The Soft Pitch

If you live in the Phoenix area and missed the Technology Marketing Summit yesterday u blew it. It was the finest collection of marketing and communications leaders/speakers with global experience…maybe ever in AZ at one time. The BMA and Az Tech Council should be proud. Let me summarize a few take aways…

Honeywell’s Brian Chapman had me when he breaks up his customers in 5 groups and gives them names…he has learned to market to each of them differently. Mainly because of the research they have put into knowing who they are and how they want to be approached…a no brainer but rare when done.  Bottom line not everyone tweets or uses social media…old school baby !!!!

What’s your companies purpose? Suzanne Martin had everyone thinking about their company when she said mission and vision statements are a thing of the past. They are full of corporate speak and many cases could be anyone. What is important is your company purpose…why are u in business?  She took down an excellent journey as to how Motorola has done it.

Avnet’’s is: Technology is important to the world and Avnet is important to technology. Good or bad we have one…

Aaron Kahlow from Online Marketing Summit spoke about how and what products are working in all areas of marketing…from lead follow up to CRM plus challenged people on how they use social media. He is a bright young man…and worth following.

Keynote, Jamie Walker described how Microsoft goes to market…bottomline they measure everything for ROI or they do not do it. He described how they use every tactic possible in launches…which is something I do not believe everyone does. He also reiewed the role and challenges facing B2B marketers and how B2B marketers must consider more B to C and learn from it…and be on top of the mobile device marketing wave coming. He made everyone feel better to hear even a big company cuts budgets and you are left to determine what is best way to use funds.

Our last panel lead by BMA Chairman Gary Slack was a lively discussion of how Molex, Intel and Avnet are using technology for external and internal communications. Gary is a very smart cookie himself and he asked tough questions…

Laurie Buczek described how Intel is wired internally for their folks to share and exchange info…I think she said they have 13,000 bloggers…wow.  Even with our progress makes me feel like we are still using crayons. She also mentioned Intel’s new theory on M&A and branding…not pushing the Intel brand on successful companies they acquired.

Brian Krause from Molex was describing how he did not ask managements approval to get into social media…which is gutsy…good news he is seeing returns from blogs and tweets.

I talked about employee engagement and tools we are using and Avnet OnDemand.com and the value to our efforts in the video explosion era. I also got my soap box about getting people not to forget print brand advertising !!!! A lost art.

I want to thank them all for coming and making hundreds of local marketers think about what they are doing…and apply new ideas. More info on more talented speakers each month…BMAphoenix.org

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