This is the fourth post in a series by Jordan Behan highlighting the successful marketing practices of Canadian startups. Behan is the Director of Marketing of Strutta and knows a thing or two about the topic.

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In the heart of downtown Moncton, NB, are the headquarters of Lymbix, a company of 10 dedicated individuals building solutions to help determine the "tone" in text-based communications.

It was raining in Moncton when I reached Lymbix CEO Matt Eldridge by phone, but that didn't seem to have any adverse affect on his attitude, or his opinion of his adopted city. "I fell in love with Moncton, and the people," said the former Vancouverite. "The people are very cool." Eldridge moved to New Brunswick four years ago for a job, and never left. When he decided to go out on his own, he chose to start Lymbix on the Easter seaboard, rather than returning west.

Now, Lymbix is about to debut their new product "ToneCheck," an Outlook plugin that reviews emails for tone to ensure that they are in line with the sender's intentions. "It will flag any email (after hitting send) that doesn't meet your tone tolerance," explained Eldridge, "and transform that message to meet your desired tone." Pressed to share some details about the tech, Eldridge explained that their algorithm operates on a "deeper level of sentiment" from some existing message review tools. By reviewing words, phrases and even emoticons, they are able to give a "connotative analysis" of a message.

Last month, Lymbix won “Most Promising Startup of 2010” at New Brunswick’s KIRA awards, a 12-year-old event recognizing innovation in the province’s tech industry.

Entering the "beta" phase, Lymbix's marketing initiatives are still ramping up. But Eldridge knows technology marketing rule #1, and it drives the company's mission: "Our main goal is to build a product people want to use, that fixes a problem they face everyday." To that end, they not only value input, but have incorporated a feedback network that is designed to make the product better. By letting users make improvements and suggestions on-the-fly, "the engine gets smarter the more it's used." And to assist with building their product's lexicon, they also created ToneADay.com, a crowd-sourcing model that lets users rate words and phrases for tone.

And all of this from what could become Canada's newest tech frontier, Moncton. Eldridge's love for the city and the people isn't the only thing that kept him there, and he wants the rest of the country to know it. "The great thing about New Brunswick is the low cost of living, and the low cost of doing business," said the savvy entrepreneur. "Our lease rates are super-sick low."

A quick look at Lymbix's site, and it's clear their marketing is multifaceted; they have a presence on the "usual suspects" of social networks. But it's telling that Eldridge chose to highlight product development as their most crucial marketing tool, and serves as a great reminder to the rest of us.

I owe a debt of thanks to a number of people for helping me find and research these Canadian stories, so here's a hat tip to David Crow and James Sherrett, most notably. If you know of a startup that you'd like to see featured here, tell us about in the comments, or by contacting Techvibes directly.

This is the third post in a series by Jordan Behan highlighting the successful marketing practices of Canadian startups. Behan is the Director of Marketing of Strutta and knows a thing or two about the topic.

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In a series about great marketing ideas at Canadian startups, one cannot ignore the bustling hive of web-related activity happening in Montreal, arguably our nation's most stylish city.

One of the startups that calls Montreal home is Status.net, "a platform that enables communities, brands and organizations to incorporate micro messaging into their own domain." I caught up with CEO Evan Prodromou by phone to talk about some of the marketing strategies they employ. While he darted around Montreal in his car (using a hands free unit, of course) he told me about how they strategically position their commercial products alongide the messaging for their open source offerings.

Like many startups with a product that is gaining traction, Status.net (Prodromou favours dropping the "dot" when saying its name, letting "statusnet" roll off his tongue) sells services and support around the product as well; a great way to keep the cash rolling in. Much of their traffic is search or referral based, often resulting from PR exposure. Taking a page out of the books of other open source products with complementary commercial solutions (see Wordpress) they try to capitalize on that incoming traffic with well-placed mentions of the commercial product and service offerings.

Along with that, Status.net has identified that for their business model, attracting "influencers" is a great way to get exposure for their product. For that reason, Justin Halpern of the famous @shitmydadsays Twitter account was an ideal customer for them to sign. "He felt like he wasn't able to commercialize it very well," said Prodromou of Halpern's Twitter feed. While he had already landed a book deal and a pending TV show as well, having it all reside at a single domain provides a huge advantage, especially where book sales are concerned.

Halpern's Shitmydadsays.com uses Status.net to power the feed on the home page, and will soon feature tweets attributed back to the site (rather than point back to Twitter.com or a Twitter app, Halpern's tweets will be "x minutes ago from Shitmydadsays.com." Exposure like that if good for highlighting the capabilities of Status.net, notes Prodromou, especailly since high profile Twitter "power users" are a good market for them. "If you provide software for influencers, it really helps a lot (take this approach)," says Prodromou with a laugh, adding "It works much better than making software for unpopular people."

Having peeked inside the marketing plans fo two startups in Toronto and one from Montreal, I want to hear from companies elsewhere in the country who are working on ideas that are worth mentioning here. If you have an idea for a startup to feature, tell us about in the comments, or with the Techvibes contact page.

This is the second post in a series by Jordan Behan highlighting the successful marketing practices of Canadian startups. Behan is the Director of Marketing of Strutta and knows a thing or two about the topic.

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The gang at Toronto's Rypple have figured out a smart way to tie a great marketing idea directly into their product experience. With a product that enables web-based team and project management, they created the "WorkPlace Hero" program to get the word out about it.

Started at SXSW 2009, the Workplace Hero program is centered around the idea of giving "kudos" to deserving team members as a reward for good work. At street level, the campaign involves stickers handed out as badges of honour to deserving staffers. Online, a points system tracks the receiving, giving and referring of kudos, qualifying people for prizes that include gadgets and even vacations.

I caught up with Marketing and Community guy Jay Goldman, who was very enthusiastic about the effectiveness of the campaign to date. "The program has been a big success!" said Goldman, adding that some people have just fallen in love with the idea. "The top Workplace Hero was Mike Beltzner, Director of Firefox for Mozilla, who accumulated nearly 900 points on his own." Not a small feat, considering points are collected in twos and fours.

Beltzner let his love be known in his comments to the Rypple team. "I'm totally addicted to sending kudos. I get back comments like 'this made my day' or 'I didn't think anyone noticed.' Great idea, great program."

Not surprisingly, all of this fun and recognition is good for business too, notes Goldman the tireless marketer. "A high number of the people who received kudos have since become Rypple users and customers, cementing their status as heroes in their workplaces."

As a response to many of the dialogues they had with participants about improving the workplace, they also recently created Make Work Meaningful, a place for a "collaborative discussion on the future of work." Goldman says that many Rypple advisors, partners and past Workplace Heroes like Beltzner have started contributing to this extension of the discussions that were started with Workplace hero. As a result, new ideas about work are being shared. "They believe strongly that work is changing: becoming more social, flatter and more fluid, continuous instead of batch, and focused on building skills, reputation, and meaning."

Just two weeks into this column, and I'm already seeing a pattern. Freshbooks' Supper Club and Rypple's Workplace Hero both share a genuine care and concern for the people that matter most to their businesses. Their "marketing" ideas are just another of showing that appreciation, and it seems to be a formula that works well for them.

This is the first post in a series by Jordan Behan highlighting the successful marketing practices of Canadian startups. Behan is the Director of Marketing of Strutta and knows a thing or two about the topic.

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Throughout this great nation of ours, juxtaposed against the grandeur and natural beauty of our landscape, hundreds of technology startups toil away in their modest office spaces and basements, building a better internet. One glance at PEER 1 Canada Startup Index, and it's clear that many of these companies have built world-class technology solutions, and are putting money in the bank because of it.

FreshBooks is one such company; their software is a modern, web-based solution to the classic business problems of bookkeeping and accounting. But while their product is on the cutting edge technologically, they favour a more traditional approach to marketing.

I talked by phone with Michael O'Connor Clarke, VP Marketing Communications, to discuss one idea that has worked especially well for them. With an emphasis on staying in touch and in front of customers, FreshBooks CEO Mike McDerment and other team members jet-set around North America for speaking appearances. While in town, they invite as many customers in the area that they can reach to join them for a meal. "We basically just take them out for dinner and drinks," admits O'Connor Clarke. "It's a very old school, traditional marketing strategy in many ways."

The results, however, can be measured in more than just goodwill. Loads of Twitter love, blog posts, testimonials and most importantly local referrals come pouring in after each of these meals. O'Connor Clarke says that an unmistakable spike in referrals always happens in the area of the event following these dinners. These impromptu socials have been nicknamed the Freshbooks "Supper Club" (the company's email newsletter shares the same name), and with  dinner guests from a broad range of industries, these supper clubs become de facto social events for entrepreneurs as well. "Some great networking happens," notes O'Connor Clarke. "Great sharing of insights happens, and people stay connected afterward. It rekindles their enthusiasm for why they started using Freshbooks in the first place."

As an extension of this supper club approach, and to represent in Canadian fashion at the recent SXSW Interactive Festival, Freshbooks was handing out strips of freshly cooked bacon on the streets of Austin, TX. Bacon! Several mornings in a row, I enjoyed a strip of delicious, crispy goodness on my way to the Convention Center. Not surprisingly, I tweeted about the experience.

Freshbooks is clearly onto something, emphasizing a genuine care and concern for their customers first, and reaping the benefits on the "books," as it were. It seems to be no coincidence that they do this through our bellies, much of the time.

Bacon Photo: John Biehler