Broadband Evolved

Value Added Internet Connections: The Name of the Game is Inbound Leads

The #1 challenge facing SMBs is getting new customers.

Therefore, any product or service delivered to the SMB mass market would be greatly enhanced if it were capable of helping business owners get online and generate inbound sales leads.

The statement is especially true as it relates to the dumb pipes sold by telcos and cablecos -- and yet they continue to battle each other in an effort to sell commodity connectivity services.

Don't get me wrong, voice lines and high speed internet connections are critically important services for millions of SMB.  The point I am making is that there is a latent and powerful value hidden inside of these pipes that has yet to be exposed by either side.

Telco or cableco -- high speed pipes have the ability to incorporate simple services to help SMBs get online, get found in search engines, and generate inbound sales leads.

It's a value that SMBs are desperate for.  If either side can expose it, there is no doubt they will sell more pipes, reduce churn, and increase ARPU.

In Real Life Game of Survivor: Google Has Immunity and Newspapers are Voted Off

I am a big fan of using simple analogies to explain things that are otherwise complicated.

Therefore, with regard to Google's announcement that it is eliminating newspaper ads from it's popular ad words product, i'd like you to imagine the following:

• The world's advertisers are watching a real life game of Survivor
• The contestants are different types of media (Web PPC, TV, Radio, Newspaper, Outdoor, Mobile PPC, etc.)
• The contestants goal is to please the advertisers and stay on the island
• The island is slowly shrinking as fewer dollars are being spent by advertisers
• The name of the island is Adwordia  
• The host of the show is Mr. Google (not Mr. Probst)
• The host has all the votes and unilaterally decides who stays and who goes

Unfortunately, for the newspaper industry, Mr. Google grew tired of selling remnants and splitting paltry fees.  Therefore, he decided the newspapers had to leave Adwordia.

Left to their own devices newspapers still sell $40 billion worth of advertising per year.  So, even though they have been booted off the Google island, you can still talk to their sales reps and buy their ads -- at least for now.

Of course, if you happen to be a small business, then I would suggest that the key to your marketing future has nothing to do with buying expensive ads -- not from newspapers or anyone else.  Instead, your future depends on your ability to get found for free in natural search.  To this end, you should seek simple to use tools that can help you create interesting and engaging content that is highly specific (topically and geographically) to the products and services you provide.

Net Neutrality: The Biggest Elephant in the History of the Internet

The issue of network neutrality is the biggest elephant in the history of the Internet.

While it's relatively quiet now -- it's going to get very noisy soon.

This post, for example, highlights a recent scuffle between the FCC and Comcast dueto inconsistent VoIPquality on the Comcast network.  Specifically, the FCC wants to know why the company says some VoIP phone calls might occasionally sound "choppy" -- but not those placed through Comcast's own digital phone service.

In my opinion, VoIP is just the appetizer.  Online video is the hedonistic main course that is feeding the elephant's appetite and forcing many people, including President Obama, to pay closer attention to issues surrounding network nuetrality.

Video is driving per user network costs through the roof, and in many cases there is no value added to the carrier.  Consider that Youtube is now the world's second largest search engine behind Google.  Millions of videos (many of them senseless) are chewing up bandwidth and driving up costs.  Also, think about the impact of NBC's Hulu on US carriers.  See if you can guess how much extra money Verizon makes for streaming an HD episode of The Office?

No matter which side you might be on -- the fact is that online video is exploding and it's rapidly driving network costs higher for carriers.  As a result, carriers are aggresively rethinking their position with regard to network nuetrality.  They can either lobby the FCC like hell to get compensated for delivering value added (priority) content -- or they can get creative to figure out ways to deliver new, higher margin, services that work with the tide rather than against it.

Personally, I'd love to see them innovate -- rather than regulate.  Time will tell.

Outbound Advertising is Dying: The Future is Inbound

Below you will find two of my favorite videos.

Both highlight the gradual demise of outbound advertising/marketing and emphasize the importance of participating thoughtfully in the conversational web as a mechanism for attracting prospects through inbound channels.

The first video is from Scholz & Friends.

Scholz & Friends from BUBBLECLOT on Vimeo.

The second video (my true favorite) is from the clever folks at HubSpot.

Inbound Marketing/You Ought To Know from Oscar Rylin on Vimeo.

Now, more than ever, markets are conversations.  Consumers are increasingly in control.  They decide which marketing messages they will consume.  Everything else they ignore.

As a result, one way monologues (adverts) are less effective.  Two way dialogues (conversations) are the future of marketing.

Are you ready?

Local Search for SMBs: Sign of the Times

Two interesting stories surfaced today in the world of local search and small business marketing.

First, I received a tweet this morning from @TheKelseyGroup with a link to a case study about a local search portal called Weblocal.ca that has managed to generate large amounts of traffic after only a few months of being in market.  The company is actually a partnership between a software company called YellowBot and a Canadian print media company called Transcontinental with a collection of newspaper and magazine assets.  The portal itself is simple and clean.  Content is spotlighted for videos, pictures, users, and reviews.  Plus there is a tag cloud for popular topics and for popular places.

If you're interested in local search, there is a lot to think about for sure.  However, in my opinion, the most intriguing part of the story is the 1 million UVs after just 60 days.  2.5% of Canada’s population visited the site in December 2008.  Transcon is pushing hard to promote the site through their 400 person sales channel and traditional media assets and it'll be interesting to see how far they can go when taking on the leaders such as YPG and Canpages.

Second, in a sign that VC is not dead yet -- or perhaps a sign that local search and generating inbound leads for SMBs remains a huge opportunity -- Yodel announced that it closed a $10 million sercies C round.

I've said it before.  I'll say it again.  In a down economy like this, SMBs are aggressively on the hunt for inbound leads.  Those that are positioned to help generate inbound sales leads for SMBs have an excellent opportunity for growth in the next few years.

Why Local Search is Like Raking Leaves

Over the past 10 years a large number of very smart people have said a lot of very wise things about the science and art behind search engine optimization (SEO).  In most cases, these wiSE-O-men and women have honed their skills in support of medium and large businesses seeking optimal exposure to consumers (natural and paid) within Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

A smaller number of very smart people have developed similar, but specialized, SEO expertise in support of small businesses seeking to be found by consumers who increasingly search the web, and not the print yellow pages, for local products and services.

In summary, there is a subtle, but significant, difference between SEO for bigger businesses and Local-SEO for smaller businesses.  In an attempt to explain the differences, I've come up with an analogy that I hope most people can relate to.

Imagine the following:

• The world is one huge yard which is owned by an individual named Mr. Google.

• The yard is covered in leaves and Mr. Google is motivated to collect every single one of them.  

• Big leaves represent big business -- small leaves represent small business. 

• Big, heavy-weight leaves are well behaved, perched perfectly in the grass, patiently awaiting Mr. Google's rake.

• Tiny, light-weight leaves are poorly behaved, fickle, unorganized, fluttering in the breeze not quite sure where to go.

• Mr. Google lets out a big sigh and wishes the small leaves behaved like the big ones.

If you're like me, and you've had (have) the unfortunate and painful responsibility of collecting leaves, then you know for a fact that small ones simply don't behave like big ones.

The point is that getting small businesses to comply with Mr. Google's wishes is a very difficult task. There are too many of them.  Here one moment, gone the next.  While some have purpose and focus, most are distracted and inconsistent.

In my opinion, it's one of the major reasons why local-SEO for SMBs is so much harder than traditional SEO for medium and large businesses.  It's also why a huge commercial opportunity remains wide open to help millions of SMBs get discovered in local search in a manner that is immune to their inherently fickle, distracted and "leaf-like" behavior.

Cisco Has It Right: The Network is the Platform

Cisco announced today an integrated technology platform called Eos which will supposedly enable media companies and large enterprises like NASCAR and the NHL to create, manage and grow social networks around their content.

It's hard to tell exactly what the platfrom offers (does not offer) but Dan Scheinman tells a good story about how the broadband network is the platform for a new generation of compelling business experiences that are more social, personal and visual.

 

The SaaS based platform is taregted at media companies so they can focus on their core competency of building content -- while Cisco handles the technical plumbing necessary to support communities of people interacting around rich content.

Scheinman says Eos is allowing Warner Music to create socially oriented web sites at a fraction of the cost of custom web designs. I'd personally be very intersted in comparing the cost of Eos with cost of Getcloser.com, a social network built by UK based retailer HMV by the folks at digital agency LBi.

In summary, I think Cisco's slogan definitely has it right, "The network is the platform" 

But only time will tell if they got it right with Eos.

Why Broadband Providers Should Take A Lesson from Verizon Wireless

Mobile search is in it's infancy, but it's bound to be huge.  This is why Microsoft dug deep into their pocket to literally buy a five-year deal with Verizon Wireless to be the default search provider on the wireless carrier's phones as well as handle mobile advertising services.

Make no mistake, this is a hugely strategic deal.  It's not just about Microsoft purchasing the right to place their search bar on Verizon's phones.  It's much bigger than that.  This deal is about how Verizon, an old school phone company, is working to create a purple cow by doing something truly amazing in support of it's business customers.

 

Instead of just selling commodity phone lines and data plans, Verizon is transforming it's ordinary phone service into an inbound lead machine by helping businesses get found in local search.

Traditional telcos and broadband providers should wake up and stop munching grass.  They should pay very close attention to this deal because from this point forward, the value of business broadband (wireless, wireline, otherwise) will be increasingly determined by the number of inbound leads that it generates.

In order to maintain existing customers and attract new ones, commodity broadband providers must find innovative ways to incorporate inbound marketing values into their core connectivity solutions.

All together now, repeat after me....

"Business broadband connectivity is all about getting found by customers."

Heads Up: Video Content Is Rocket Fuel For Inbound Broadband

In the never ending drive to increase inbound marketing momentum --online video is one form of content that will experience huge growth in 2009 and in the coming years.

The Kelsey Group projects huge revenue growth for local online videos in the US, growing from a paltry $10 million in 2007 to $1.5 billion by 2012.  The simple reason for this massive growth is that people love online video and, oh yeah, because it works like a champ.  Kelsey found that 47.3% of people who view a video subsequently visit the business website, 19% request product information, 18% visit the business offline, and 17% make a purchase.

 

In this excellent post, Kieran Hawe offers best practices on how to manage SEO for video content and describes how video has moved beyond amateurs with cameras (UGC) and has matured into an accepted and viable type of content for any business looking to improve their inbound marketing via natural search.

But one thing Kieran fails to mention in his post is the critical importance of ubiquitous and reliable broadband connectivity in terms delivering a quality experience to both the advertiser and the consumer.  You seewithout broadband connectivity, there is no online video.  No YouTube.  No SpotRunner.  No TurnHere.  And definitely no Hulu.  The reason Kieran forgot to mention broadband is because, like the rest of the world, he simply takes it for granted and sees it as a low value commodity, and not as the core platform upon which the entire web was built.

If you're a broadband provider this is a huge problem.  Fortunately, it's an even bigger opportunity but only if you can find creative ways to deliver broadband services that help your SMB customers get discovered online, converse with prospects, and generate sales leads -- and, oh yeah, publish and promote online videos.

Five Reasons Why Broadband Providers Stink at Marketing

Since the dawn of the Internet, telephone companies and broadband providers have been focused on marketing commodity connectivity in an effort to steal each others customers and determine who is the best provider.

I don't get it.  Collectively, these guys have massive brands, huge balance sheets and millions of existing customer relationships.  Most importantly, they control the core platform that the entire web is built upon.  With all of these strategic assets in their possession, then why do broadband providers continue to be stuck in neutral, playing the same old games and delivering the same old commodity messages.

They're stuck because of stinky marketing.  Here are 5 examples:

1.  Broadband marketers are notoriously myopic.  They mimic each other and repeatedly message around speed, reliability, and price.  Check out the main landing page below for AT&T DSL.  Four different packages and all of them are ideal for some type of downloading. Thank goodness for AT&T downloading -- and also for little kids to carry our pumpkins even though it's Christmas.

  

2.  Broadband marketers think connectivity is a one way street.  They talk about connecting consumers and small businesses to the web as if their customers will know exactly what to do once they get there.  Telcos do a great job of delivering fat pipes to connect you to the web-- but if you need help making sense of the world (e.g. engaging with prospects, blogging, optimizing for Google, etc) then you'd better plan on talking with someone else.  If broadband marketers did not stink, then such marketing value would be built-in to the broadband itself.

 

3.  Broadband marketers are ignorant about the value of inbound connectivity.  The world has changed forever and the key to SMB success is getting discovered in local search and generating inbound leads without paying the Google PPC tax.  With few exceptions, broadband providers have not even attempted to introduce value added services to help SMBs get discovered online, converse with prospects and generate inbound leads.  From this point forward, the value of broadband will be directly proportional to the number of inbound leads that it generates.  In order to maintain existing customers and attract new ones, broadband providers would be wise to incorporate inbound marketing services into their core connectivity solutions. 

4.  Broadband marketers are focused on back office (and backward) bundles.  The trend recently among broadband marketers has been to offer bundles of back office services to help SMBs better manage their infrastructure.  The standard bundles include hosted email, virus protection, data backup, and web collaboration services.  Shared web hosting packages are also available, but typically require third-party intervention due to complexity.  In my opinion, the entire VAS bundling strategy is backwards.  SMBs, especially in this economy, care much more about the front office and simply want services that can help them get discovered in online search, converse with prospects, and generate inbound marketing momentum.

5.  Broadband marketers have lost touch with their historical roots.  20 years ago the process of generating inbound sales leads for SMBs was relatively straight forward and the key elements to success (a phone line and a yellow pages listing) were readily supplied by the local phone company. Today, however, the SMB marketing process is much more complicated due to the advent of the web, the evolution of online search, and the gradual decline in print directories. 

 

It's simple.  In order to stop stinking -- broadband marketers must think creatively and work to leverage their core broadband assets to once again become a trusted provider of high-value inbound marketing services.

Gal Borenstein Talks Marketing on CNN: Congratulations Old Friend!

It was 1992.  I was attending graduate school at George Mason University.  Telecom Engineering class. Projects were assigned to teams of two.

Lucky for me, my teammate was Gal Borenstein.  I remember being fascinated with his unique accent, sharp intellect, creative mind and humongous sense of humor.  We worked well together, got an A on the project and became fast friends.

I always knew Gal would have success.  Not just a little -- but a lot.  I was right.  Gal went on to single-handedly build a successful marketing company, author a fascinating book for CEOs, and this past week he was featured on CNN, sharing his perspective on how retailers can focus on customer experience to survive and thrive in the current recession.

Congratulations Gal. I can't wait to see what's next.