Startupalooza/iBreakfast: What's a Marketer's Mastermind Meeting? Report from last event.

Would you like to have savvy colleagues tear apart your marketing problems and deliver more new ideas in an hour than you are likely to see in a year?

That's the experience our lucky participants report after the 2nd Mastermind event last week.

Here is a report:

What's in a Marketers Mastermind?

Laura, Quest Workspaces and Joseph Armano, DTZ Services

While the point of the Marketer's Mastermind event is to tap the collective wisdom of the group as directed by myself and my associate, Mayra Ceja of TigerCub Advisors, we never know where exactly where this will take us.

After the event, however, we get the pulse of our industry. And yes, we are looking for a new name!

Group at Work

What we are seeing generally is the shallow adaptation of marketers to Social Media - at a time when the entire marketplace has embraced its value. In other words, they are doing it but without the conviction necessary to qualify for that all-important distinction: authentic.

Case #1: Production company in the non-profit world needs to separate themselves from the competition. Known to the industry as good but have not had the benefit of a breakthrough product.

Solution:

1. Set up and promote a blog that critiques non-profit campaigns fairly and honestly and with deep industry insight.

2. Add technical solutions that would have driven down cost or done more with less. (Without giving away all the secrets, of course.)

Michael Owen - MediaCombo

Case #2:

Blog aggregation company faces resistant or slow-moving from corporate clients after delivering time-sensitive proposals to corporate prospects who could use them for marketing campaigns. Despite long-term corporate PR background and many connections, door is open and never closes but nor do the deals - despite excellent analytics and well-crafted proposals. Also, a disinterest in industry meetings. What is wrong?

Solution

1: Walk the walk. Move from being the representative of bloggers to being one too.

2. Pull instead of push: Use the power of the bloggers to execute showcase programs instead of waiting for approvals. Let clients discover them.

Case #3:

Company seeks to expand to the outer boroughs but cannot gauge the true character of these markets.

Solutions: Attendees share inside knowledge of these locales wither from being based theri or having spent time there.

Case #4

How to write proposals that do not also turn out to be spec sheets that prospects can use for shopping expeditions after wasting developer's time.

Solution:

Wendy Goldberg - MommyBloggers

Since this is an age-old problem that will never be fully remedied, the answer lies in giving a fairly generic solution while holding out the deeper analysis proposal only upon a retainer or fee against credit on the business.

As always, when we do these highly interactive events, our participants have a hard time leaving. That is the power of tapping your peers for specialized advice.

Our question to you:

We need a better way to describe what these sessions are really about and how they could be improved. Also - should they be a webcast - something we can easily do from our new studios in White Plains or shred space in NYC?

Live only?

Or both?

Alan Brody and Mayra Ceja