RESUME: Vice President Marketing & Products

I'm currently building a new marketing and product management team and launching several new software-as-a-service offerings. We are working an open government, cloud platform that delivers streaming video and social media tools for enterprise government agencies so they can engage citizens in new ways.


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Vice President of Marketing & Products

Wasting Time on Scroll Bars

I just remembered a early moment in my career that, in retrospect, seems like such a ridiculous waste of time. It reminds me how things have evolved over time, things you take for granted today. It was in the 90's and we were converting some DOS software to Windows. We were obviously excited about the new visual features of the latest Windows release (remember those days), but many of today's standard controls were still in their infancy. I remember working with our lead programmer, Bruce Morgan (now works for Microsoft, responsible for the tabbed interface of Internet Explorer). I wanted to ensure that as you work with the scroll bar to scroll up and down (page up / page down) that the items in the scroll box on the left should always be perfectly aligned vertically. I actually remember being pretty adamant that the code should ensure the text of the items was always readable (i.e. you could never get the text in the box into a state where it was cut off). I think I used terms like "never chopped in half" or "eliminate the possibility for there to be only a few dots of the top of each word, looking like a trail of ants." Anyway, it took awhile and Bruce was obviously not very happy, but in the end, I actually think we got the code working. But, obviously, an innovation that seems utterly unimportant today. Man, I wish I had those hours back. We probably put out the only code ever for "perfect scrolling". Anyway, as a career Product Manager in technology, I look back at a lot of great decisions, and many I'd like another crack at, but this one just seemed funny.

Product Management Defined

Market Research
Market Sizing & Growth Trends
Percentage Market Share Owned

Product Strategy
Trends & Envisioning the Future
Evolving the Value Proposition
Strategic Planning
Partner Ecosystems

Competitive Analysis
Qualitative Analysis & Quantitative Analysis
Strengths, Weaknesses & Opportunities

Customer Research
Focus Groups
Beta Programs
Customer Surveys

Design Specifications
User-Interface Designs
Design & Technical Specifications

Feature Requests
Collecting Product Requests
Customer Personas
Feature Request Use Cases

Product Roadmap
Collecting Product Ideas
Prioritizing Feature Lists
Communicating Product Plans

Product Development
Project Planning & Leadership
Project Management & Organization
Test Plans & Quality Control
Content Development

Product Marketing Defined

Product Marketing
Unified Product Messaging
Unique Selling Propositions (USP)
Brand Personality & Tag Line
Audience Segmentation & 1-to-1 Messaging
Online/Offline Advertising Campaigns
Leadership, Evangelism & Communication
Marketing Event Calendar

Web Marketing
Website & Landing Pages
SEO / SEM & Link-Building
E-Mail Campaigns
Affiliate Programs
Product Videos

Web Marketing 2.0
Viral Campaigns & Blogs
Community & Social Networking

Sales Support
Pricing & Licensing Models
Sales Deck, Brochure, White Papers & Datasheets
Sales Trainings & CRM Support
Demand Generation (LeadGen)
Lead Tracking & Measurement
Reseller, Verticals & Channel Support
Product Demos

Public Relations
PR, Releases & Tours
Analyst Briefings
Reviews & Awards
Thought Leadership

Customer Success Program
Case Studies, Testimonials & Referrals
Customer Loyalty Programs

Cracking the Code to SEO: A Marketing Managers Guide to Successful Organic Search

Getting your web site to show up on the first page of a Google, MSN, and Yahoo! search for the right keywords in your industry is critical in today’s search driven world. If you are currently showing up past page three or four, you’re pretty much invisible to the 200+ million people and businesses searching online.

So, if you somehow found your way here, you’ve may have already visited hundreds of websites, read dozens of articles, downloaded every SEO white paper you can find, and may have even used a few 30-day trials of SEO tools – all of which had claimed to get you top billing, but never delivered any measureable results.

Just to put things into perspective, it is very difficult to find good advice on SEO online. Bear in mind that searching the search engines for advice on how to improve your search strategy can be a ridiculous exercise. Usually, the top listings result in advertisements for professional SEO experts and service providers in the business who are happy to give you just enough information to draw you into whatever product or service (or secret SEO trick) they would like to sell you, but never provide anything substantial, making it nearly impossible to get the information you need to succeed on your own.

Well, after grinding it out for months and running some successful tests on a few sites, I put together a short-list of core SEO principles, techniques, and helpful links that an SEO Marketing Manager probably needs to achieve successful organic search. I hope I’ve helped make your job a little easier and I hope others can find their way to this article (so feel free to link to this article). I think will save a few marketing professionals several months of time and research.

The first thing to understand about SEO is that earning and maintaining top search engine placement is an iterative process. Generally, you’ll identify the ideal keywords for your product or service, integrate them into your site, measure the results, and then start all over again as you gradually move up the rankings. To make things easier, I’ve separated this article into three separate sections which include identifying your keywords, developing your website, and measuring your results.

Part I: Identify Your SEO Keywords

Keyword Forensics
Before you do anything else, you’ll need to identify the keywords and phrases that will attract your target audience. Start by evaluating the sites of your competitors’ sites and use Google Adwords keyword tools (see Adwords). Your goal is to find the top 5-10 keywords in your space. These are the typical words your customers thinks of when trying to locate a product or service that solves the particular problem they have – so think generally.

NOTE: If you are in a crowded category and you are a smaller player (“Dentist”), seek keywords that are popular, but less obvious, of choose keywords that more specific (“Miami Dentist” or “Teeth Whitening Specialist”).

Keyword Density
Your competitor’s websites are a great place to study keyword density, which is the balance of keywords to non-keywords in your body copy. Review to top ten sites in the search results for your primary targeted keywords. Be prepared to do ongoing testing to find the best balance and arrangement of keywords to keyword-enriched text and determine the appropriate ratio of keywords to non-keywords. You’ll also want to choose keywords that are attainable with a reasonable search frequency.

Word Forms & Synonyms
Use the longer form and the plural form of a keyword whenever possible.The words surrounding any clickable link carry value so be sure both the clickable words and words in front and after the link are relevant. If you are looking for synonyms to your keywords, try typing a search into Google with a tilde “~” in front of your keyword (i.e. ~Dentist) and review the words in BOLD on the search results pages. This is a great way to find similar keywords.

Part II: Develop Your SEO Website

Keyword Placement
Once you’ve identified you top 5-10 keywords, you’ll need to develop content-rich pages that ensure your keywords will appear in all these key pages of the site. Additionally, the following pages are all opportunities to build keywords: About Us, Company, FAQ Section, Mission Statement, White Papers, Press Releases.

Domain Name & URL
For top results, pick a domain name that includes your top keywords “www.JohnsonDentist.com”. If you are an existing business, consider purchasing new domains for sub-sites or sub-brands you are looking to target for search. Name your folders and files with keywords and industry phrases rather than generic category names and code.

Title Tags
A title tag of 70-charaters or 6 to 8 words works best. Never repeat a keyword in your titles. Keep it short and relevant, make sure it starts with your most searched keyword “Dentist Miami Dr. Johnson”. Write a separate title for each page on the site.

META Description
For best results, use around 170 characters in your Description Tag. Keep it short and simple. Also,each page should have its own unique meta description. Target your best keywords close to the beginning and never repeat a keyword more than three times.

NOTE: Apparently the Keyword META Tag is rarely used by Google anymore.

Header Tags & Text
When using Header Tags, you need to designate your tags using H1, H2, or H3 and make sure these appear on several spots on the page. H1 tag should contain your primary keywords. Alternatively, you can use the /TITLE tag. Your Header tags also breaks up the content on the page and makes it easier for both readers and search engine to read (it provides clues about page structure & content). An ideal Body Text count is between 300 to 800 words – although other sources claim between 483 and 677 words, so this is probably a good variable to consistently test for optimal results.

Body Text
Avoid too many or irrelevant keywords and never repeat, or “stuff” your keywords. Add your main keyword to the first and last 25 words on your page.

Links
The Link Text, Link Title and Hyperlink URL all contribute to search engine rankings. The more closely related all of the links you place on your site are to your business, the better.

ALT Tags and Comment Tags
Alt+Image Links and Comment Tags are a great way to include keywords that are closely related to your product or service.

Page Structure
When designing your site, make sure you maximize the content to code ratio. Use CSS to create a tableless design. Less code on the page creates a higher content to code ratio, so minimizing the code on the page is preferred. Externalize any scripts and arrange any remaining code on the higher portion of the page.

NOTE: Write W3C Compliant Code and use the tools located at http://validator.w3.org/ and other tools listed at the site to check for errors.

Minimize Splitting Traffic
For better results use Permanent 301 Redirect and rarely (if ever) use 302 Temp redirects. Using a 301 redirect avoids splitting site traffic. Even on http://www.domain.com and http://domain.com should use 301 redirects to avoid splitting site traffic and never use more than one URL for the home page. Avoid splitting traffic, such as www.domain.com and www.domain.com/index.htm.

Intra-Site Cross-Linking
Build upon your keywords by cross-linking them through your site. A good way to accomplish this is with a product tour where each page portrays a section of the product or service which is related to the keywords you are targeting.

Link Building
Links to your site are the #1 way search engines consider the popularity of your site, which will results in higher search rankings. So, deploy your PR department, bloggers, editors, reviewers, and seek out awards. These are all critical to SEO and will result in higher search results. Ask only highly relevant sites to link to your site, such as an industry trade publication or .channel partner. Make it easy for users to add your site to Digg.com, StumbleUpon.com, Reddit.com, Deli.ci.ous.com and similar sites. Check out http://www.socialposter.com/ which can more easily connect you to the top 40 sites.

External Links and Link Farms
Add links on your site which link to articles and reviews at other sites (especially popular sites) which contain relevant material. Use your target keyword phrases as your link. This enhances your credibility with the search engines. Avoid link-farms such as guest books and other disreputable sites which have too many links as these sites may actually reduce your search results.

Site Navigation & Site Map
Use a site navigation map and a modified site map on the home page which provides a clear path through site (again, maximizing keywords). An XML sitemap should list all the known URL’s in a domain that are searchable. Add a Robots.txt file to the site and include this exact call to the sitemap in a file: http://www.domain.com/sitemap.xml. For better results, try niche vertical market sites and publish articles such as ezine articles and blogs (especially blogger.com).

Part III: Measure Your SEO Results

Measuring Link Density & Relevancy
Be sure to measure both the number of inbound links from other sites as well as the number of internal links on your site. There are a variety of tools available on the market to help you achieve better results. Avoid in-bound links from irrelevant sites at these may hurt your search efforts.

Search Engines and Spiders
Definitely submit your site directly to Google using Google’s WebMaster Tools. You’ll also want to submit your XML directly and monitor the spidering status of your site. Be sure you allow search engines to spider your entire site and capture all your pages and avoid hiding your content behind contact gathering or other user input forms. Learn and see first-hand how spiders and live editors crawl your site (there are several tools that can assist here.)

Review Your Site
Use Google WebMaster Tools – Diagnostics - Web Crawl to find and fix errors on the site. Use http://website.grader.com/ to evaluate your results and

a. Other tools include http://www.1-hit.com/all-in-one/tool.loading-time-checker.htm
b. And 25 general tools: http://www.virtualhosting.com/blog/2008/test-me-25-freebie-website-accessibility-checkers/

A/B Testing
Top-rated SEO rarely occurs by accident and it’s a continual process of testing your site, evaluating what key terms are being searched, monitoring your competition and fine-tuning your results.

Submit to Directories
Submitting to directories is a necessary component of successful SEO. You can start with Yahoo! ($299 per year), the Open Directory Project DMOZ.org, About.com, essential Google, 4-5 months and smaller, niche sites.

Additional Notes
a. Create a community of sites that link to each other
b. Request Reviews at Website from Customers (add to your site)
c. Amazon.com (include direct link to your products at Amazon)

My Value to an Organization

I've put together a deck that outlines my experience and the value I bring to an organization. This Google Docs slide presentation may take a minute or so to load, so please be patient (new technology).

List of Top 10 Community Platform Solution Providers: Build Your Own Community!

As with most of my fellow Web 2.0 marketing colleagues, I’ve been tracking the latest trends on how to interact with our customers through non-traditional channels such as communities and social networking.

As part of a consulting project for a leading technology company in the Bay Area, I have started a deep, detailed evaluation of the top ten service providers of community sites, both commercial and open-source solutions, in order to identify the best choice based on price, features, and time to deploy.

At the core, communities promise a new level of interactivity and collaboration and open the door to new ways to connect with your most passionate customers and enthusiasts. And, a community provides them with a new way to share their opinions and ideas as well as receive needed support. The excitement of communities probably comes from the promise to build brand loyalty, generate new demand, and drive customer-focused innovation faster:

1. Increase Brand Awareness: identify brand champions and share in viral efforts.
2. Build Brand Loyalty: increase loyalty through a more authentic connection with your customer.
3. Drive Innovation: hear the voice of your customers and enable voting on innovation.
4. Improve Customer Support: lower your support costs by getting the community involved.
5. Generate New Leads: build demand for your product and drive lead generation.
6. Promote New Products: upsell additional services or cross-sell additional, related products.
7. Increase Web Traffic: drive regular traffic through with an engaging online experience.

List of Top 10 Online Community-Building Platform Solutions:

Satmetrix Community
Enterprise-class SAAS solution designed for flexibility, scalability, and ease of use.

Ramius Community Zero
Enterprise-class social networking made simple.

Jive Software
Enterprise-class community software built to be extremely flexible, highly scalable, and easy to use.

HiveLive
LiveConnect Community Platform brings Web 2.0 tools into the next generation.

Communispace
Builds and facilitates private, highly engaged online customer communities.

Leverage Software
People-centric social networking and community solution for businesses.

YourMembership
Global provider of online member communities and web-based membership solutions.

Vovici
Online community software to build and manage online communities.

Boonex Dolphin
A universal, free, open-source software. Build any kind of online community.

Drupal
An open-source content management platform. Some assembly required.

As a final note, using your customers to crowd-source new ideas and group intelligence is an incredibly powerful and fast new way to drive innovation and make critical decisions about the direction of your product or service. But, be aware that this very same information (transparent) is fully available publicly for your competitors to view and learn from equally as fast as you. It's true you might also learn a little bit about your competition in a community, but almost certainly, your competition will learn more about you and this comes with some risk. And, let me know if you need any help.