Hey, MarCom!

Our latest survey report is here!

The 3rd annual Eccolo Media 2010 B2B Technology Collateral Survey Report is completed and ready for download. This is the third year in a row Eccolo Media has surveyed technology professionals regarding their purchasing habits and their attitudes on what makes for the most effective marketing collateral.

We’ve got some great new information to report this year, including emerging trends in embedded video, white papers, data sheets, corporate Web sites, and more--research that can be immediately applied to your marketing communications work. Check it out. We look forward to your feedback.

Check out Lorie Loe in the San Francisco Business Times

We've been busy putting together a brand new report on creating quality campaign content, but we wanted to give you a quick head's up that Lorie Loe, our founder and president, is featured in today's San Francisco Business Times. Click here to read the profile and get her take on some of the biggest risks, challenges, and rewards of running Eccolo Media.

Our 2010 report on reference collateral is here!

After months of hard work, today we're proud to announce the release of our latest publication, the Eccolo Media 2010 Supplemental Report on Reference Collateral!

The supplement specifically discusses reference content and offers a deeper level of analysis than the main survey report (available here) that we published last September. The new report also provides some concrete best practices that you can start applying to any single piece of content you may be developing, or your reference content strategy as a whole.

Download the free report to read about our latest findings, and be sure to check back here in the upcoming weeks for an ongoing discussion of what we discovered.

Report from the 2010 Customer Reference Forum

The 2010 Customer Reference Forum (CRF) took place this week in Santa Clara, California, and from what we've heard it was a smashing success.

Our founder and president Lorie Loe was there to present some new data from the upcoming supplement to our 2009 B2B Technology Collateral Survey Report. She also had the chance to chat with many of the other attendees, and she said that they were particularly interested in video. We can't say we're surprised--we've already discussed why video should be a priority for 2010--but Lorie said people were particularly interested in learning how to embed video content in case study documents to make them more interactive and visually interesting.

We've already created some best practices for delivering videos via case study PDFs, and as companies start looking for more innovative ways to get their videos in front of customers, we think this is definitely an area to keep an eye on. If you'd like start embedding videos or other multimedia content in your customer reference materials, let us know. We'd love to give you a hand.

Our new customer reference report is almost here

We mentioned it last November, but we wanted to give you a heads up that the new supplement to our 2009 B2B Technology Collateral Survey Report is almost ready.

For our supplemental report, we zeroed in on customer reference content, specifically written case studies, videos, and podcasts. We've gone back and crunched the numbers to provide a deeper level of analysis and we've created some actionable information you can use to make your reference collateral strategy more effective.

The new report will be available March 17, 2010, so be sure to check back here soon to download it for free.

Lead with thought leadership

Last week, we announced the release of our newest free strategy guide, The Five “Must-Have” Content Strategies for Technology Marketers in 2010. This week, we're taking a deeper dive into the document and exploring one of the most effective ways you (and your content) can reach new audiences: establishing thought-leadership.

It may sound like a chore, but developing thought-leadership doesn't have to be difficult. Pay attention to what your customers and clients are concerned about, and use that intelligence to think up two or three topics that address and advance solutions to a problem that they're dealing with. As tempting as it might be to focus on your products or services, our research shows that your customers care about their own pain. If you keep that simple fact in the back of your mind while creating your  content, your thought-leadership efforts will be much more successful.

Download our free guide to learn more about creating thought-leadership, and if you need help getting started developing some new content strategies for 2010, give us a call.

Making the leap to interactive content

We’re kicking off the new year with a brand new, free strategy guide that you can use to develop collateral assets, or finally dust off and refresh some of your older content you may not have looked at in a while. Our guide, the The Five “Must-Have” Content Strategies for Technology Marketers in 2010, details some of the latest trends in collateral development and can help your content reach a much wider audience and be more effective.

This year, we think that making your content as interactive as possible will be particularly important. Since the majority of people consume white papers and other marketing materials on their computers, it makes sense to include interactive elements in your white papers, case studies, brochures, and other collateral. The more people can “do” with your content, the more time they’ll spend reading what you have to say and exploring how they can use your products or services.

Download The Five “Must-Have” Content Strategies for Technology Marketers in 2010 to see how you can make your content interactive. If you want more guidance coming up with a plan incorporate videos, links, and other elements into your collateral, give us a shout. We’d love to help.

A new year and a new office location

We didn't mention it earlier, but November 2009 marked 10 years since the founding of Eccolo Media. We've seen incredible growth over the years, and now we're bursting at the seams at our current space in San Francisco's SoMA neighborhood. So, we're starting 2010 with a move to a bigger, more centralized office located in the city's Financial District. Our new office will help us serve our clients even better, and we're looking forward to even more growth and another stellar year in 2010.

Happy New Year from all of us at Eccolo Media!

Flipping for Flip video

Earlier this month, we talked about how video is a rising star in the world of B2B marketing. Not only do the numbers in our latest survey report show that B2B audiences are more receptive to video, but we're also hearing the same thing from our clients. In fact, we're getting more and more requests to create videos, especially customer video testimonials.

One way that we're meeting the increasing demand for videos is by using Flip HD cameras to film interviews. Flip cameras are small (so they're easy to mail to customers) and have good picture and sound quality (so you can produce a quality video). Check out this Flip camera video we created for one of our clients:

Flip cameras aren't ideal for every situation, but they great when you need to interview customers in multiple locations, when you've got a limited budget, or when schedules are tight.

We're creating some best practices around creating Flip videos, and definitely think Flip HD cameras are a video technology to keep an eye on. If you'd like to produce a Flip video of your own, let us know. We'd love to help.

Working on a major website refresh

So if we've seemed a little quiet lately, that might be because we're busy, busy, busy.

One of the things we're working on is a major website refresh--we've realized that our site, as much as we adore it, doesn't reflect the full evolution of Eccolo Media since we launched the company in 2007. (For the record, we've been around in one form or another since 1999, but we rebranded under our current name just two years ago.)

We're planning to prep new website content in anticipation of the mid-September launch of our new B2B Technology Collateral Survey Report. Stay tuned...