The folks at Learning Technologies always like to make a splash, so let’s just call the wet weather this week an added bonus shall we? Like a troop of flag waving well-wishers at a jubilee flotilla, Britain’s hardiest L&D professionals refused to let the downpours dampen their spirits as they mass-marched through Olympia’s doors this Wednesday and Thursday. As usual, our inquisitive team of pollsters were there to capture knee-jerk reactions as visitors exited the industry’s biggest hall of fame and set sail for the tube station. If you’re new to our Exit Poll here’s the skinny:  Armed with no more than a clipboard, a cup of coffee and a ‘can do’ attitude, our top team of talented pollsters is let loose on the streets of Hammersmith Road just outside the event’s main exit doors. Several hours and hundreds of questions later, we start crunching the numbers into the wee small hours of Thursday evening. Less than 24 hours after the doors close on Learning Technologies 2014, "hay presto": for your delight and entertainment, we present this year’s headline highlights from our #LT14UK exit poll. (Want more detail? Ask us about a Learning Technologies retrospective #Hackday) We asked: "When you planned your Learning Technologies 2014 visit, which company was on top of your must see list before visiting the show today?" LT14uk visitors said: 1 2 3 4 5 We asked: "In terms of visual impact, which company really looked fresh and stood out for you at the show today?" LT14uk visitors said: 1 2 3 4 5 We asked: "Without looking down at any of the literature you’ve come away with today, can you name one of the event’s official sponsors?" Top five responses from most frequent (left) to least frequent (right) were: 1 2 3 4 5 We asked: "In terms of engagement, which company do you think you had the most profitable conversation with?" The top five most popular answers from our respondents were: 1 2 3 4 5 We asked: "Did you download the official Learning Technologies app?"  Yes 26% No 74%       Freebies, teasers and giveaways: We asked: "What free stuff, if any, stood out for you as you walked around the show?" 1 2 3 =4 5 We asked: "Without looking, name one company’s case study, brochure material or other information that you remember putting in your show bag?" The top five most popular answers from our respondents were: 1 2 3 4 5 We asked; "Of all the literature you’ve come away with today, what do you think you’ll be reading on the Tube home?" The top five most popular answers from our respondents were: 1 Official show guide 2 Reed ‘Little Book of…’ 3 eLearning Age 4 HR Director Magazine 5 Epic Brochure/Literature One to watch! We asked; "During your show visit, did you see  any new business or businesses previously unknown to you that looked interesting?" The top five most popular answers from our respondents were: 1 2 3 4 5 We asked: "When you studied the free seminar series, which presentations held most appeal for you?" The top five most popular answers from our respondents were: 1. Gamification produces better results than eLearning… 2. Everything eLearning with Adobe. 3. Learning analytics. 4. Using mobile for performance support. 5. Learning and the inexorable rise of mobile multi-screen. We asked: "Did you find what you were looking for today?"  Yes 86 %  No 9%  Unsure 5% More: LT14UK analysis: 5 Marketing lessons to bookmark for learning technologies 2015  

The all new L&D Marketing Spending Review is out now. Get the highlights in our infographic below then download the full report to see what B2B marketers in L&D will be spending budget on over the next 18 months. Download this infographic on a pdf Want to see how we did it? Download the full report

Content from the nowcomms.com: the B2B marketing company for tech busineses in education, sports, security & ID. See the full story here Easy squeezy: how to get more from your B2B marketing budget There’s no shortage of statistical evidence to help out the B2B marketer who decides that now is the right time to pitch the board for a budget increase, and certainly many of the arguments we’ve read are incredibly well made (In their book "Sexy Little Numbers", Dimitri Maex & Paul B. Brown make the strongest case for increasing marketing spend we’ve seen in ages). But in the real world of the boardroom and the balance sheet, experience tells us that the best starting bid for any B2B marketer pitching for a budget boost is to accentuate the savings that new processes and efficiencies will deliver before weighing in with the return on investment message that supports a call for a budget increase. As B2B marketers across the country get prepped for the biggest budget meeting of the year, here are six efficiency measures we reckon most B2B marketing programmes could easily deploy. 1. Re-use, re-purpose and off-set costs Truth is, with just a little forward thinking and good planning most marketing operations could be getting more out of their expenditure. The trick is to identify opportunities to re-use, re-purpose and so off-set costs. While the proud "creatives" amongst our ranks don’t like to admit it, the classic 80-20 split that applies throughout the consultancy business, applies to marketing too: If you dentify the 80% of "product" that is common across all of your content marketing programmes then pinpointing new ways to get more out of the resources you have becomes easy. So just what are the deliverables you’ve outlined in the B2B marketing plan for the months ahead? Chances are you’re looking at a mix that includes advertising, direct comms, media relations, web and perhaps some trade shows and events (either your own or via a presence at shows organised for your industry). Newsletters, brochure-ware and other sales support material, media relations, direct mailers (either paper or web based) and advertising are likely to be some of the most common products you’re planning to deploy as the marketing plan unfolds. Take the time to think critically about the common elements at the heart of each of these and cost savings will start to crystallise. 2. Start by thinking different So you don’t think your budget can be stretched to cover ongoing outbound marketing programmes eh? Every company communicates with its customers and prospects directly. It’s just a case of finding the opportunities that can be leveraged. Simply sending out a bill or monthly statement is a direct marketing opportunity, so use it. Could invoices be redesigned to include relevant marketing material on the back (or in hyper links if you send e-invoicing), could monthly newsletters or well chosen product sheets be included? Similarly, when staff communicate via e-mail, couldn’t simple call-to-action opportunities be administered to drive customers to your site or encourage input and feedback? For most companies, the monthly invoice and ongoing email transactions remain the most regular communications that exist between the business and its customers, yet opportunities to cross or up-sell are rarely maximised. 3. Re-purpose and recycle If you’re developing customer case study material that can’t easily be re-purposed to fuel media relations activities then think hard: If the material is not strong enough to appeal to the titles that communicate with your customers and prospects then why subject your audience to the same material via your web site or direct mail? So often direct mailers, newsletters and web-zines house second-rate content that ultimately deliver second-rate experiences to the customers they should be designed to serve. If your press and media activities are producing good quality news stories capable of generating genuine media traction, then treat these stories as exclusives in the newsletters or direct mailings you create. In time readers will come to recognise the information you issue as an "exclusive first look" at content strong enough to generate industry wide interest via more widely circulated titles. 4. Don’t just advertise, incentivise! Across all media vehicles, the classic ad insertion has been put to rest forever and any creative concept that does not incorporate effective reader response tactics has been roaming with the dinosaurs since the dawn of the Internet. Make accounting for your committed ad spend easy by developing a carefully planned series of calls-to-actions designed to prompt readers towards downloads, offers or "unavailable elsewhere" information. The responses your efforts generate will serve as essential data to help streamline ad budgets by highlighting media vehicles that deliver prospects and exposing those that don’t. 5. Avoid the pitfalls of water cooler B2B marketing strategy "Good" marketing advice and assistance can come from the most unlikely of places. Whether its Frank from the photocopy room or the most senior company board member, for B2B marketing people like us it seems everyone in the office is an expert sometimes. But while ad hoc help and advice delivered at the water cooler can be thought-provoking and invaluable, it’s unlikely to be supported by the hard, indisputable facts that you could be gathering from your customers. When every penny of your B2B marketing budget has to count, even a simple programme of customer and prospect research will provide the hard evidence and statistics you need to stay the course and keep marketing expenditure targeted during the coming months: Endless internal debates about the effectiveness of your newsletter are quickly stamped out with a customer survey statistic that validates the tactic and dozens of potentially unnecessary and costly product announcements may be shelved with some snapshot research indicating that product news is not the type of information your audience wants to hear from you. With a really relevant B2B marketing approach, justifying budget priorities becomes easy. By making sure it’s your customers that are driving your B2B marketing efforts at all times you’ll be able to better justify the expenditure you do make and remain confident that any projects or activities you shelve are canned with an endorsement from the target community your efforts are designed to serve. If developing the customer or perception data you need to validate or tweak strategy sounds like a big ticket item, work with the sales people in your operation to drill down and focus on the top 10 percent of prospects you want to sell to this year. Perhaps even encourage people in the sales team to use research opportunities to nurture contacts and develop better relationships. Many sales people will relish the opportunity to contribute to the questionnaire and the data gathering process. Some may even see value in contacting a prospect for research rather than the predictably routine sales call. 6. When the going gets tough, the tough innovate "When the going gets tough, the tough innovate", says Prof. Andrew Razeghi of Kellog School of Management. "Moments of economic turbulence are the unique opportunities to start new businesses, launch disruptive new products, and strengthen customer loyalty". As B2B marketing people like us scope out activities, margins for error are paper thin and the need to boost the value and effectiveness delivered via the programmes we manage is greater than ever.  We don’t need more budget to achieve this, we need to innovate more with the budget we’ve got. See the full story Easy squeezy: how to get more from your B2B marketing budget

Well stop all the clocks! The company website is officially the number one marketing channel of choice for L&D professionals today according to the findings in our all new Marketing Spending Review for L&D in 1014 report. Yea, we get it. You kinda knew that already right? Well hold it right there fella. We don’t do these big complex research programmes just so we can point out the bleedin’ obvious (obviously).  What’s really interesting about the all-new top 10 most popular marketing tools in L&D chart isn’t what’s making the top 10. It’s what’s movin’ and shakin’ in the top 10. Here’s the skinny. What’s in and what’s out? Marketing Automation (like Marketo or Hubspot) 37%  Sponsorship (of industry events, awards, initiatives, etc) 32% Trade and business magazine advertising 16% iPhone or Android apps 10%  You have to look outside the top 10 to see what’s really changing.  Traditional high ranking marketing tactics like sponsorship or trade and business magazine advertising have been on a downward trajectory for some time, but now, with only 32% of L&D marketers listing sponsorship and just 16% listing trade & business advertising  as priority parts of their current mix, these classics look to have run their course. The new entries set to enter the top 10 in the months to come look promising. We’ve spotted half a dozen or so fast movers racing up the chart this time around but the ones we’re really excited about are the rise of marketing automation and the adoption of the app in B2B marketing. The L&D sector has traditionally been slow to adopt tech tools to support B2B marketing programmes but with 37% now saying that they use some form of marketing automation things look set to change.  Admittedly, when we drill down on this figure, it looks like the term "marketing automation" still remains unclear for some (email marketing platforms like ConstantContact or MailChimp were occasionally thought to be "marketing automation" platforms rather than systems like Act-on or Marketo) but even allowing for some degree of error, the rise of the marketing automation machine in L&D looks like a pretty safe bet from where we’re standing. What’s movin’ and shakin’? Inside the top 10 it’s really a matter of spotting the fast movers (Relax, we’ve made this super-easy by putting either one, two or three arrows next to each item in the chart). SEO and content marketing collaterals (guides, downloads infographics, etc) are the two fastest growing priorities for B2B marketers in L&D right now according to our new report and tactics like Ad words (or other forms of PPC) have established themselves as major players in the marketing mix. In the top three, the company website, social networks and eMail marketing all look safe in the space for the foreseeable future, although social marketing (via networks like G+, LinkedIn, Facebook or twitter) has become a greater priority than eMail for most marketers in L&D this time round (this may be because email marketing programmes are now established and working fairly effectively for many). Further down the table in spots seven and eight, it’s worthwhile noting the pretty dramatic change that’s occurring in events marketing right now. The traditional big ticket events are giving way to smaller (often self run) micro events. These home run workshops, seminars, user groups or on-line communities have bulleted up our chart for two reasons we think: Firstly, the past few years of austerity have prompted marketers to focus on marketing activities they can run cheaply but effectively using resources they already have. Secondly, B2B marketers in L&D are starting to reap the benefits of investments made in the company website, which is now the marketing hub that powers lead nurturing programmes from most businesses. 1 Company website 98% 2 Social networks (like linkedIn or Facebook) and business networks (like TrainingZone or HRZone) 83% 3 eMail marketing (like eNewsletters) 79%  4 Marketing collaterals - like brochures or product sheets 63% 5 Search Engine Optimisation 58% 6 Debating collaterals - like White papers, eBooks, research papers or studies 57% 7 Major events 53% 8 Smaller events (like networking seminars, focus groups or workshops) 52% 9 News collaterals - like case studies and press releases 51% 10 Online Advertising (like PPC or Adwords) 47% The all new Marketing Spending Review for marketers in L&D is out now. Get more highlights in our infographic then download the full report to see what B2B marketers in L&D will be spending budget on over the next 18 months. Want to see how we did it? Download the full report

Ever wondered what happened to that specialist B2B marketing agency for digital security & ID sector? The one you’d always see around the big industry trade shows like Biometrics, Cartes, SIMalliance or SDW? You remember them right? They were the ones bright enough to get national attention for your digital security & ID news stories when no one else could. The ones who made biometrics look Tom Cruise grade sexy on the international news channels. The ones with enough vision and creativity to position your new start-up alongside Microsoft and Google in the global media markets. Ever wondered what happened to these guys? Five years ago, just a week after completing a major promotional programme for one of our digital security & ID clients, we were asked a question we’d never been asked before. It wasn’t a question from the marketing director, it was a question from the sales director: "If all this exposure in the news and on TV is so great, then why isn’t my phone ringing? The sales director had a point. 20 million people had seen what his product was capable of on major networks like Sky and CNN. The managing director was on cloud nine thanks to a full page profile and picture in the New York Times and the marketing director’s exposure per $ invested ROI chart looked like the Kangshung Face of Everest. But in spite of all this high end exposure, folks in the sales department hadn’t noticed anything different. Above all else, two things have driven change in B2B marketing over the past five years: new technology has opened up powerful new communications channels for B2B marketers, and the worst global recession in living history has meant that no company that cared about survival could afford to ignore them. As we emerge from these past years of austerity, B2B marketing has changed for good. The demand for national news coverage and the high profile TV spots that marketing managers wanted because they would "boost company awareness" look like fuzzy, ill-defined objectives these days. Today marketing directors in the digital security and ID sector want awesome content marketing and online conversion tactics that demonstrably boost sales. Press releases and news announcements that were carefully crafted to connect company decision makers to the most influential journalists have been replaced by blogs and social engagement tactics that target prospects directly online and via LinkedIn,G+, twitter and Facebook. So what happened to that really cool marketing company that used to get unprecedented international attention for your digital security and ID news stories? Well we changed. The world changed, and B2B marketing changed. If major news attention in the press and on the big TV networks is all you want then that’s fine. But if you’re looking for something more, then you’ll be glad to know we’re back. More: Five things your should know about Now if you’re in the digital security & ID business Want to keep watching as we re-connect with our friends in the digital security and ID business? Sign up to our nowfriday newsletter: the security and ID edition or join us us on G+.

Fiercely independent, always investigative and entirely unofficial, our special World of Learning exhibitors report is out now. What’s the skinny? If you’ve not seen our special event reports for B2B marketers in L&D before, then here’s how they work. First we use our vast database of L&D contacts to track down exhibitors at this year’s show, then we ask them all the stuff you really want to know (but the orginisers don’t want to tell you) about this industry’s biggst shows and events. Finally we crush all the learninig up into one simple download short enough to read in the hallway just a couple of minutes before you go into your next marketing planning meeting. Be informed, be very informed Download the full report here or just impress co-workers and appear more cleaver than you are by reading the five big findings take-away below. WOLCE14 exhibitors survey: five big findings to take-away ⅓ of WOLCE14’s exhibitors said that over half of the people they met there were "high-level prospects they could do business with" The show was less busy than most exhibitors expected Exhibitors most probably left the show with as many as 25 good sales leads to follow up on Exhibitors uncertain about recommending WOLCE to a friend or colleague Learning Technologies, CIPD and LearningLive are the three shows that WOLCE14 exhibitors consider attending next Get the full report - instant download

The constantly growing crop of free newswires springing up across the web is raising more questions than answers for many of the B2B marketing folks we talk to these days: "Do these sites work?", "What’s the catch?", "Should I bother using them and, if so, then which ones are worth the effort?" are amongst the most frequently raised questions on our forums and at our seminars right now. So what’s the score? Free newswires may claim to offer free "distribution" services what the vast majority of them really offer is free publishing: they’re not really distributing your story in the same way that a paid for service like prnewswire.com or businesswire.com would. So long as this is understood, choosing which free newswires to publish to becomes relatively easy. Golden rule number one: look for signs that your chosen free newswire ticks the right boxes with major news aggregators like Google news or NewsNow. Most free services boast "distribution partnerships" with the big aggregators and will prominently display the logos of the best known on their site. The more aggregators monitoring the site you publish to, the greater your chances of appearing in online search (Google news, Yahoo News, etc). Golden rule number two: try to publish to a site that allows you to hyperlink back to your own site. Many free services allow you to do this at the end of your news in the details section but what you’re really looking for is a site that allows you to link back to your site in the body text of your news story: back linking, is one of the best SEO strategies you can do to boost your search engine rankings. Golden rule number three: learn to spot the pitfalls. Is the news site you are publishing to using your content to drive traffic to your competitors? If the site does not allow back linking it may be using your own keywords to drive contextual advertising and / or Google AdSence content. Before you publish to a news site for the fist time, see how the site treats other news already posted. Danger areas to look out for are keywords used to drive third party ad programmes or AdWords on the page. If these features seem to dominate, publishing to this site may be doing more harm than good. Bottom line: there’s no such thing as a free lunch. But knowing this doesn’t stop us marketing types squaring the occasional deal over a table at The Ivy, and neither should it stop us taking advantage of some of the free publishing offers out there. So long as we accept the obvious limitations of what’s on offer for free, posting to one or two of the better wire services is, at worst, unlikely to do any harm. At best, you might just be taking the first steps towards developing a mature SEO strategy for your business. Free newswires: The good, the bad and the ugly Here’s our review of the best, and the worst, free news publishing sites for your content. Click their logos to jump over to any of them. A popular and credible looking news publisher only open to content providers after their first submission has been accepted. This site ticks the quality and structure options that most of the main aggregators look for and a link back to your site is available in the details section at the end of a news story. An element of editorial discretion from the folks behind this service adds weight to i-newswire’s claim to be "committed to publishing quality content".  So long as it’s well structured and follows the standard rules of news writing, your story is likely to make the grade.  Approvals take about two hours. Service claims 24 news distribution "partners" including moreover, MSN and Feedzilla. The ability to include clickable links inside the body text of your news story means submissions to this site could have some positive impact on your SEO. In addition, PRLog’s scheduling tool means you can time bomb your news output up to two weeks ahead. Some editorial checks keep this newswire "PR Spam" free and ensure that content ticks all the right boxes for the web spiders at popular news sites like Moreover, Google and NewsNow Good editorial control managed within the familiar WordPress interface means this wire is easy for existing WordPress bloggers to use and popular with the WordPress community. Cross linking with its partner business PR Zoom in the UK, NewsWire Today’s free service could offer a good home for news with genuine transatlantic relevance, but adding logos or hyperlinks comes at a price here and, unless you upgrade, surfers reading your news will also be presented with Google AdSense targeted adds from companies that may not be too dissimilar to your own. Free means less than 3000 characters at this site, which is more than enough for any news story, but  hyperlinks and images can’t be included without upgrading from free to paid for. One real turn off may be this site’s contextual ad policy, turning your own keywords into ad links for others. Operating since 1999, this is one of the longest established news distribution sites out there, but it’s been slumbering in recent months while others have incorporated social apps like twitter or RSS readers. Still listing the long defunct Virgin Radio as a "recent customer", this service may have had its day.  In such a cluttered market, dedicating a wire to one specific type of news seems like a good idea. Except that little or no editorial checks mean that e-commerce news posted to this site sits alongside online jewellery operations pushing Dolly Parton rhinestones and shady insurance companies targeting those of us who’ve been injured at work. Shame News is well categorised here but the free service offers no opportunity to link  back to your site. The most likely outcome of posting news here may be offers to buy a listing in the business directory that supports pr.com’s free news service. More: Have you used any of the free publishing or distribution services mentioned here? Leave a comment if you think we’ve dropped a clanger and mis-rated a service, or if there are alternative services you think should be listed too.

Content from the nowcomms.com: the B2B marketing company for tech busineses in education, sports, security & ID. See the full story here B2B marketing analytics is easy when no one’s asking difficult questions Our B2B marketing analytics models tell us that over the past 18 months, the average number of candidates nurtured through our content marketing programmes has shot up by over 25%.  Traffic on the websites we manage and monitor is up and landing page conversions are delivering better qualified leads than ever. This is all great news: clients are happier and their sales teams are selling more stuff. Trouble is -  we’re not sure we’re actually doing anything different. Sure, we’re in the B2B content marketing game so we’re analysing content and web stats all the time to refine user journeys and make performance enhancements. But the truth is, everything just seems to be working better right now. Companies using our B2B content marketing and analytics services say their marketing has really started to deliver since they brought us in, and salespeople who have never rated marketing’s ability to deliver seriously good prospects are following up on the leads we pass over to them and becoming our best evangelists. So how come sales and marketing people got so effective all of a sudden? It’s the economy stupid? We’d love to take all the responsibility for the improved sales across our client base, but the truth is, for most of us in business in the UK, it’s the economic upturn that’s been driving more sales. Brits started to get really positive about the economy over the summer. The tipping point was around mid August when news that Britain’s economic growth had at last surpassed its (2008) pre-crash peak really did start to entrench confidence. Don’t get us wrong: marketing in an economy that’s on the up is a lot more fun than marketing in a downturn, but it does highlight the problem of measurement. How do we really know our sales and marketing is improving when the economy is getting better anyway? Here’s the science bit Combining facts with judgment to create "proof" is what B2B marketers do. When we’re under pressure to demonstrate ROI for the creative stuff we cook up, no one should be surprised when we turn to slick models like MPM (Marketing Performance Measurement and management) or use analysis approaches like PEST to dazzle the board. Watching marketers run through marketing analytics models like these can be a little like watching Jennifer Anniston talk science during a Loreal shampoo commercial: The presentation is fantastic but the audience rarely cares enough about the topic to ask really difficult questions. Don’t let B2B marketers get away with it Let’s face it: marketing directors aren’t any different to anyone else in the workplace. From the CEO to the boys in the mailroom everyone’s under pressure to prove that the stuff they do for the company is the stuff that’s delivering all the difference. "Success" said John Kennedy, "has a thousand fathers. Failure is an orphan" (Kennedy wasn’t in the B2B marketing game so he didn’t actually say this. But what he did say was close enough - especially when you’re presenting to an audience that doesn’t care enough about your topic to ask really difficult questions). But what if the audience does care enough? What if they did ask more difficult questions? The vast majority of measurement models available to B2B marketers are as robust as any used across the business ecosystem - so long as they are used rigorously. What’s the point of PEST The whole point of PEST analysis is to factor micro-economic influencers (like an economic upturn) into the measurement process. (A PEST analysis studies the external Political, Economic, Social and Technology factors most likely to impact any measurement process). At best, many B2B marketers might mention PEST analysis to kick off a snazzy presentation, but the fact that external factors may have a positive influence is usually reluctantly communicated with clinical speed. In the same way that financial ads tell us our investment might go up or down, the audience is often forewarned but rarely reminded. Asking difficult questions makes this form of statistical hoodwinking difficult. This blog starts off with a claim that the content marketing programmes we create for our clients are delivering 25% more leads than they did 18 months ago, but it’s incredibly naive to think that our programmes are actually 25% better than they were 18 months ago. Conversions are up: because more people buy in an economy that’s growing; because more audience is turning to the social media platforms that spread our content every day; because more buyers are turning to the internet to research and compare propositions; because marketing automation is improving; and because Google’s search algorithm makes finding the right content easier every time it’s revised. If we’re honest with ourselves, we’d say our programs are better because we understand these external factors and quickly learn to leverage them to make the marketing we do deliver more. If we’re honest with our customers, we’d say they should ask more difficult questions more often. See the full story B2B marketing analytics is easy when no one’s asking difficult questions

Content from the nowcomms.com: the B2B marketing company for tech busineses in education, sports, security & ID. See the full story here ICE Totally Gaming Show panic button Starting to panic about all the marketing stuff you’ve still got to do for the ICE Totally Gaming Show this February? Relax, we’ve got it covered. For the days remaining before the big show gets under way, we’re lifting the hood on the Now marcomms machine and offering exclusive access to the tried and tested social marketing, lead nurturing, content creation and content distribution tools we use to deliver the creative campaigns that get real results for our clients. Having managed stands ourselves at ICE, as well as having nearly 10 years of working with some of Europe’s leading B2B sports and gaming companies, we’ve got a pretty good handle on all the marcomms stuff that causes palpitations at this time of year. If you’re struggling to deliver all that’s expected of you for ICE Totally Gaming, check out what’s on offer and get back to us if there’s anything we can do to help. ICE Totally Gaming Show Panic Button Click here to see what our B2B marketing pack for ICE Totally Gaming Show exhibitors can do for you this February. See the full story ICE Totally Gaming Show panic button

Content from the nowcomms.com: the B2B marketing company for tech busineses in education, sports, security & ID. See the full story here Game changing: Why we think sports and technology are a winning match-up We’re all pretty sports focused here at Now Towers: This year, members of the team have signed up to do the Tower 42 run, the Etape du Tour and the Nice Half Marathon (Ken even has a Blue Peter badge for rock climbing!) and we also love our technology. What really excites us though is how the combination of the two presents some really exciting opportunities for business. Sport is social We all know watching a big match on your own just isn’t the same as it is with mates, but with social platforms, fans can share their views and emotions with the world whether they be at the Maracana or at home on the sofa: Last year’s World Cup final generated 618,000 tweets per minute at its peak, demonstrating the power of the platform to engage a global audience.  This gets really exciting when startups and existing established companies start harnessing these online conversations to enable brands, rightsholders and clubs to get closer to the fans. Pulselive and Grabyo are just two young companies creating new ways to reach out to fans and "own" the the online conversation, providing a crossover between a live event or broadcast and other platforms.  It’s a nascent sector and one that we think has real potential over the next few years. Backing a winner We’ll try and avoid the betting puns as much as possible, but the combination of sports betting and technology innovation is a bet we’d put our house on.  Money’s a great motivator in any market and in one where revenues from sport have rocketed in recent years, and where punters seem to have an almost inexhaustible appetite for new bet types, it’s no surprise to us that the betting industry has invested so much in new technology and has become a powerful partner to sports clubs, federations and broadcasters The interesting bit for us though is the effect it has on innovation: Developers are building better platforms that work across more and more devices to cater for an ever more mobile customer base (According to Push Technology, mobile devices have already overtaken PC and laptop as bettors’ device of choice), while data and video providers are encouraged to develop ever more detailed and engaging formats for their clients to improve their clients’ betting offering. That means we can now bet on our local side (the high-flying Brentford FC) and follow the game through near real-time graphic visualisations thanks to live data products from the likes of Perform Group. In fact, even in restricted markets betting seems to breed creativity: Companies like Fanduel and Draft Kings are inking multi-million dollar deals with official leagues and teams to run Fantasy sports games in jurisdictions where traditional sports betting is banned. Wish we’d thought of that… So good old TV sport is dead, right? Not by a long shot. In fact, it’s never offered such an engaging experience (with the exception of Alan Shearer’s half-time "insights").  Whether watching Jeff Stelling and the boys on a saturday afternoon or the serve analysis during live tennis from Wimbledon, innovations in data analysis and graphics packages have provided an ever more colourful, accessible and informative experience for seasoned fans and newcomers alike. Its all thanks to innovative companies like Hawk-Eye, Opta, Vizrt and Deltatre and we’re pretty convinced that as the demands of the TV viewer change, we’ll see more and more innovation in this space. All that’s great, but where do we fit in? Well, we won’t kid you: We’re not the tech experts - we leave that to the entrepreneurs and coders creating and exploiting all these great opportunities. Where we do know our stuff though, is in distilling what really makes products and services great, building interest in them through compelling content and ultimately securing business through a programme of carefully planned, targeted and tracked communications. We reckon this, along with our background in and passion for sports make us the ideal partner for companies in the sports technology space looking to grow their client list in 2015. Sound interesting?  drop us a line and let us buy you a coffee - It could be the start of a winning partnership. See the full story Game changing: Why we think sports and technology are a winning match-up