A Marketing Blog by Mike Volpe

I took a bunch (3,000 photos during my safari in Kenya).  I have selected about 200 that I think are good photos, here they are.  If you want to know more about the equipment I used, check out the article on Kenya Safari Photo Advice.

HubSpot has just launched a new PR tool called Press Release Grader, a tool that evaluates your press release and provides a nifty report about what is good and bad about it.  Some of the cool features that get me excited are:

1. Gobbeldygook Word Analysis - The tool automatically sans your press release for the meaningless terms that are overused in press releases everywhere.
2. Word Cloud - I think this is a really neat tool to see what your press release is REALLY about, not what you think it is about.
3. Link Analysis - One of the most under-utilized parts of press releases is the value of linking back to your own website for SEO purposes, this tool gives a nifty analysis of the links in your press release.

Check it out and let us know what you think!  www.PressReleaseGrader.com

What should a VP of Marketing get paid at a technology startup company? I have some data below from a well respected compensation survey of a large number of tech startups. Please note, all of this data is for non-founders. If you are a founder of the company, your equity is higher (and sometimes cash pay is lower).

You should check out the summary compensation report developed from the raw data that I used. You will also notice that I broke the data into four quartiles. Everyone wants to be in the top quartile, but that is not statistically possible. So, what separates the more highly paid from the less highly paid VPs of Marketing? I have a list of the factors I think are most important below. Your mileage may vary.

Factors Determining VP of Marketing Pay / Compensation Scale

1. More experience = more pay. As a younger marketing VP, I feel weird about saying this, but I do think that people with more experience can justify a higher pay package. She or he has seen the movie before and will anticipate challenges more.
2. More analytical = more pay. Many marketers are more emotional than analytical. All marketers need some level of emotional feel to be effective - not every decision has numerical data available - but for most tech startups, lead genration and analyical practices are critical, and a purely brand/emotion based marketer is not going to bring the proper skills to the team. Brand is nothing without leads and new customers at a startup tech company.
3. Domain expertise = higher pay. Clearly if you have some expertise in the particular domain that the startup is serving, you can justify getting a higher level of compensation.
4. More customers in the market = higher pay. Let's be honest, marketing is not required to be a core competency of every company. For instance, at a company that is targeting the CTOs of just Fortune 100 companies, getting new customers really is largely a sales effort - the market of potential users is well defined, and lead generation is more of an activity to support sales than something truly strategic. Sure, there is still a huge branding, messaging and positioning game, but without lead gen you have removed a big posrtion of the marketing challenge. Plus, if you think about the importance and big pay that top tier consumer marketers get, it makes sense to say that the larger the number of potential customers the more of a marketing challenge it becomes.
5. A marketing-related product = higher pay. Companies that sell a product that has to do with marketing (email marketing software, web design, CRM, etc.) should more highly value a VP of Marketing because of the strategic input into the company. If you are selling data-storage hardware, then the VP Marketing does not have a more special skill for knowing the customer than some other folks in the company. But if you are selling to other Marketing VPs, then your own Marketing VP is a useful resource - because he or she is also a prospect / customer.
6. Better company = better pay. The hotter the company that higher the pay should be. This might sound counterintuitive, but I believe in it strongly. Why? Because hot tech startups demand a lot from employees, and also demand an A+ team - this is true for a VP of Marketing as well. If things are going well, things will move fast, and having a VP of Marketing that can change and adapt
7. Rare skills = more pay. If the company desires rare skills in their head of marketing, such as experience with mobile marketing, or knowledge of SEO, or expertise in international markets, they should expect to pay more for these skills.

Special thanks to two friends who are in the process of acquiring new jobs. Both of you made me think about this issue and inspired the blog post. I won't mention your names, but I think you know who you are. :)

Do you have other thoughts on VP of Marketing compensation at startup tech companies? Leave a comment below.

I heard someone call HubSpot the "Web 2.0 Version of [a marketing software company]" this week.  It annoyed me.  Less because they were comparing HubSpot to a sort of boring company with complicated, expensive products that don't really work, but more because they described HubSpot as "web 2.0".

Top 10 Reasons Why HubSpot is NOT a Web 2.0 Company

1. Our company name is easy to spell.
2. We have more people over 25 in the company than under 25.
3. Our company name does not sound like it ends in "-er" but actually just ends in "r".
4. We are not based in a loft in San Francisco.
5. Our logo does not have a reflection in it.
6. Our product does not say "Beta" over 2 years after launch.
7. We do not have Guitar Hero in our office. 
8. Both of our co-founders have gray hair.
9. We have paying customers... lots of them.
10. Revenue.  Did I mention revenue?

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Update: I'm back!  You can check out my safari photos and see how they turned out.
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I'm going on a safari in Kenya in a while, and I spent a bunch of time today searching for and buying the right photography setup for the trip.  I took a photography class in high school and even developed my own stuff back then (remember film?) but since then I have been a point and shoot kind of guy.  I do have a small digital photo printer at home.  So, I contacted a couple people and read a lot online to get back into the game a bit. Based on advice from websites and friends that I emailed, here are my conclusions for how to get decent safari photos without spending tons of money on pro-level equipment.

1. Get a decent camera with telephoto lens, at least to 300mm, preferably with some for of vibration reduction or image stabilization.  You'll need it to get good pictures of the wildlife.  I bought a Nikon D60 with a 70-300mm lens, the best deals seem to be the packages available at www.Costco.com.
2. Bring backup storage so you can backup from your memory cards to something else so you don't lose your photos while on safari.  Apple makes an adapter for your iPod if you want a cheaper solution that really drains your battery, or there are dedicated devices.  I bought the Apple adapter for $35.
3. Make sure your safari organizer will provide photographers beanbags for you to use to rest/stabilize your camera on the vehicle.  Otherwise you should bring one.
4. In addition to camera and good zoom lens, bring an extra battery, and maybe a car adapter with your charger.  Charge everything whenever possible.  Power availability is sometimes limited while on safari.  I bought an aftermarket battery and car charger for $50.
5. Get circular polarizer filters for all your lenses.  Even a little online research will indicate

Here are two articles that talk about everything to do with safari photography in a lot more detail:

• Digital Safari Equipment Tips - Luminous Landscape
• Photography in Tanzania  - Fredo Durand

Thanks to Ilya Mirman for answering all of my questions via email all day, you can check out his Ilya's amateur photography on SmugMug.

Gas prices are high.  Demand for gas in the summer usually increases, driving prices up further.  Politicians see this as a big problem.  The solution currently proposed by Hillary Clinton and John McCain?  Let's have a holiday from the gas tax during the summer.  This is an incredibly stupid policy.  It is the craziest policy I have heard in some time.  Not only would this reduce revenue collected by the government by an estimated $9 Billion (we have both a huge federal debt and a budget deficit) but it would also work to increase gas consumption, just the opposite of what is needed.

In fact, today if you search on "gas tax" in Google, John McCain is actually paying for advertisements to promote his views on the gas tax holiday.  Here is an example:

Lucky for him, Obama has not jumped on the bandwagon.  I say he is lucky, because by not being a complete idiot he may have earned my vote. (We have such low standards for political leaders in the US.  Sigh.)

Mike Volpe's Better Solution to the Gas Tax Holiday

• All politicians should have to take (and pass!) an Economics 101 class before being eligible for election to Congress.  Their grade, tests and papers for the class should be posted on the Internet.
• Let's increase the gas taxto reduce consumption of gas - at the federal level we could double the tax (an extra 18 cents a gallon) and raise at least $20 billion per year.
• We should then take the money from the higher gas tax and give it as research grants to companies researching alternative energy and green energy technologies.
• This research will help ensure the US is the world's technological leader in green power.  As oil reserves worldwide dry up, this will work to increase the demand for these technologies which will increase sales for these companies in the US, increasing jobs, decreasing our trade gap and all sorts of other good things for us.

How cool would it be if Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other previously oil rich countries had to purchase solar, wind and battery power technologies from the US?

If we follow the right policies, this could happen in 10-20 years.   Americans should expect better leadership from our next president than short cited policies that make our lives a tiny bit better today but sacrifice so much in the future.

I saw that the Digg folks created a little video so people would know who they were at a local Meet Up. Fun idea, cute song. Check it out.

Digg Dubb: Groove Is In The Heart from Trammell on Vimeo.

I found this video through Twitter, and the comment someone made was that "it must be fun to work at Digg - can I get a job there?" That made me think. Do we need to make a crazy dance video to show people it is fun to work at HubSpot? If we don't, does that mean it is not fun to work here? The answer to both questions is... NO.

Is it not fun to work at HubSpot? No way. We have a BLAST here! I just think we're a bit geekier than the Digg crew. Marketing Geeks. Or Internet Geeks. Or geek bloggers. We would rather debate a product feature or some interesting statistical analysis than lip synch something by the B-52s. We have lots of fun and interesting people - avid Red Sox fans, talented DJs, yoga masters, environmentalists, and animal lovers. A lot of the people at HubSpot are really funnny. Some of the quietest developers can say things that will make the whole room start laughing out loud. We keep a page on our internal Wiki with funny quotes from employees dating back over a year. We have all sorts of internal bets and games and challenges, all aimed at bringing out the best performance of our team. We cherish individuality - in terms of attire, in terms of work schedule, ideas, and more.

But I don't think any of us can dance. Maybe a couple people can. We might even have a funny corporate video some day. But it won't be like this one. Why? Because we're not Digg. We're geekier and more practical. We're across the street from MIT, hardened by Boston winters and have a practical edge to us from the New England Yankee culture. There is no time for dancing here. (Unless the dance video will generate leads and customers.)

If you are willing to work at a company that does not create lip synched dance videos, HubSpot is hiring. Even better if you are a closet marketing geek. We really are a lot of fun. Just in a different way than Digg.

I have always been a big proponent of businesses following entertainers to catch onto new trends in marketing, and I have written some blog articles in the past about the marketing lessons you can learn from rappers and B2B marketing tips from rappers.

Recently, I saw another article on Yahoo showing that 50 Cent has created his own social network, mostly because even though he had a huge success on MySpace, he is unable to get access to the users email addresses or other personal information.

What I find funny about this is not only that 50 Cent has a million fans on MySpace and has also built his own social network, but that he clearly spends a lot of time thinking about his fan base as a strategic asset and how to best manage, grow and monetize that asset.   How many Fortune 500 CEOs think like that?  Very few I'd say.  I think they are still stuck in the world of building new products and sales promotions and channel strategies.  As consumers get more and more control of how they consumer information, I really believe that companies will success or fail based on how they cultivate and enable their biggest fans to communicate with others in the market.  The tools you should be using are blogs, social networks and your own product development.  You can pretty much stop advertising over the next 10-15 years I think.

50 Cent Launches His Own Social Network - What does this mean?

1. 50 Cent has decided that access to his fan's personal info is worth the time and expense of launching his own social network.  This is a very strategic decision.
2. It is pretty easy to launch a social network today.  The hard part is getting members - not a problem for a famous rapper.  You should think about what your social network strategy should be.
3. If social networks like MySpace and Facebook want very famous people (politicians, entertainers, etc.) to use their network, they might have to create some better capabilities for these people to access personal information of their friends/fans/supporters.

It will be interesting to see over time how this battle plays out.  If 50 Cent(or other very popular people) are not on Facebook, LinkedIn or MySpace, that decreases the value of these networks to everyone else.  Will the networks make concessions to the famous people?  Will the famous people decide it is OK to lose some control and information access in exchange for a broader audience of people?

I have this annoying problem in IE where it is displaying the wrong favicons (the little icons next to the URL and on the browser tab).  So when I am on Google, it will show the icon for StumbleUpon, or something else.  Evertying else works, but for some reason this really pisses me off.

I found some forums posts about it, but would the geeks at Microsoft just fix the darn problem? 

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6620_102-0.html?forumID=14&threadID=229993&messageID=2383289