Entrepreneurship in Brazil 2014 FIFA World Cup Format

The excitement, the drama, and a combination of teamwork with individual efforts that define those sublime goals, saves or penalty shootouts. Who hasn't seen Robin Van Persie's flying header goal against defending champions Spain in Brazil FIFA World Cup 2014?! Not only was it a magnificent goal, but was turned into all sorts of memes around the web. Football (soccer) truly is a beautiful game, or as the Brazilians would say "jogo bonito".

Unbelievable goal by Robin Van Persie - World Cup Brazil 2014

With the semi-finals just a few hours away, and the game of the tournament coming at the end of this week I thought it would be a great topic to cover entrepreneurship in the form of a World Cup tournament. Plus did I mention it is extremely fun to connect business discussions with sports, if you don't believe me just take a look at this post on how the NBA rocks out with their digital presence.

Qualifiers

This is where teams have to compete in a randomly drawn, 5-country group from their continent with the top 2 countries qualifying and advancing for the final tournament such as Brazil 2014. During this stage very few supporters (other than within the country, or immensely immersed followers) are even aware of the games and/or progress of each team.

Similar process happens with entrepreneurship: when the founder(s) is establishing his or her unique idea, researching and planning out the organization virtually no one knows about it other than those involved. The planning and execution during this stage has to be spot on, because just as the group qualifications if you are not in the top two standings - your team/organization will not make it far enough to compete on the world stage. In Canada alone, only about 50% of start-ups or entrepreneurial endeavours succeed beyond the first 3 years of business operations.

Often under radar - majority of Canadian small businesses go through qualifications to survive 3+ years in business.

This where all of the blueprints are laid out and if done right, the organization "qualifies" to move on to the next level of competition:

Group Stage

Welcome to the group stage - by now each team has already proven itself ahead of the competition. While many people may not have been watching - your country (or organization) is now established itself in some way: a great defensive team, dominating possession, etc.

By now your business is starting to make some sort of noise - it has built a reputation for having unique products, extremely high quality, unimaginable technology/software, etc.

This however attract attention of others, there are four (or in entrepreneurship world often more) competing countries/organizations trying to establish a name for themselves as well. This is where the team has to be built just right and already in some type of groove or familiarity in order to ward off the competition.

While companies which are picked by experts as favourites to succeed, usually do - there is always an upset or underachievement which allows another entrepreneur to advance. Be honest, did anyone expect Spain to be knocked out in group stage? Absolutely not! Neither did you expect Costa Rica to top Uruguay, England and Italy as leaders of their group! 

While experts can predict which start-up will succeed, there are always under achievements: just like Spain failing to advance from the group stage.

Round of 16

The first level of knock-out rounds - by now your organization has established its team: you have hired the right people, found the necessary location, tools and collaboration to rise above the competition. Well - most of the competition, now is the time to go head-to-head with most immediate competitors and carve out your own brand within a tough market.

Utilizing all necessary aid can help: finding right employees or freelancers, effective marketing, powerful branding, financial programs, and any other means necessary. Sometimes the competitions gets really tough - how amazing was the Brazil vs. Chile extra time, penalty showdown thriller? What pushed them over the top was that extra detail of finishing penalties - staying true and effectively closing out the game. Professional SEO services, social media marketing or any other unique assistance can be the difference between getting knocked out or advancing!

Amazing match from both teams - Brazil edged Chile by a narrow penalty shootout result.

Quarterfinals

If an entrepreneur makes it this far, they have already done an amazing job. It is no easy task to get through qualifications/group stage and conquer the first knock-out match-up in the round of 16. By now many teams and businesses see the "tunnel at the end of the light", meaning that they are very close to the ultimate goal of being crowned champions (or establishing themselves as a strong, desirable brand in both of potential employees and customers).

To experience success at this level of competition, the organization has to have enough depth: players get injured (employees leave for other jobs), suspended until the next match due to accumulation of yellow or red cards (firing of employees not fit for the culture), fatigue (sick days) or any other circumstance. Hiring the right personnel to build a strong culture is crucial - having the right people to cover for others if need be, and dedicate themselves to a full-team philosophy increases the odds of success.

Trust, teamwork and collaboration makes Germany a success. Just like many successful entrepreneurial environments.

Much like a soccer team, any small business or organization is a team-oriented culture which thrives on collaboration. The German national team exemplifies how the midfielders (Philipp Lam played as a midfielder - although his natural position is full-back) are willing to commit themselves fully to both defense and offense in order for their team to dominate.

Semifinals

One step away from the biggest stage on football (or entrepreneurship) this is where great leaders have to come forth and utilize their skills to efficient execution. They have to take risks to separate from the competition, because at this level - the playing field is fairly equal and little separates competitors.

Instead of relying on just traditional websites, the leader may opt to build a responsive website or a fully functional mobile app to engage audiences beyond just desktop devices...even if it may not be the "industry standard". This gives employees confidence, the culture is clicking on all cylinders - work process is optimized, and everyone knows exactly what their role is. Ready to step up and perform at all times.

Great leaders take chances, especially risky chances others would not even consider. Just like Van Gaal did by substituting Tim Krul for the penalty shootout against Costa Rica.

Much like when Van Gaal (manager of Holland) decided to insert Tim Krul, the national team back-up goalie who has not played a single minute in the tournament, for the penalty shootout in their match-up with Costa Rica. While the move was risky, it proved to pay off as Krul saved two penalty shots and essentially won the game for his team. Krul was ready and did his job as soon as his team depended on him. It's all about taking chances that others may not be willing to!

Final Game

By now your organization has overcome all of the hardships of entrepreneurship - making it all the way to the biggest chance of its existence: a chance for ultimate success. While in FIFA football this is a World Cup trophy, for entrepreneurs it may be a number of things: investors, expansion, longevity, unmatched workplace culture, financial growth, etc.

The final step is having a dedicated supporter base (loyal customers), teammates full of confidence and competence (minimal margin for major errors) and the will of a champion (dedication). Believing in yourself and your organization increases the odds of ultimate success. The uncertainty will always there - but with those efforts present, the entrepreneurial journey reaches its summit. Although not the end, each organization (and national team) finds ways to evolve, find new talents and keep improving upon its strategy with lots of ups and downs.

As for this World Cup Final in Brazil - I have picked Brazil and Argentina to meet in the final, with Brazil the host nation winning the tournament. Both have lost key players (Brazil without Neymar, Argentina without Di Maria). Let's see if the teams can come together and overcome adversity as one.

Now enjoy the rest of the world cup, keep working on and believing in your entrepreneurial dreams.

Ole, ole, OLE!!!

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Unknown Tuesday, July 08, 2014  

How To Deal With Digital Branding Naysayers

I am not a 100% sure what makes small-medium business marketing managers/owners shut down the idea of investing and dedicating resources into digital efforts. Over a somewhat short, albeit exciting career in integrated marketing I have come across a number of decision makers who have simply refused to get involved (whether small or fully integrated) with the digital world. The dreaded words of "it is not part of our budget", "we haven't done it up until now and we are doing fine" or my personal favourite "It's not high on the priority list".

If you are currently in a position of dealing with someone who does not believe in all of the brand-related goodness that is available with digital branding, this post aims to give you a helping hand in making progress. By progress I mean the ability to effectively convince your gatekeeper into embracing these brand building tools and guiding the future of marketing plans into a complete, successful strategy for long-term business success. A post that I,  myself would have welcomed and used with opens arms if it were available.

Here are a couple of scenarios that you may come across, and effective ways to deal with them:

Scenario 1 - Too Late To Start Now

Argument:  

We haven't jumped on the trend when it just started, it is too late for us to get involved now since "everyone" is using social media.

How To Respond:

Who is everyone? Explain how it is never too late to use great business tools. Use data figures (such as these) to point out how the shift in customer and brand interaction (whether B2B or B2C) has been shifting towards digital and mobile mediums. Having a presence in ALL places, both offline and online, ensures branding at all customer touch points.

Hint: Find a couple of examples of other local businesses using social media successfully - present the performance to your manager. There is nothing more encouraging than seeing similar examples directly within the area doing well.

Scenario 2 - Budget Allocation

Argument:  

It is not part of our budget.

How To Respond:

Describe how certain tactics do not require an edit to the budget - if you are the marketing person (or have one), your salary is part of the budget. Come up with a plan that you can measure, create a content update schedule or calendar and show how nothing more than some time dedication and planning can lead to first digital baby-steps.

Hint: Make sure you are detailed with your content calendar. Show what type of content will be shared/created, where and how. Include a way to measure the success of the effort (for example: if its a blog post you are writing, how many people have seen it and went on to the company website).

Scenario 3 - Not High On The Priority List

Argument:  

There are more "important" things to get done than spend time on social media and tweeting customers.

How To Respond:

This is a tough argument, particularly if your business has not been active in social media and relies heavily on traditional advertising. If you have competitors which are active digitally, it would be best to show how they outperform your organization in certain areas...such as ranking higher for local search results on a specific keyword, they have more reviews on Google+ local map listings, have lots of comments on their blog, etc.

These can all be indicators of competitors having an upper hand and visually representing the urgency of becoming active online. Staying on top of latest marketing and engagement trends can ensure that you do not fall behind competition and remain competitive. What could be more important than staying competitive?!

Hint: As mentioned in the above response, find your competitors rankings for SEO, social media interaction with customers, etc...any way you can show how your business is losing its competitiveness. If you are unable to find such information - outline the possibility of losing out on potential views or customers visiting your website.

For example: if 350 search for "local organic vegetables" in your area (assuming you sell these goods) and your website or content does not rank within the first page - the business is missing out on a huge small business SEO opportunity that it may not even be aware of. Remember, connecting data to performance is key to winning over a stubborn manager.

Scenario 4 - We Are Doing Just Fine Without Internet Marketing

Argument:  

We haven't focused on online marketing up until now and our business is doing just fine, there is no need to change what has been working all this time.

How To Respond:

This is somewhat related to Scenario 3 - point out that yes, currently the business is doing well with traditional marketing efforts but who is to say it cannot do better if it introduced digital marketing? This is where you could do some research to show missed opportunities or room for potential increase in business performance if specific digital efforts are introduced. Which business owner or manager wouldn't like to do better than what they expected?

Hint: Connecting the efforts that have been done "up until now" with digital efforts is key here. There does not need to be a significant shift in marketing - just introduce digital tactics into what is already being done to create a more integrated approach for better overall performance. You are simply taking "what works" and digitizing it to be slightly better optimized. The best shifts in culture are gradual ones!

Scenario 5 - It Is Not Relevant To Our Industry

Argument:  

We are a B2B company, we need to focus on directly reaching customers. Digital marketing is not a good strategy for our industry, direct sales calls and trade shows work more effectively in reaching decision makers.

How To Respond:

Digital branding can work for any type of business, regardless of how technical or targeted it may be. Point out that digital marketing does not have to mean just tweeting and sending Facebook posts. Sales people can accompany their calls or trade shows efforts by sending potential customers to the website where they can find helpful case studies. Put up customer reviews or recommendations and previous project successes that the lead can browse through before the sales person follows up.

This will keep the brand in the potential customers mind and give them confidence without having to be convinced just by a sales rep. If done right, these cases studies and application examples will get the customers calling in themselves, ready to start a conversation...which is what every sales department dreams of!

Hint: Gather examples of case studies or potential application "guidelines" from around the web - put together a template of the tool you decide to use, and a way to get it seen by your target audience. Ensuring that these documents are highly informative, easy to read and helpful to both the potential customer and sales rep will help you get one step closer to changing your managers mind when it comes to digital marketing.

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The scenarios presented here are limited in number, there are plenty more situations that arise for branding professionals in their efforts to develop a truly successful marketing strategy. While these responses provide a good starting guide, much research and planning needs to go into each response in order for the decision maker to be convinced. It is not a one-time conversation, but a persistent effort to make the shift.

Hopefully this post can help you get over the hump, leave a comment below if you found success using any of these responses or would like to share your own experience in dealing with digital naysayers.

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Unknown Monday, May 26, 2014  

8 Commonly Overlooked Digital Marketing Efforts

So you have put together an awesome blog post - comes with plenty of visuals, original ideas and it even has a video as part of the write-up. It is published and "online" for everyone to see, but yet there is no one coming to the post. You may be asking yourself: why is my digital content not being seen?

Image courtesy of KROMKRATHOG / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It is easy to get caught up in finishing a really good piece of content and just expecting results to come on their own. There are a number of digital marketing efforts that accompany every piece of content created, whether that's a blog post, video, mobile app, whitepaper, ebook, etc. I recently finished up reading Youtility - a great book covering effective online marketing. One key concept that stuck with me was the fact that online marketing does not have a finish line - it is an ongoing endeavor that has to become a part of everyday tasks.

Here is a useful list of items that are usually overlooked when creating content online. The list takes into consideration efforts necessary before and after the content is put together - covering all the important factors of successful engagement and reach. For the purpose of this post we will mainly focus on blog posts - but these efforts apply to all branded content being produced.

1. Goal Setting

The first and foremost step in any marketing strategy; making sure that you have set measurable goals. What is the purpose of your blog post? Most of the time it is to educate, inform or provide some type of benefit to the readers - but how can you connect those goals to performance?

Image courtesy of bplanet / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Put together both qualitative (quality of comments, location of readers,etc) and quantitative (links from other bloggers, number of views, etc.) measures that directly relate to your goal. Having benchmarks can help you evaluate your content marketing. This way you eliminate any guess work from your reporting and know ahead of time what type of analytical information you will be focusing on.

2. Research

After you have established measurable goals, it is important to research not only the topic you will be writing about but your potential audience. Do they prefer to engage with videos more than images? Will an e-book or infographic be better suited to present the information? Most of the time it is not a clear cut answer, and in many instances it may require a combination of different visual components.

Image courtesy of KROMKRATHOG / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Another thing to keep in mind is your topic - did you do SEO research on it and focused on keywords that will help your post be easily searchable? Take the time to optimize your content to what your audience is actually searching for as opposed to what you think the audience is searching for. You would be surprised at some of the topics or terminology that is being searched once you actually do the research!

3. Accessibility

Late last year we outlined a number of items on SMBs Holiday Marketing Wishlist, but the main one that applies to this point is responsive design. You don't have to read a blog post to know that mobile devices are furiously taking over our daily lives, including business interactions. Having a blog post that is easily view-able on an iPad and a BlackBerry is important (and all other devices).

If you do not make it accessible across various devices and operating systems you could be losing a lot of audience members. It would be a shame to have that great blog post go unnoticed because it impossible to view on a smartphone or different browser (anyone still use Internet Explorer? You betcha!).

4. Shareability

The best marketing or branding is word of mouth, is it not? So having a blog post that cannot be easily shared can cause a problem in the digital alternative "click to share" concept. Have social media share buttons readily available on your post, embed code for all your infographics, pin buttons on images, etc.

Image courtesy of Master isolated images / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Convenience is key, the easier you make it for someone to share your content the more likely it will be shared. The level of quality matters as well, but putting extra work on the audience to share will only discourage any action.

5. Marketing Your Marketing

Another great mention in Youtility is the concept of "marketing your marketing" - meaning that you do not stop at just putting the new blog post live, but that that you share it across all of your channels. Do you have a newsletter? Is it included there? Part of your website? Guest blogging on a relevant blog? Be sure to get the word out in as many ways as possible (without spamming) and increase your reach.

Informing your audience in offline channels can also be beneficial, while most of our focus is on digital branding - taking an integrated approach is ultimately the best option. Have your blog post as part of your in-store signage, get all employees involved and encourage them to share with customers if its appropriate.

By doing this you will actively increase the chances that the content is seen, shared and engaged. It is no longer left to chance but is strategically launched to your community.

6. Listening and Following Up

Don't talk AT your community, talk WITH them. Believe it or not even the most recognized brands do not have the answer to all of the burning questions that some people may have. If someone posts an informative comment that expands on the post - why not thank them? Invite them to do a guest-post? Perhaps your organization can do a follow-up post to the first one based on those comments.

The worst thing that can happen is for people to leave this feedback or appreciation to just "sit there" without directly responding. The purpose is to be engaging - setup notifications and monitor your content to know precisely when something new comes up. This way you can respond accordingly and connect with your audience when the time is right.

7. Measuring Performance

Remember the first point? We'll here it is again coming back to haunt you. After all is said and done, if you do not have anything to measure against all of the above mentioned effort can seem worthless. Seeing the progression and exceeding your goals can be a rewarding experience. Alternatively, falling short of your goals is a great way to learn what worked and what didn't, where there is room for improvement and what can be implemented in real-time to make sure that goals are attained.

Image courtesy of jannoon028 / FreeDigitalPhotos.ca

Keep track of content performance, connect analytics data to goals and measure the success of your digital branding.

8. Repurposing (or Reimagining) and Improving Accordingly

Content Rules, another great book written on online marketing, introduces a great concept of repurposing or reimagining your content. If your blog post was a huge hit with the audience, why not create an e-book out of it? Perhaps it could be upgraded to an infographic if it was written some time ago. Could you turn it into a mobile app? After you have had a chance to listen to your audience and measure against your goals, you can improve the content and let your audience guide it in the right direction.

The possibilities are usually endless if the content is of good quality, useful and engaging. Repurposing lets you cycle through your content without discarding it - making it easier on your content creation and time management.

After all you never know what can happen, maybe this post ends up in a whitepaper one day?

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Unknown Tuesday, April 08, 2014