Foss: “Companies are not thinking ‘big picture’ for online marketing, just as they do for off-line marketing.”

Today’s organizations need a bigger-picture focus when it comes to online marketing strategies. Companies invest heavily into advertising and communications for off-line efforts, while the digital side gets relatively snubbed. For success in today’s environment, online marketing must fully integrate into the entire scope of business planning. Such foresight will ultimately result in your online brand-building/product-positioning plan strengthening your off-line one, and vice versa.

In this “TechConnections: Five Minutes With …” installment, online marketing expert Chris Foss also reveals how organizations can “unravel the mystery” of optimal SEO. (Hint: It’s as much about good content as it is keywords.) Listen to our conversation about online marketing best practices.

About our guest: Chris Foss is founder of Ironistic in Alexandria, Va., a leading firm for Website development, design and online communications and marketing strategic consulting. His vast website experience includes work for such clients as the White House, U.S. Army, Washington Redskins and the Capitals.

This interview was hosted by Dennis McCafferty, Director of Content with Welz & Weisel Communications, a high tech PR agency. Find out more about our full service communications offerings. Subscribe to our “Tech Connections: Five Minutes With …” series on iTunes.

Fordwich: “You need to know what the government’s mission is. Right now, it’s all about efficiencies and cost savings.”

We can expect to see a continued, dramatic slowdown in U.S. government IT spending. So how do tech contractors stay in the hunt for what’s left of the pie? By focusing on specific strengths and finetuning this into a valuable niche, according to Hilary Fordwich. There’s more demand than ever for efficiencies and savings, she says.

As host of the new WUSA Channel 9 program, Government Contracting Weekly, Fordwich offers these and other revealing insights exclusively for our Five Minutes With podcast program. Set to debut on Sept. 16, Government Contracting Weekly will air at 7 a.m. ET on Sundays locally in the Greater Washington DC region, before the CBS Sunday morning shows. Listen to our conversation in our podcast about federal IT contracting.

About our guest: Fordwich is host of Government Contracting Weekly. She also recently joined AOC Key Solutions Inc. as Senior Vice President and Executive Director of the KSI Business Development Institute, a think-tank and training platform for business development leaders. Previously, she served as global head of marketing for KPMG before moving on to other global companies such as Qorvis Communications. In 2002, she founded Strelmark, a consultancy for businesses seeking developmental services and client growth and retention.

This interview was hosted by Dennis McCafferty, Director of Content with Welz & Weisel Communications, a high tech PR agency. Find out more about our full service communications offerings. Subscribe to our “Tech Connections: Five Minutes With …” series on iTunes.

Resau: “The bull’s eye has shifted to the end user, particular with social media and devices. There’s a lot more the end user can do to get in trouble.”

Remember the good ol’ days – waaay back to a year like, say, 2002 – when a company’s security vendor got all the heat for a systems compromise? These days, there’s plenty of blame to go around: For starters, organizations need to take a good, close look at what internal users are doing to let the bad guys in.

In this “TechConnections: Five Minutes With …” installment, Tom Resau explains how “the rules” of information security are profoundly transforming. In the past, it was all about protecting hardware and software. Today, it’s still about that. But it’s also about staying on top of the constantly shifting perimeters of your enterprise and minimizing risks brought on by internal user-employees. (Note we say “minimizing” here. Not “eliminating.”) Listen to our conversation about information security assurance.

About our guest: Tom Resau is vice president at Welz & Weisel Communications, focusing on information security communications/PR campaigns for clients. Resau has specialized in this area for nearly his entire career, lending his expertise to former employers such as Symantec and Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, a global law firm.

This interview was hosted by Dennis McCafferty, Director of Content with Welz & Weisel Communications, a high tech PR agency. Find out more about our full service communications offerings. Subscribe to our “Tech Connections: Five Minutes With …” series on iTunes.

Smallman: “It’s a matter of simply applying existing tools to understand your Web properties as a digital hub for all of this content — a center of the conversation you’re having with your customer.”

So when you invest into this form of content marketing, how do you know whether on not you’re getting results — results that benefit your bottom line? Yes, video boosts the “wow” factor of a marketing strategy. But does it deliver ROI? If so, how do you measure it?

In this “TechConnections: Five Minutes With …” installment, Steve Smallman Jr. of 15Four in Baltimore weighs in on the availability of metrics-tracking that can deliver a wealth of information about the effectiveness of your video program. Partnering with Apple and Google, 15Four provides full-service video content planning and execution – including production, distribution and ROI analysis – for a variety of corporate customers that include PwC, Mutual of Omaha and Ciena. Listen to our conversation on measuring ROI for video content.

About our guest: Smallman is co-founder/senior partner at 15Four. Previously, he was director at NorthBay Media Arts and executive director at New Song Arts and Media.

This interview was hosted by Dennis McCafferty, Director of Content for Welz & Weisel Communications, a high tech PR agency. Find out more about our full service communications offerings. Subscribe to our “Tech Connections: Five Minutes With …” series on iTunes.

Huie: “There’s a disconnect between those who are paying for mobile advancements and who’s seeing the benefits of those advancements.”

Mobility makes the federal worker more productive. Mobility helps government organizations save significantly on costs. Hence, greater mobility is something that public sector managers and their employees would like to incorporate at their agencies.

So what’s stopping them?

A recent Market Connections-commissioned survey conducted by AOL Government reveals answers. The resulting AOL Government Federal Mobile Technology study ultimately demonstrates that government technology purchase decision-makers will need to spend money to save money. If you’re an IT contractor in the federal market, you’re going to want to find out more from the reporter’s lead researcher, Molly Huie. Listen to our conversation about the potential for a boom in the federal mobile technology market – and what challenges must be addressed to make it happen.

About our guest: Molly Huie is a senior research analyst with Chantilly, Va.-based Market Connections. Previously, she worked for Scholastic Inc. as a data analyst in the at-home marketing department, where she oversaw predictive customer behavior modeling and project analysis.

This interview was hosted by Dennis McCafferty, Director of Content for Welz & Weisel Communications, a high tech PR agency. Find out more about our full service communications offerings. Subscribe to our “Tech Connections: Five Minutes With …” series on iTunes.

Dezzutti: “Print absolutely is not dead.”

In this era of Tweets, webinars and hyper-mobility, would you believe that federal agency IT decision-makers can’t get enough of … print articles in industry pubs? And trade shows?

Yep. While they also depend greatly upon online content, social media and other digital resources, they still also seek out information in traditional forms, according to the 2012 Federal Media and Marketing Study from Market Connections Inc. So companies seeking IT contracts must execute messaging plans that integrate both “old” and “new” thinking, according to Lisa Dezzutti, founder/president at Market Connections. More than 3,700 leaders at military and civilian federal agencies took part in the research. Listen to our conversation about reaching those who oversee government IT contract spending by clicking here.

About our guest: As founder/president of Market Connections Inc., Lisa Dezzutti combines 25 years of marketing/research/total quality management leadership. She is also co-founder/co-chair of the Government Marketing Forum, and a member of the Marketing Research Association, Women in Technology, the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) and the GovCon Council. Based in Chantilly, Va., Market Connections delivers market intelligence and insights to help business, government and association clients improve business performance.

This interview was hosted by Dennis McCafferty, Director of Content for Welz & Weisel Communications, a high tech PR agency. Find out more about our full service communications offerings. Subscribe to our “Tech Connections: Five Minutes With …” series on iTunes.

Over the next three to five years, what will distinguish the companies that maximize value from blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc. and those that don’t?

Much of this will boil down to the effectiveness of content curation and company ambassadorship, according to social-media expert Shashi Bellamkonda of Network Solutions in Herndon. Content curation can distinguish the value of your social-media efforts. Company ambassadors are the users out there who will passionately promote a company’s products and/or services — but only if businesses proactively seek and engage them. Within five years, Bellamkonda says, the ability to master these two strategies could deliver more ROI than a high-profile advertising campaign. Listen to our conversation on the future of social media.

About our guest: Shashi Bellamkonda is head of social media/brand evangelism as Director of PR and New Media at Network Solutions. He is a popular speaker in the region, in demand to discuss the implementation and execution of social-media tools for reputation management, brand development and outreach. Shashi is a member of the adjunct faculty at Georgetown University, teaching New Media Platforms and Techniques and has been featured in Washingtonian’s “Top 100 Tech Titans” list for community/thought leadership.

This interview was hosted by Dennis McCafferty, Director of Content for Welz & Weisel Communications, a high tech PR agency. Find out more about our full service communications offerings. Subscribe to our “Tech Connections: Five Minutes With …” series on iTunes.

Olsen: “Business planning, marketing and finance help technology organizations move forward.”

Northern Virginia’s tech start-ups are getting a big boost these days, thanks to George Mason University.

Through the Mason Small Business Development Center (SBDC) at the Mason Enterprise Center – part of GMU’s Office of Research and Economic Development – hundreds of small businesses looking to drive IT innovation get assistance with business plans, marketing strategies, financial analysis, capital access and other needs.

It’s all part of a statewide effort through which more than 4,400 business owners/manager received one-on-one counseling in 2010. Those businesses reaped rewards – specifically an estimated $37 million in loans obtained, $66 million in total capital formation, no less than 4,800 jobs created/retained and $100 million in increased sales. Listen to our conversation about the GMU’s Small Business Development Center.

About our guest: Mona Anita Olsen is the assistant director of the Mason Small Business Development Center.  She is also the founder of iMADdu (“I Make a Difference, Do You?”), an educational nonprofit that provides mentoring and apprenticeship opportunities to aspiring student entrepreneurs.

Previously, Mona worked as a worldwide sales analyst for Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts. She is a PhD Candidate at the College of Education and Human Development at George Mason University, specializing in entrepreneurship education. Awarded a Fulbright U.S. Student Grant to Norway for 2012-2013, Mona will also explore the plausibility of using apprenticeship models to teach about innovation in traditional, university-level entrepreneurship courses.

This interview was hosted by Dennis McCafferty, Director of Content for Welz & Weisel Communications, a high tech PR agency. Find out more about our full service communications offerings. Subscribe to our “Tech Connections: Five Minutes With …” series on iTunes.

Wayne Schepens

Without an effective “go to market” strategy, an IT product/services idea is simply, well, an idea.

Instead, tech companies must assemble a plan that will carefully examine the competitive field, establish differentiation, finetune messaging, pinpoint targeted customers and reach out to analysts, among other requirements. As a vice president with Welz & Weisel Communications, Wayne Schepens oversees new business development. Specifically, he heads up the firm’s “go to market” services for tech-industry clients. To find out what Schepens is doing to help these companies, listen to our conversation on bringing products and services to market.

About our guest: Wayne Schepen is a vice president with Welz & Weisel Communications. With more than 16 years of technical and government experience, he has expertly advised companies through all phases of business — from fund raising/start-up to product launch to strategic acquisition. Previously, he served as Chief of the Office of Global Network Awareness within the Threat Operations Center for the National Security Agency.

This interview was hosted by Dennis McCafferty, Director of Content for Welz & Weisel Communications, a high tech PR agency. Find out more about our full service communications offerings. Subscribe to our “Tech Connections: Five Minutes With …” series on iTunes.

Manning: “Having an integrated SEO and content strategy is key”

It’s not enough to simply produce good content marketing. There are literally billions of online searches conducted every day. If your company is producing well-packaged content yet remains behind the curve on search engine optimization (SEO), then it’s very likely to “get lost” out there amid a large sea of competing messages.

Let’s face it: If you’re not on the first page of a search-results screen, you may as well not exist.

Rufus Manning, a Welz and Weisel Communications senior account director, serves as the agency’s resident search engine marketing expert. He’s now rolling out the search engine optimization services for clients, to ensure that their press releases, blogs, podcasts, white papers and other business-serving forms of content land in front of the desired, target customers/audiences. Listen to our conversation about optimal search engine optimization practices.

Stay tuned to this blog space for an upcoming webinar presented by Manning about this very topic, in mid April.

About our guest: Rufus Manning is a senior account director with Welz & Weisel Communications. He has spent the past 14 years driving both global agency and corporate communications and social media programs for B2B and B2C technology companies. He most recently lead the corporate communications efforts for a number of established technology brands including VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN), TARGUSinfo,  Motricity (NASDAQ: MOTR) and iProspect, the Original Search Marketing Firm.

This interview was hosted by Dennis McCafferty, Director of Content for Welz & Weisel Communications, a high tech PR agency. Find out more about our full service communications offerings. Subscribe to our “Tech Connections: Five Minutes With …” series on iTunes.