What I Learned at Satellite 2009

I've spent the past two days at the Satellite 2009 trade show. Given the overwhelming negative news these days, I'm thankful to spend some time with individuals and companies that are doing well, making money and excited about the future. The industry seems to be in a much better place than 2001 and seems poised to motor through 2009.

Here are the main takeaways:

1. Satellite operators and services companies have multi-year contracts that buffer them from somewhat from quarter to quarter fluctuations in the economy.

2. By and large, most satellite companies have remained immune to the leverage mania of the past decade and are in reasonably good financial shape.

3. The government continues to buy a huge amount of commercial satellite capacity.

4. Satellite capacity is at 90% utilized and there isn't a big number of new satellites going up in the next few years so pricing power and margins will remain good. There is no glut, like in 2001.

5. With utilization so high, current issues are interference mitigation and squeezing every last drop of data through the pipe.

6. Communications on the move (COTM) is again a hot application for both the military and commercial customers. I particularly liked the AT&T CruiseCast in-car satellite TV.

As with the FOSE show, I interviewed a number of people about their take on the show, hot trends, etc. We'll be polishing those up over the next few days and releasing them out into the wild...

Oscar Fuster! ePok! Straight to the Point podcast!!

Yes, it's very exciting! Last week, I was lucky enough to sit down with Oscar Fuster, the VP of Marketing and Strategic Alliances at ePok, an access management software company based in Bethesda, MD. Oscar is an experienced marketer having lead marketing teams at iGov, International data Products, SMS Data Products Group. He shares his experiences working in growth environments and the impact of social media. Oscar's been with ePok for less than a year- would you market ePok differently?



(In the interests of transparency, ePok and Strategic (my firm) are working together. We were picked to develop and run the social media/PR aspect of Oscar's marketing strategy.)

Notes from AMA Mobile Marketing Event

I attended an interesting and informative event at NPR's office last Thursday night on mobile marketing put together by the DC chapter of the American Marketing Association. I've talked a lot about mobile marketing on this blog over the years.

Just my two cents: it's been a long time coming, but I think the promise of (at least non-Location Based Services (LBS)) mobile marketing is at hand.

The event had a strong, experienced panel who confirmed a lot of what I already knew about marketing on mobile devices but had a lot of new compelling information. Here are the panelists:

DP Venkatesh, CEO, mPortal

Mary Gramaglia, Director of Sales, Sybase 365

Michael Lieberman, Mobile Integration Director, Hyperfactory

Demian Perry, Product Manager Content Development and Mobile Operations, NPR

Chris Parandian, Founder, Tin Can Communications

(Thanks to the ever-charming Old Town Alexandria resident, Limor Shafman, for moderating the panel!!)

The topics of discussion ranged from extremely tactical to very high level. Here are some of the takeaways...

1. Mobile marketing is a unique medium due to the intimate and individual nature of the interaction. People don't share phones so their handheld is an extension of the person and his/her personality. When marketing through mobile, that relationship must be respected.
2. Ask for help. Mobile marketing is complex and cannot be planned in a silo without reference to your other branding, marketing and PR efforts. Like all media, mobile marketing has strengths and weaknesses- plan for both. Mobile is digital and can be tracked like any digital campaign. But be sure mobile targets your audience and make sure your message is relevant for that audience.
3. Don't distract, annoy, bore, confuse or attempt to hold your audience hostage.
4. Mobile marketing is about engagement rather than reach. Always include a call to action to further interact with you. Mobile marketing is, at its core, a social medium, akin to social networking. Give people a chance to participate and express themselves. Don't blast a brand message to 100,000 people.
5. Go to the Mobile Marketing Association and read their marketing guidelines.

Do you think the panel left anything out? Should marketers think about mobile marketing in a different way? Or ignore it?