Its been a busy month since the launch of NLYZR. Interestingly, launching a new product like this has resulted in a considerable lift in enquiries across my other businesses and general activities for me. Suddenly I am doing a lot more guest blogging, interviews and speaking at some really fascinating events.

It demonstrates to me the importance of taking new ideas to market in order to keep your name or brand relevant.

Here’s a quick summary of what been happening:

• Blogging weekly at iStrategy on topics around the digital economy and inbound marketing.

• Presenting online at The Business Growth Summit, with the likes of Chris Brogan, Tim Ferriss, Dan Schawbel, Guy Kawasaki and plenty more. My presentation was “5 Ways to Turn Your Website into a Marketing Machine”.

• Guest blog at Starfish Consulting on overall web marketing.

• Interview on Sky Business News regarding the lack of website optimisation by Australian businesses.

• Speaking at the PublicSphere Digital Culture event as part of a collaborative submission on digital culture in Australia to the National Cultural Policy consultation.

• Speaking at an upcoming HunterNet event on social media as part of modern marketing.

• Joining a panel discussion for the New Institute on how to help make Newcastle an Ideas City.

……And there’s a few more trips for speaking engagements on the horizon.

Seems launching something new can be good for business in more ways than expected. What ideas, apps, sites, businesses or campaigns are you launching to get your name out there?

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Times have definitely changed. Until recently a new business would measure itself against a series of metrics like foot traffic, advertising reach and frequency, number of phone calls, number of calls or meetings by sales people, presentation to sales ratios, and of course actual sales.

But that was before the web, before Google and before social media networks took off.

In the era of inbound marketing the metrics have totally changed and I am studying them frantically in the wake of our recent NLYZR launch.

One week into my new start-up’s life I am able to track key metrics on an hourly basis to determine what’s working and what’s not. Here are some of the things I’m keeping track of:

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(originally uploaded by Triplepundit.com)

My last 3 posts have had a pretty strong theme running around innovation; Think Like a Tech Start-Up, What is Your Gateway Drug? and My Plan for Creating an Innovative City.  So its pretty easy to see where my thoughts are at the moment.

As an agency that likes to work on innovative side projects, like NLYZR and Urban Insider, my team and I are often questioning the role of agencies going forward. I mean, we’re all supposed to be highly creative aren’t we? So why aren’t we getting more involved in creating more new businesses and revolutionising industries instead of just trotting out another 30 sec ad?

Then along comes the always clever Neil Perkin with a new post on his Only Dead Fish blog titled Agencies as Incubators. In it Neil looks at the Cannes Lions (formerly advertising awards), an amazing program supported by Wieden & Kennedy called the Portland Incubator Experiment which has some parallels to the excellent Y-Combinator concept in Silicon Valley and how Apple fund and secure new technology breakthroughs.

You must read this if you are interested in innovation or if you are going to be at the next Lunaticks event Smart and Innovative City Part 2. THIS  is the sort of thinking we need in our industry, not more self-indulgent award wankfests.

It seems to me that the time is ripe for agencies to start challenging their clients to think beyond business as usual and use that creativity to radically interrupt industries in the way new technology is reshaping the landscape.

Is yours?

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Last night we had a forum in Newcastle discussing the desire for this once heavily industrial town to become a center for innovation. Unfortunately much of the panel discussion, and subsequently the audience questions, got bogged down in discussing the past, the limitations of council and old technology. It was a lost opportunity for what is an important and exciting discussion.

Newcastle offers many advantages for innovative companies - photo MattLauder.com.au

Near the end of the night I couldn’t help myself and grabbed the microphone to offer my simple plan for creating an innovative city. Here it is in writing for anyone who cares to take the discussion further or help expand and act on the ideas.

Incremental examples of creeping innovation from existing players won’t be enough to launch a town like Newcastle to national or international prominence as a smart and innovative city. A couple of major initiatives are required to create that catalyst for a dynamic leap forward.

Firstly, universal access to high-speed broadband is essential for a community to compete and indeed lead the way in innovation. In the digital economy we must be connected. It is not good enough to wait for the National Broadband Network to finally arrive in town. It doesn’t give us an advantage, it just puts us on par with the rest of Australia when (or if) it finally arrives.

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Drug dealers in The Wire are sophisticated marketers

Is it possible that drug dealers are smarter marketers than many multinationals?

Consider the two. Multinational pharmaceutical companies sell drugs. They spend a fortune on expensive media to convince us we need their drugs. Their cost per acquisition is high.

Illegal drug dealers also sell drugs. They often start with a free sample of their “goods” to a few key locals in their community. This gets the potential buyers “hooked”, creates a sense of loyalty and obligation and leads to strong word-of-mouth for their product. Their cost per acquisition is low and conversion rate is almost 100%.

Now, while I don’t suggest you move into distribution of illegal goods, I do recommend you emulate drug dealers with your marketing. Make a good product or service, make it addictive and give away a small amount for free in order to generate ongoing sales and word of mouth. Anyone who has ever watched The Wire has seen the sophisticated marketing and distribution of street level drug dealers.

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Evan Williams from Twitter at Web 2.0 Summit, San Francisco 2010

I live a secret life. By day I’m a mild mannered advertising agency exec (the manners might depend on who you ask) whilst in my spare time I am building a start-up tech business.

The start-up is NLYZR. Its been around for the last 2 years in various evolving forms but now we’re getting down to brass tacks as it’s large scale commercial release is nearing launch phase.

The interesting thing is that while we’ve been using our knowledge at Sticky to create NLYZR as a business, we’re actually learning more from NLYZR that is helping the agency and our other clients. We’ve learned to think like a tech start-up and its been incredibly liberating.

Tech start-ups require a totally different mindset to that used in the day-to-day running of an agency, or any business for that matter. In fact, tech start-ups are radically different from other (non-tech) start-ups. But, importantly, we’re learning that the defining characteristics of a successful tech start-up can be applied to most industries to create something much more exciting.

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The recurring question everyone is asked at a large industry event, like the Web 2.0 Summit, is “what do you do” or another variation, “what does your company do?” Your answer tells a lot about the focus and marketability of your company.

Drinks break at Web 2.0 Summit 2010

Most people answer this with a long, rambling description, often requiring a few follow up questions to clarify things for their interrogator. Alarm bells should ring if this is your typical response.

The smart and focused companies provide concise, easy to understand explanations. Think about how Apple always describes their killer products: iPod = 1000 songs in your pocket, iPhone = the web in your hand etc.

I met a lot of very smart start-up founders at Web 2.0 Summit and it was clear that the good ones could, without fail, explain their idea or business in a handful of words. They had their elevator pitch down pat as a result of being put through the ringer by VC’s in a very competitive market.

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Start me up

I have become increasingly fascinated by technology start-ups and the business of launching an online business. With this post I am looking to start an occasional dialogue on the trials and tribulations of starting a new business in the digital economy. We’ll see how it evolves.

In early April 2009, five Australian guys met in a funky bar in San Francisco to compare notes on their respective business ideas. There were three different technology start-ups involved in the conversation, all excellent ideas with bucket-loads of potential, and all three have taken very different paths to realization.

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