just pouring a message down on their head and hoping they get wet. It really is understanding that you must be present in a conversation when they want to have it, not when you want to. The old marketing model consisted of three steps: Stimulus: something prompts a person to want to purchase a product or service; this could be an advertisement, an email, or a piece of direct mail. Its primary purpose was to generate leads, which could then be converted into sales. Shelf: the person goes to wherever he or she goes to purchase the product or service, finds it, and makes the purchase. The purpose of marketing was to make it attractive for the person to buy; product packaging plays a major role, as do brochures and sales aids. Experience: customers use the product or service; it works; and they are happy. They become loyal customers, and hopefully recommend the product to others through word of mouth. Proctor and Gamble, probably the giant of consumer marketing, called the second and third stages (Shelf and Experience) the moments of truth. Specifically, finding the product and going through the purchase process is the first moment of truth (FMOT), and using the product and enjoying it is the second moment of truth (SMOT). If either of these fail, the brand has lost a customer. And, the moments of truth generally lead to word of mouth, so failure often has even larger repercussions. What has changed today? Stimulus: the person still might get prompted by an advertisement, and this might be on the web or through some other means. Online Research: Instead of going out to buy, approximately 84% of potential buyers do research on the web, looking for reviews, comments, or sending out inquiries on social networks. Shelf: based on information the person selects the outlet or store and product. Experience: the person uses the product or service, and whether it works or not, they become part of the word of mouth network, whether live or online. This new step, online research, is becoming known as the zero moment of truth or ZMOT. Online advertising is relatively ineffective as a stimulus for action (it was 8th; the...

by Farimah Schuerman Lately we’re often struck, (figuratively, thank goodness,) by the all-too common thinking that building excellent, needed products is enough.  Surely the  prevailing efforts of viral communications will shine a spotlight on my latest great creation.  Perhaps, with enough funding dedicated to product development, this new solution will be so revolutionary that buyers will flock to my door, banging furiously for access to this game-changing product.    Image via Wikipedia Not so fast.  When was the last time you saw a product really take off with only viral attention?  When this argument was used by someone knowledgeable and who I respect great greatly, the iPad was offered up as an example.   Apple has spent no money or energy marketing it, right?  Not exactly a good case.  If you think of one, send it along.  My point is, without a serious investment of time and energy, and some money, no product is going to really take off.  And it’s not because of my pre-disposition to marketing that I make this point.  It’s just that, as a consultant, it makes me crazy, experience has shown what works.  It’s time we stop the insanity.  How do we do that?   Image via Wikipedia When the wonderful product you’ve created has a full working version 1.0- STOP AND SELL IT.  Shift your thinking from product development to sales and marketing.  If the product is as wonderful as you think, tell everyone you know.  Use social marketing.  Use Public Relations tools.  Leverage your relationships.  Find the stakeholders who care about the problem you just solved.  Of course you’ll continue to enhance and improve the product, and track customer feedback for Version 2.0, but sell what you’ve got.  Use the revenue from that to fuel additional products and revisions.  It’s wonderful to be able to fund new products and developments with  grants, public money and other resources, but if those methods won’t pay for the marketing, figure out where the marketing money will come from.  Plan for it.  In advance.  Incremental resources just aren’t enough.  You may think that this should be sufficient.  It’s not. Think about selling this fabulous new product.  What is the best way to accomplish that?  Lots of possibilities exist, and decisions will depend on many factors.  Regardless, you need to ensure you’ve set aside enough to cover a real sales effort.  What that entails will vary, but it must be planned for.  Dig deep, commit to a marketing and sales effort and it will pay for itself in success.  So, you not only have to BUILD IT SO THEY WILL COME, you have to plan for ways to...