Instead of writing up text in last week’s update, I just uploaded a picture of the books I’d spent the last few days racing to finish so that I could get a literature review all set. Here is a quick review of some of the highlights of the books I’ve read:

• In Truth, Lies, and Advertising: The Art of Account Planning, Jon Steel describes the importance of finding a way to tap into your target market’s mind to understand what is valuable to them, rather than trying to dictate value yourself.
• Steel’s book was written in 1998; his core philosophy is spot on but it is Bob Gilbreath’s The Next Evolution of Marketing that brings Steel’s message into the 21st Century. Gilbreath explains that the best marketing has value to the consumer in and of itself- the vehicle through which the marketing occurs, be it in an advertisement or social media venture, needs to be as valuable to the customer as the product being sold.
• Erik Qualman’s Socialnomics describes how social media can be taken advantage of to optimize marketing efforts in ways that allow the marketer to get in the head of the target, the way Gilbreath and Steel suggest. Qualman, by the way, was key in creating a series of viral videos that is documenting the global media revolution that has come about due to the ubiquity of social media use. Definitely check ‘em out.
• Social Marketing, by Philip Kotler and Nancy R. Lee provides a comprehensive guide regarding the steps a marketer should take in drafting a marketing plan for a social venture. From understanding the nature of the problem the campaign aims to solve to evaluating the success of the campaign, Kotler and Lee guide the reader through the steps of coming up with a plan to get people to improve themselves and/or the world around them.

The above titles, while indispensable in my research, are hardly the only literature I’ve consulted for help with this project. Michael Miller’s Ultimate Web Marketing Guide and Jeffrey Hughes’ iPhone and iPad Apps Marketing have also been great resources in helping determine how to go forth with the project.

When I wasn’t reading away and (slightly manically) typing up notes on the lit, I’ve been in and out of meeting with different people and begging experts in the field for advice. Jack and I have talked about the idea of making the Balbus site an online hub for the stuttering community, as well as specifics of how the iPhone application will be different from others already out there. We’re looking to have the software give actual feedback to those who use it, and ultimately we’d like to find a way to send this data to the website so that users can track their progress as well as share it with others in their community. Exciting stuff!

Meanwhile, I’ve started emailing the faculty at both  Emerson’s Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders and Boston University’s Speech, Language & Hearing Department with two goals in mind: to be able to speak to some experts in the field and get advice as to how the Balbus service can be of most use; and to see these departments have any way of helping me set up a focus group or two with some stutterers to know firsthand what our target market really wants.

Lastly, I had a great phone conversation with my second reader, Paul Wingle of the Massachusetts Health Connector. Paul encouraged me to seek out as much information about the target market and the disorders as possible: be they through academic studies, US census data packs, and just reaching out to talk to people. Paul expressed that the more professionals in the world of speech pathology and assistive technology I can talk to, the better- especially if we can find a way to get them on board as advisers for Balbus. Lastly, it was Paul who recommended Social Marketing to me, which has been such a key in helping me know, if nothing else, what a real marketing plan should actually consist of. I’m very grateful for his help, as it can be more than a little intimidating to work on this project without any prior experience in actually writing up a marketing plan.

The good news is that through all these meetings and readings I’ve been able to learn so much about how to write a solid marketing plan- the slightly daunting news is that I now know exactly how much is still ahead of me. Yes, the amount of work I have ahead of me is intimidating and anxiety-inducing, but just thinking about the potential this project has is enough to allow the excitement to minimize everything else. So onward we go…

     Downloading TweetDeck has changed my life. Bold choice of words? Considering that the twitter application has allowed me to organize my market research for this project into an easy to read, live-updating interface, I would say there is nothing dramatic about my claim. Because of Tweetdeck  every use of the words “speech therapy” and “stutter” get tracked and logged and are just a click away; I have a list for tweeters related to the world of communication disorders, mobile technology, and social ventures; and most importantly I’ve been able to continue to find those people who are out there on the internet, creating or discussing great work that can aid me in marketing Balbus Speech.

     This brings me to the crux of what I’ve been working on as of late: identifying those who are in the communities Balbus wants to be involved with, and hearing what it is that they have to say. Thanks to the marvels of social media like twitter, this process has been much easier to take on than I imagine it would have been even just five to ten years ago. I’ve been able not only to identify but to actually communicate with various speech language pathologists, mobile application developers, and marketing gurus for social causes, technological products, etc. The last few days have been all about hopping from one tweeter’s list of followers to another, along the way picking up key players Balbus itself should be following as the project continues to develop.

     The great thing about following these people is that it is allowing me to learn so much along the way. I’ve stumbled across blog posts that insist upon the importance of incorporating mobile technology into aiding the speech and language acquisition processes, read up on the latest reviews of the hottest new apps, and found engaging news clips about the young American stuttering population. Hooray for the democratization of information.

     When I’m not hopping from one blog post to another (in a slightly erratic fashion, I’ll admit), I’ve found some great books that have helped me gain a better idea for the next steps I need to be taking in getting this marketing plan written. I was browsing a local bookstore the other day in search of a good book to serve as a guide for marketing iPhose software, when my eyes fell across Jeffrey Hughes’ so aptly titled iPhone & iPad Apps Marketing: Secrets to Selling Your iPhone and iPad Apps. Um… jackpot! The book has helped focus my somewhat disorganized approach to marketing Balbus back to one of the most important responsibilities a marketer has- finding Balbus’ uniqueness amid a sea of other applications. What’s that you say? Duh? I should have been doing this all along? Well, live and learn :)

      And there truly is a sea of apps out there. I’ve gone through the iTunes App Store and waded through the (surprisingly many!) versions of apps out there geared towards aiding speech production. I try to find the ones that have the most reviews about them, grab screenshots of ‘em, and read both the positive and the negative reviews. Next step? Glean the important information from the reviews and see how this can be of use in marketing and even in the actual building of the software.

     The last update to report on is happily one of the more rewarding experiences of the last few days- meeting again with Jack, the client, to talk about the process and brainstorm next steps. Jack’s got some great ideas that I’m really looking forward to hopefully seeing take shape in the not too distant future- such as globalizing Balbus’ efforts by donating a chunk of application sales to a speech clinic in a less developed part of the world. Additionally, Jack and I discussed the branding of the actual app itself, such as picking colors for the logo and visual identity, bouncing around some ideas for the name of the application itself, and thinking about designers who could help us bring it all together. Lastly,  we touched upon the future of the nature of BalbusSpeech.com- the site that will serve as the ‘umbrella’ that will power the currently unnamed application. We discussed turning the site into an information hub for the online communication-disorder community, a space on the web for people to connect around news and other topical and current information relevant to all those interested in all things speech production. All in all, not bad for a week’s work…

     As the second semester of my senior year kicks in and this senior project looms before me, I’ve accepted that it’s time to kick my work into high gear. Armed with Michael Miller’s Ultimate Web Marketing Guide, I’m launching my efforts to market Balbus in earnest- and Mr. Miller’s opening advice is to ‘think like the customer’, to conduct market research to understand the context that the customer is coming from. To do this, I’ve dived in and worked to educate myself on Balbus’ main market- stutterers and other individuals with various communication disorders.

      As defined by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), stuttering is a speech disorder in which sounds, syllables, or words are repeated or prolonged, disrupting the normal flow of speech. These disruptions are otherwise known as ‘disfluencies’. The exact cause of stuttering is at this point unknown- though there is a distinction between types of stuttering, where the main differentiator is the nature and origin of the disfluent behavior. Developmental stuttering, of particular interest to me in this project, is the most common form of stuttering and occurs while young children are first learning their speech and communication skills. It is hypothesized by researchers and experts that children begin stuttering because these speech and language skills are not adequate to meet their verbal demands. Other cases of stuttering occur largely because of trauma to the head or other cerebral damage, these are examples of neurogenic stuttering.

     So who are America’s stutterers? Who are these individuals that make up Balbus’ potential market? According to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, approximately 1% of the population of the United States of America-that’s 2.7 million people-are stuttering. The symptoms of developmental stuttering first appear and are most prevalent between ages 2.5 and 5 years old, with 98% of cases presenting by age 10. Statistics on stutterers in America indicate that males stutter three times as often as females.

     That’s the gist of the preliminary research into the communication disorders market. Over the next few days I’m looking forward to seeing what people are saying about stuttering on the internet. What are they tweeting about? Are there Facebook communities to support those with disfluencies? Are there speech-language-pathologist’s (or SLP’s) out there blogging about latest breakthroughs in medical research on stuttering? What influence has the star-studded film The King’s Speech and all of its Oscar buzz had on the perception of speaking disorders? Follow this blog as I attempt to answer these questions in order to chart a path towards the marketing of Balbus Speech.

     So what is this Balbus I speak of? Balbus Speech is the brainchild of Jack M, a freshman at Tufts University who has struggled his entire life with a stutter. With Balbus, Jack looks to use technology to allow stutterers and people coping with other communicative disorders to supplement their speech therapy. As is common at the starting point of many entrepreneurial efforts, there is a long road to traverse before we get to the final point/product of the project. The website (which Imaginet’s Balbus team built entirely on its own!) is there right now as a point of reference for all those interested in the development of the project and some general information regarding the nature of the product- which will be a pretty exciting project if I do say so myself. Which I do.

     Whenever I meet prospective Imaginet clients like to ask them a series of questions, mostly so I can learn as much as possible about the background of their project, but I can’t deny that another reason is that I like to try and stump people.  Why their product/group/whatever is significant; what differentiates it from everything else that is out there? Why are they the best and why hsould they be marketed as such? I should emphasize that the point here is to try and stump people- it rarely ever actually works and I’m glad to say that Jack was no exception. What I’m trying to say here is that Jack came into our meeting with conviction, passion, and one simple goal: to help people with speech disabilities find their voice.

    Balbus Speech will serve as a technological aid for those with communication disorders; after spending many years (and thousands of dollars) on speech therapy, Jack felt that there must be a more efficient, less costly way to progress with his treatment. The solution, he knew, was to use new technologies to connect those who struggle with a stutter or other speech disorder- in Balbus he envisions an online community for all stutterers that allows them to find local therapists, read pertinent news and research findings, and connect with one another to swap stories and advice.  In addition to the online arm, Jack is talking with software developers about creating a mobile application that will aid stutterers in completing speech therapy exercises while on-the-go.

     Clearly, Jack’s goal may be simple when stated conceptually, but executing it is sure to be another case entirely. Yet where Jack is ambitious he is also dedicated, and has thrown himself completely into the project. The combination of Jack’s ambition with his penchant for organization and management mean that he’s definitely got the development of this project on lockdown- he just needs help with the marketing. That’s where I’ve stepped in- the prospect of marketing that is cause related, involves technology, and has the energy of a startup culture was just too good to pass up. So join me on my mission to put Balbus on the map, and hopefully we’ll see the documentation of an epic campaign unfold.

        As a senior Communications and Media Studies student at Tufts University, I get (read: am required) to create “an original project intended to draw together a student’s communications and media studies experience at Tufts.” I may grumble about the requisite assignment during a time when, like many other senior university students across the country, I have many other responsibilities just waiting to be agonized over (working an un-paying internship, finding more internships, applying to jobs, studying for exams, writing papers, honoring extracurricular commitments, having a semblance of a social life, squeezing in a small handful of hours of sleep when the stars align properly, and ya’ know… graduating on time), but as the semester progresses I’m beginning to see the value of the project. 

     I stumbled into the project unsure of where it would lead me- as some students spoke with great zeal about how they would be drafting an episode for their favorite TV show or else creating some kind of documentary, I had to sit their and grit my teeth. “No, I still don’t know what my senior project will be”, or else “Yes, I promise I’m looking into possible project topics”, and of course at Tufts where everyone is inspired by something, the eventual “No, it’s not that I live a passionless life” popped up as well. I did in fact know that the one thing I for sure wanted to focus on was making some kind of marketing plan. But what to market? What product needed to be broadcast? What would be a manageable project to take on? The answer would come to me in the form of one particularly ballsy freshman.

      Jack M approached me via an email to Imaginet, Tufts’ student marketing group of which I am the Vice President of Accounts. Now this particular email wasn’t particularly remarkable, in that it seemed like just another potential client asking for some philanthropic help from the school’s marketing group- Jack said he was representing an organization that sought “to integrate the most innovative social technologies
to help people with communication or learning difficulties and to promote the
awareness of such disorders.” My immediate reaction was “Ah. Someone hoping to raise awareness of and eradicate some kind of problem. How very Tufts.” Well I did my duty as the Vice President of Accounts, and set up a meeting with Jack to see if there could be some kind of partnership between our organization; I enjoy bringing work in to Imaginet and seeing if potential clients can wow me as I look for exciting projects for the club.

     Well to say that Jack wowed me would be a bit of an understatement. The kid shows up with a tentative but nonetheless comprehensive 7-point marketing strategy, professional documents outlining his business plan, and a couple thousand dollars already raised in venture capital. The company he needs marketing advice for, Balbus Speech,  is meant to bring the benefits of new technology (via mobile applications, online communities, etc.) to the traditional practice of speech therapy for those with communication disorders. I’d like to emphasize that Jack is a freshman, not even done with his first semester of college… at that point in my college career I could hardly motivate myself to wake up in time for my 10:30 am Intro to Psychology lecture. In fact, at this point in my college career I struggle to get to my 10:30 am Psych lecture.

     As trite as it may sound, Jack’s passion was absolutely contagious, and before the meeting was even half over I knew two things: there was no way Imaginet could pass on this account; and that I had just found the subject of my marketing plan for my senior special project. This blog will serve to document the course of the project’s development, as well as my other ventures as VP of Imaginet during my senior year. The way I see it, this blog will either be a fantastic way for me to spread word and keep track of the productivity of this project, or else it will be an incredibly detailed account of my path towards a fifth year of college. Or a sixth. It really depends on when my parents decide to disown me.