The Sebastian - Marketing

The Sebastian - Marketing http://www.thesebastian.com/ A fresh look into Entrepreneurship, Marketing and Technology in the flat world en Serendipity 1.0-beta3 - http://www.s9y.org/ Tue, 01 Apr 2008 02:36:43 GMT http://www.thesebastian.com/templates/default/img/s9y_banner_small.png RSS: The Sebastian - Marketing - A fresh look into Entrepreneurship, Marketing and Technology in the flat world http://www.thesebastian.com/ 100 21 Web 2.0: Marketing & Technology - Social Networking model http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/47-Web-2.0-Marketing-Technology-Social-Networking-model.html Marketing http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/47-Web-2.0-Marketing-Technology-Social-Networking-model.html#comments http://www.thesebastian.com/wfwcomment.php?cid=47 0 http://www.thesebastian.com/rss.php?version=2.0&type=comments&cid=47 nospam@example.com (Sebastian Brocher) Just sharing one of the slides from a Web 2.0 Technology & Marketing course I (created for and) used to teach at the University of Texas (UT) Informal Classes program. This particular slide shows a simple model for understanding some of the basics of social networking sites. Comments? <img src="http://www.thesebastian.com/uploads/social_networking_model.jpg" alt="Technology & Marketing - Web 2.0 - Social Networking Model" /> Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:27:29 -0700 http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/47-guid.html Facebook reaches 26.6M visits per month and the comScore IPO http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/39-Facebook-reaches-26.6M-visits-per-month-and-the-comScore-IPO.html Marketing http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/39-Facebook-reaches-26.6M-visits-per-month-and-the-comScore-IPO.html#comments http://www.thesebastian.com/wfwcomment.php?cid=39 0 http://www.thesebastian.com/rss.php?version=2.0&type=comments&cid=39 nospam@example.com (Sebastian Brocher) <a href="http://www.facebook.com" target="_blank" title="Facebook">Facebook</a> just reached this past May '07 more than 26.6M unique visits and 15.8B content pages impressions, each visitor spending an average of 3 hours on the site. Amazing. The 26.6M visitors number is comparable with Malaysia's, Uzbekistan, Peru and Venezuela's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population" target="_blank" title="Population by country">population.</a> This (and more data) was made public by comScore as the result of one of their studies done through their Media Matrix product. Read the <a href="http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/070705/aqth060.html?.v=12" target="_blank">press release</a> at Yahoo Finance. <a href="http://www.comscore.com" target="_blank" title="comScore">comScore</a> is a very interesting company all by itself. Their recent IPO went pretty well too. I own some shares of the now publicly traded company, as I believe they have a good business model, a great potential growth opportunity, good products and, in general, a bright future if they run their business well. What do you think? Thu, 05 Jul 2007 20:31:09 -0700 http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/39-guid.html Hit the Tail, Jack (or... new SEO service) http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/37-Hit-the-Tail,-Jack-or...-new-SEO-service.html Marketing http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/37-Hit-the-Tail,-Jack-or...-new-SEO-service.html#comments http://www.thesebastian.com/wfwcomment.php?cid=37 0 http://www.thesebastian.com/rss.php?version=2.0&type=comments&cid=37 nospam@example.com (Sebastian Brocher) A few months ago, I subscribed to the <a href="http://HitTail.com" target="_blank" title="HitTail.com">HitTail.com</a> service. I then integrated it to this site with the purpose of testing it and learning more about it, as well as optimizing my site.I must admit, their system is pretty interesting. Described in few words, it is a very clever <a title="Arbitrage definition from Wikipedia" target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrage">arbitrage</a> for the PPC and SEO market. The idea is based on <a title="The Long Tail" target="_blank" href="http://www.longtail.com/">The Long Tail</a> book by Chris Anderson.Once integrated to your site, the system analyzes the web searches brining traffic and calculates the frequencies of the different keywords and their combinations. It then presents you with your tail shape, showing you the most popular (top ten) keywords and also the long tail (keywords coming after your top ten), which are not so popular, but that (they claim) are responsible for a much bigger ammount of your traffic resulting from web searches.For example, for this site, some the most popular keywords / combinations are: e1705, linux, warren buffet, dell inspiron e1705, ubuntu, kubuntu, etc. My top-ten keywords are responsible for brining 20% of my total search-result-induced traffic, while my long-tail keywords are responsible for the other 80%. This probes their point, suggesting that working on the long tail keywords to induce natural searches can dramatically improve your overall SEO strategy. Also, working on your long-tail keywords can help you reduce your advertising expenses, since by getting more natural search results induced traffic, you wont necessarily need to force PPC-generated traffic as much (altough, of course, you still want to analyze your overall stratege, maximizing your margin and leveraging from your liquid assets as much as you can). After presenting you with this summary (and also with a live-view of the keywords referring traffic to your site), the system can give you suggestions. Again, as an example, for this site, that's something like: family guy stories, schlumberger work blog, guy sebastians address, emoticons da family guy, software engineer gemalto austin, dell inspiron e1705, sebastian com, las ruinas circulares de borges, etc). As you can see, the suggestions are related to my previous articles. [note: using their suggestions turned out to be pretty easy, right? <img src="http://www.thesebastian.com/templates/default/img/emoticons/wink.png" alt=";-)" style="display: inline; vertical-align: bottom;" class="emoticon" /> ... actually, you should use them in your titles, in bold and big fonts, etc].Some of the suggestions (as you can notice above) are not really interesting (remember this is computer-generated), so you also have a way to move the interesting ones to your to-do list and check them once you have used them on your site.If you would like to use this system for your site but don't really know how to set it up, I would be more than glad to do that work for you for a reasonable fee. Please <a title="SEO - HitTail" href="mailto:seb@thesebastian.com">contact me</a>.Also, there is a youtube video that explains the idea in a better media: <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/nWAlwr_g8dA" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><embed width="425" height="350" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/nWAlwr_g8dA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" /></object> Mon, 23 Apr 2007 22:35:45 -0700 http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/37-guid.html Tell your story Family-Guy-style http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/34-Tell-your-story-Family-Guy-style.html Marketing http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/34-Tell-your-story-Family-Guy-style.html#comments http://www.thesebastian.com/wfwcomment.php?cid=34 0 http://www.thesebastian.com/rss.php?version=2.0&type=comments&cid=34 nospam@example.com (Sebastian Brocher) Marketing gurus have been talking about why and how you should <a href="http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/04/ode_how_to_tell.html" target="_blank">tell a story</a> (wow! look at all those trackbacks) to your customers. Having a single, simple and solid small message that you repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat is so �90s (I wonder... Did you remember more the word "repeat" or the word "message"? please comment!) Instead, if you have the big bucks to spend on a massive advertisement campaign or, even better, if you are clever enough to figure out how to do it on a shoestring (hint: web, e-mails, blogs, rss, �), you should definitively be telling a much more complex story. Your story should have different chapters and also a common kernel to them. That surely will be the bold message and style, but it can also be something as simple as sharing the same actors (think <a href="http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=geico&search=Search" target="_blank">Geico advertisements</a> --that is, including the caveman). It is not enough anymore to just get your customers to just remember your message. You surely want them to remember it, but you also want them to talk about it with their friends, to e-mail the link to your ad video on your web to the friends, to upload your ad to youtube, to subscribe to an rss-feed for your ads and new products, to post comments, to interact with you, to chat with your specialist, to design your next ad� and all this simply because it is funny, because they can, because you have shown them respect, because its worth talking about it and because they use and love your products. What�? Family-Guy-Marketing? Ever watched Family Guy? I love it. I know maybe some people find it offensive, and I am not recommending that you use that same exact style to market your business. However, I think you should understand and use their techniques and methodology. Each episode (your chapters) gets a different blend of their favorite techniques, but also shares a common skeleton (intro, develop several stories, link them, wrap them up, be funny and leave you wanting some more) and a sense of belonging to the same core story. They play with time, develop multiple stories, play with reality and dreams, with nature, with roles and with so many other techniques and ideas that you can reuse. Think <a href="http://www.priceless.com/" target="_blank">pricesless.com</a>. Now Think <a href="http://youtube.com/results?search_query=bmw+ad&search=Search" target="_blank">BMW</a>. Shaken, not stirred... <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaken,_not_stirred" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaken,_not_stirred</a>. They have figured out a format that is both funny and efficient in keeping their fans coming back. And so have many other series, cartoons, movies, books and succesful ad agencies. I say you can leverage on all that knowledge and experience they have. For example, maybe hire a creative writer from a tv series, instead of one from the old-style advertising agency. Sat, 27 Jan 2007 03:36:06 -0800 http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/34-guid.html Only $9.99? http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/29-Only-9.99.html Marketing http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/29-Only-9.99.html#comments http://www.thesebastian.com/wfwcomment.php?cid=29 0 http://www.thesebastian.com/rss.php?version=2.0&type=comments&cid=29 nospam@example.com (Sebastian Brocher) I'm not a pricing expert, but the $9.99 (or $19.99 for that matter) pricing strategy is looking old to me. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum22/5001.htm">This guys</a> say it works well. I say change the rules. If you are selling to a �smart� market, the $9.99 might even sound insulting. This can also be true in general for some cultures. So stop insulting your customers. Start respecting them, show them you know better. They are smart and they will appreciate that. Develop trust. Differentiate yourself.How does a "Simply $10" sound instead of "Only $9.99"? Doesn't the first one sound more honest, fresher, uncluttered and more stylish? Aren't you tired of reading $9.99? If you were the customer, which one would you prefer? Do you really care about that penny? Are you really tricked into thinking it is less than $10 with the first one? I bet nowadays even your unconscious mind ain't buying. Change your strategy, give it a try, see what happens. Don't forget to measure and compare conversion rates.Oh ... and also, with all those extra pennies, you could implement something else. For example, you could add a simple �win a free gift :-)� big, green and fun button with a fancy sound and display at the check out and give away a little something (personalized with your brand?) every 10 or 100 customers. Now that's something your customers will remember and may talk about.P.S.: Here is a short review of the different <a href="http://www.tutor2u.net/business/gcse/marketing_pricing_strategies.htm" target="_blank">marketing pricing strategies and concepts</a>. Wed, 13 Dec 2006 23:09:11 -0800 http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/29-guid.html Blogging for individuals and small businesses: Part 3 � Who http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/27-Blogging-for-individuals-and-small-businesses-Part-3-Who.html Marketing http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/27-Blogging-for-individuals-and-small-businesses-Part-3-Who.html#comments http://www.thesebastian.com/wfwcomment.php?cid=27 0 http://www.thesebastian.com/rss.php?version=2.0&type=comments&cid=27 nospam@example.com (Sebastian Brocher) I've decided it's time to continue a little bit on this series. If you haven't read them yet, here are part <a href="http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/2-Blogging-for-individuals-and-small-businesses-Part-1-Why.html" target="_blank">one</a> and <a href="http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/9-Blogging-for-individuals-and-small-businesses-Part-2-What.html" target="_blank">two</a>, where I wrote about Why you should be blogging and What you should be blogging about. Now it's time to talk about the Who. Depending on the mission and objectives (see part one) for your blog, you will want to write so that you can capture the readers that can help you get there. Your intended audience, that is. Think about existing and potential clients, investors, partners, suppliers, employees, etc. As I've mentioned in part two, you should consider dividing your blog into different categories, each of them grouping articles that talk about the same main topic. One of the basic Marketing techniques is segmentation and orientation. Your categories help you do exactly this. Each category could very well represent a segment of your market and help you orientate your message to them. A few targeted messages to each of your segments will be more efficient that only one message sent out to everybody. Tell the story that goes well with every segment. Even better, try to connect at the individual level (e-mail, comments, etc). Warning: telling different stories is tempting and is the right thing to do, but thy must have a common kernel among them, or otherwise you wont be building a consistent message (always respect your brand global message, your values and, once again, your mission).For instance, if you are a Realtor (TM), you may have, for example, the following categories: Houses and Downtown Condos. Let's suppose Downtown Condos are very expensive and exclusive. Only very successful, wealthy individuals and families can afford them. Then you will want to tweak your message so that it is most appropriate for the wealthy readers interested on this market. This will allow you to create a better connection with them. For the Houses category, you may want to write having a family mother or father in mind. These are just examples, but you get the point. Don't just limit yourself to think about the different content you will use for articles orientated to each segment. Think about the best way to connect with them. Be creative. Think about slightly tweaking your writing style. Include links or information regarding services, products, brands, referrals, free online tools, e-books, <a href="http://www.changethis.com/" target="_blank">manifestos</a>, <a href="http://www.squidoo.com/" target="_blank">lenses</a>, books, movies, advise and other content your target audience is likely to be interested in. Remember to be human. Connect brands they already like with your own brand (e.g. review an Apple stylish product in your design category). In other words: don't clog your blog with selfish content promoting your products or services. Offer your readers more than that, and they will come back often. Once things start to work, care about Who is reading, and Who is reading each category. Use a good web statistics system to learn about them and how they use your website (I use, for example, <a href="http://www.phpopentracker.de/" target="_blank">phpOpenTracker</a>). Also, keep reviewing and adapting your segmentation and orientation as needed. Flexibility and speed are some of your big advantages for being small, so profit from them! Warning: do not change your message too often, or you will end up confusing your readers and consumers. They need some time to digest your material. Be patient. On the next part, I will talk about some clever and inexpensive ways to promote your blog by leveraging readily available technology and on-line services. I hope you've enjoyed this part. This is just a collection of small ideas. Please help me improving them with your comments <img src="http://www.thesebastian.com/templates/default/img/emoticons/smile.png" alt=":-)" style="display: inline; vertical-align: bottom;" class="emoticon" /> Mon, 04 Dec 2006 18:28:36 -0800 http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/27-guid.html Silly discount http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/26-Silly-discount.html Marketing http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/26-Silly-discount.html#comments http://www.thesebastian.com/wfwcomment.php?cid=26 0 http://www.thesebastian.com/rss.php?version=2.0&type=comments&cid=26 nospam@example.com (Sebastian Brocher) A few days ago, I called my auto insurance company to pay my semi-annual bill. I usually send in my payments through online banking (a very convenient, free service with my bank), but this time I had been traveling a lot and was too close to the due date to do that. I had my credit card ready with me, but they wouldn't take it. They wanted a check-over-the-phone thing. I didn't have my checkbook with me (who uses checks today anyway?). How much more expensive would it be, for a company that size, to accept credit card payments online and over the phone? A small percentage, plus the setup, training and maintenances fees, minus the cost of processing checks from the people that actually use the credit card instead, minus the cost of handling the (first and) second call(s) (read ahead).Although I don't think it is necessary, nor a good strategy for them, I would still be happy to (at least) have the option to pay a small extra fee for the convenience of using my credit card. How many clients change companies because of them being so restrictive (and cheap) at the time of accepting payments? Don't force your loyal clients to search for alternatives! Even if you are cheaper, most unhappy clients will be happy to move and pay more for a better service!So, anyway, I called the following day with my checkbook in hand. This time, their routine was different. Unless they changed the process somewhere in between those two days, their guys were being pretty inconsistent (another expense to them). This time, they went through all possible discounts I could get, trying to lower my premium before I payed. I liked that. But the funny thing is, they got me a $2 annual discount because I am now parking my car in a covered garage.A few days later I get my policy update in the mail (about 10 printed pages -in a kind of cheap paper-, inside a big envelope), indicating the new discount. The policy was good until next year, so they only had to send a new one because of the discount itself, not because of the payment. They never asked me if they could e-mail me that instead (not sure if that would be legal though). Oh, and yes, also their <a target="_blank" href="http://www.aaa-texas.com/">website</a> looks like a big mess promoting all their services and products (instead of helping you get done fast with what you want). Now let's think about all this for a second... What's the point of giving me a 0.25% discount when they had to pay for two calls (instead of just one, or zero if they would be really online), each of them about 4 to 5 minutes long to process my payment, plus the costs of printing, packaging and shipping the updated policy? What about my time? Am I happy with their service? No. Is the discount going to change my mind? No way! I'd rather have them streamline their website and processes so that they can save on unnecessary administrative burden, be more efficient, and use that to cover for the added costs (*) of accepting credit card payments and improving service level --and retain more customers (*). To be fair though, they did get something right. The phone answering machine menu was very fast and there was a human answering the phone right after the first few seconds. So they are not that bad after all. Sun, 03 Dec 2006 13:59:51 -0800 http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/26-guid.html Toast traffic update - Nov 20th & 21st http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/24-Toast-traffic-update-Nov-20th-21st.html Marketing http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/24-Toast-traffic-update-Nov-20th-21st.html#comments http://www.thesebastian.com/wfwcomment.php?cid=24 0 http://www.thesebastian.com/rss.php?version=2.0&type=comments&cid=24 nospam@example.com (Sebastian Brocher) As promised, here goes a small update on my <a href="http://www.yournameontoast.com" target="_blank">toast traffic</a>, my Top 10 referers (out of 20) table as measured by <a href="http://www.phpopentracker.de/en/index.php" target="_blank">phpOpenTracker</a> for Nov 20th: Number / # Visitors refered / URL 1 9 28.13% yournameontoast.com/ 2 5 15.63% sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/11/your_name_on_to.html 3 1 3.13% digg.com/linux_unix/Kubuntu_rocks_on_Dell_Inspiron_E1705 4 1 3.13% digg.com/search?area=all&age=all&sort=new&s=milliondollarhomepage&submit=Search 5 1 3.13% digg.com/submit?title=Is it for real ?&bodytext=What's toastmadeof...&catid=305&captchatext=d6mbj&captchaid=2b2aca82f20eda145e2b9e10b9ea5047&submit=SubmitStory&url=www.busto.dk/blog/?p=253&phase=3&key=59047825 6 1 3.13% digg.com/users/mieteck/friends/dugg 7 1 3.13% email.secureserver.net/webmail.php?login=1 8 1 3.13% popurls.com/mint/ 9 1 3.13% sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/10/the_next_millio.html 10 1 3.13% www.digg.com/users/sethgodin/dugg So, just for yesterday alone, that's a single $10.01 toast for 9 visits; the rate comes out to 1.11 $/visit. As an experiment, it would be interesting to compare this with other toasters. I'll try publish this same rate tomorrow as well. Anyone out there? Anyway, regardless of the numbers above, it is the philantropic, cool and experimental nature of this that really interests me <img src="http://www.thesebastian.com/templates/default/img/emoticons/smile.png" alt=":-)" style="display: inline; vertical-align: bottom;" class="emoticon" />Update: Nov 21st -> 12 more visits refered from yournameontoast.com. Nov 22nd -> 3 more. Total visits for first 3 days: 24. The updated rate is 24 visits / $10.01 = 2.4 visits/$. Tue, 21 Nov 2006 16:10:59 -0800 http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/24-guid.html How about a nice toast? http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/23-How-about-a-nice-toast.html Marketing http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/23-How-about-a-nice-toast.html#comments http://www.thesebastian.com/wfwcomment.php?cid=23 0 http://www.thesebastian.com/rss.php?version=2.0&type=comments&cid=23 nospam@example.com (Sebastian Brocher) Pete from <a target="_blank" href="http://yournameontoast.com/">Your Name On Toast :: Your name, except on toast</a> wrote me a nice e-mail letting me know about his site. I like the fact that 100% of the profits goes to charity. I think this is remarkable, so I went ahead and placed a toasty ad for this very same blog (one more time, there is something 'circular' about all this... check out my article on <a href="archives/7-Borges,-labyrinths,-dreaming,-graphs,-trees,-blogs,-the-internet-and-viral-marketing.html">Borges, labyrinths, dreaming, graphs, trees, blogs, the internet and viral marketing</a>). Seth also <a target="_blank" href="http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/11/your_name_on_to.html">wrote</a> about the toasts page <img src="http://www.thesebastian.com/templates/default/img/emoticons/smile.png" alt=":-)" style="display: inline; vertical-align: bottom;" class="emoticon" />. I confess, yes, I'm addicted to Seth's blog.My toast is not online yet, but I will try to update this post once it gets there, maybe with some traffic details or something alike <img src="http://www.thesebastian.com/templates/default/img/emoticons/smile.png" alt=":-)" style="display: inline; vertical-align: bottom;" class="emoticon" />. Go toast, feel good, have fun and also check out my previous post on <a target="_blank" href="http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/15-Seth-points-out-another-one.html">mmmzr</a>. Sun, 19 Nov 2006 23:56:24 -0800 http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/23-guid.html Seth points out another one http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/15-Seth-points-out-another-one.html Marketing http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/15-Seth-points-out-another-one.html#comments http://www.thesebastian.com/wfwcomment.php?cid=15 3 http://www.thesebastian.com/rss.php?version=2.0&type=comments&cid=15 nospam@example.com (Sebastian Brocher) Seth has just <a target="_blank" href="http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/10/the_next_millio.html">pointed out today</a> a link to yet another "million-dollar-viral-marketing" web page. This one is called <a target="_blank" href="http://www.mmmzr.com/">mmmzr</a>. It's just another twist of the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/">milliondollarhomepage</a>Regardless of whether this is a mesh-up of this and that site, or the exact twist that makes it different, or what this site does in particular, the interesting thing here are the powerful ideas behind it and how one can (apparently) re-use them, as long as the twist or the blend makes the new site different enough from the previous one in order to create that necessary critical mass (interest and initial traffic) to get the existing social networks diffuse the virus thorugh their favorite communication channels (oh... and yes, BTW, blogs are a very effective one, that's why there is always a blog in these sites). As Seth points it, these sites will keep changing the rules. They are simple, cheap and extremelly fast and easy to build. They are genious in their very own way. There are just soooo many possible different twists and mesh-ups... Fri, 27 Oct 2006 09:01:11 -0700 http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/15-guid.html Blinking Rice & Noodles http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/12-Blinking-Rice-Noodles.html Marketing http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/12-Blinking-Rice-Noodles.html#comments http://www.thesebastian.com/wfwcomment.php?cid=12 0 http://www.thesebastian.com/rss.php?version=2.0&type=comments&cid=12 nospam@example.com (Sebastian Brocher) Have you already read "<a target="_blank" href="http://www.gladwell.com/blink/index.html">Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking</a>", by Malcom Gladwell? I first heard about Malcom in one of my "<a target="_blank" href="http://www.fastcompany.com">Fast Company</a>" numbers a while ago. Then heard people talking about him and his books. I then bought and listen to Blink's audio CD version, about a year ago. I really enjoyed the book, all the way from start to finish. To the point I would sometimes stay in the car for a few extra minutes in the parking lot before going wherever I was meant to go. A few days ago, I went to the outlet mall. After shopping for a while, I got hungry and decided to eat something from their food curt. I don't particularly enjoy fast food, but sometimes that's exactly what I want: fast food (hey, I didn't mean bad quality! ... hmm). Anyway, there were three choices: subway, an italian place with the usual pizza and pasta offer, and a chinnesse food store. I didn't feel like sandwhich, so I discarded subway first. Then looked at the pizzas and ... blink! They looked really bad. The pasta looked bad too. The whole presentation was bad. People waiting in the line didn't seem happy. In one or two seconds, just by looking at all this, my fast food expert-mind resolved (without thinking) to go give the chinnese food store a try.The chinesse store had their marketing guy standing on the way and offering free samples of chicken-something. He wasn't smiling. He wasn't very polite (neither his body language, nor his words). The sample food was OK. The line was going fast, but got stucked. There was a lady complaining in the register, apparently because she was billed incorrectly. She was being loud. The guy from the register could speak some English. It was my turn. I took the "two meats and fried rice or nooddles or white rice" plate. The lady serving me did not talk to me, but waited for me... "May I have some rice & nooddles please?' She answered... "No". That was her first word to me, the customer. And it wasn't a friendly "No". There wasn't an "additional fee" or anything else available. The only option she offered me (after seeing I was not moving on), was to surrender one of my meats to get a full portion of rice, a full portion of nooddles, and one meat. "That's not what I want" ... she didn't quite care.Down the line, a little kid, probably 5 years old was doing the drinks from the soda dispenser machine. I blinked again. Auugh! That was really disgusting now. Needless to say, I did not enjoy my food.About a few more days ago, I had an extremelly good experience with another fast food chinnese store. Why was that? Whas the food so different? Not really. OK, may be it was a bit better, but not that much. The fact is, once you've blinked the bad experience flag, you probably wont enjoy the rest.So, anyway, my points are:<ul><li>Care who's on your business front line. You can't train them to be polite. You probably can't train them to smile (at least not all the time). You can't train them to be a people's person. But you can train the skills. Don't care so much about experience. Hire the right attitude, the right personality, then train the necessary skills.</li><li>Care about the how, not just the what. Putting the marketing guy to offer free samples wont help if he ain't good at it. The first chinnesse place had a terrific guy offering the free samples and, in one or two secconds, he induced a very possitive blink. You gotta do it, but you gotta do it right (or it might be even worst than not doing it at all!)</li><li>Listen to your blink. Listen to other's blinks. I think I might have been better off just going somewhere else, or simply holding my appetite (that's difficult!). If possible, have your friends, employees and family experience your products or services and tell you their different perceptions. Correct whatever you want and can, then iterate. Get feedback from your customers (not only from the unhappy ones!).</li><li>Care your presentation. Not matter what service or product you sell (or give away), it has to 'blink' good. Blink good can be induced by the product itself (e.g. beautiful design), or may be just by your sales guys creating a possitive blink (BTW, I believe this is also closely related to <a target="_blank" href="http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/4-Are-you-eating-alone.html">Keith's Ferrazzi</a> "deep bump" concept). If your front line can't deep bump, then they probably can't induce a positive perception either. </li></ul> Oh ... and, by the way, don't forget to go read Malcom's latest post on <a href="http://gladwell.typepad.com/gladwellcom/2006/09/degree_of_diffi.html" target="_blank">degree of difficulty</a>. After reading it, we understand why sometimes it is hard to realize all this in a clear and easy way. If we are not an insider, (i.e. not the customer, not the one doing the job, etc), then you might not notice a few things; you might have an absolutely different perception. That's why it is usually so hard to auto-analyze yourself or your own company. So, one more time, go ask your friends, family and employees to do that for you. Repeat this periodically. But also remember <a href="http://www.geraldmweinberg.com/" target="_blank">Jerry Weinberg</a>'s Marvin's Second Great Secret: Repeatedly curing a system that can cure itself will eventually create a system that can't. If your employees can fix it, tell them to, and let them do. If they can't, teach them how. Sun, 15 Oct 2006 21:33:27 -0700 http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/12-guid.html Blogging for individuals and small businesses: Part 2 - What http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/9-Blogging-for-individuals-and-small-businesses-Part-2-What.html Marketing http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/9-Blogging-for-individuals-and-small-businesses-Part-2-What.html#comments http://www.thesebastian.com/wfwcomment.php?cid=9 0 http://www.thesebastian.com/rss.php?version=2.0&type=comments&cid=9 nospam@example.com (Sebastian Brocher) Here goes the second part of this series. On the first part I wrote about <a target="_blank" href="http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/2-Blogging-for-individuals-and-small-businesses-Part-1-Why.html">Why you should be blogging</a>. Now I would like to write about the What:Failure to plan is planning for failure. What do you want to achieve? You should:1. Define your objective and mission. What do you want from your blog? What is your ultimate goal and reason why you want to blog? Think about the values behind it, they will go a long way if you follow them (e.g. "to share my knowledge in ...").2. Following your objective, write down a few short and long term goals. You want them to be SMART: a) Specific: "I want to grow my business" is not a good goal statement. Choose instead something like "I want to increase my sales by 20% as a result of new leads coming exclusively from my blog in the first six months".b) Measurable: Achieve 1000 unique visits a day on my third month blogging. Get 10 new leads in the first six months.c) Attainable: I said 1000 unique visitors, not 1M. Write at least three articles a week, not thirty.d) Realistic: Research what is a realistic goal by looking into other similar initiatives. What are they achieving? Contact them and ask them questions. What's the worst that can happen?e) Tangible: You want to have feedback, grow your network and connect with new people. Get more business, etc. Is the press talking about your articles and ideas?OK, so now you know why you want to blog and what you want to achieve with your new blog. The next question should be:3. What am I going to write about? What will my content be? Unless you are already well known, writing a few articles about very diverse topics wont help you much. You want to focus in a few (may be three or four to start with) different but somehow related topics. A few unrelated articles from time to time are OK though. Think about these topics as the different categories you will use to classify your articles in your blog. These categories should keep your blog organized and help your readers easily find the articles they may be interested in. You can also later use these categories to tag your articles. Think about your passions. Writing about them will keep you motivated. Write down 10 to 15 keywords and their relationship with your topics (e.g. golf is a good keyword for your sports category). These keywords will later help you with your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) activities. That concludes part two. I hope you will find this post interesting and that you'll share it with your like-minded friends. Part three will deal with the Who (your intended audience). Sat, 24 Jun 2006 17:01:01 -0700 http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/9-guid.html Are you eating alone? http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/4-Are-you-eating-alone.html Marketing http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/4-Are-you-eating-alone.html#comments http://www.thesebastian.com/wfwcomment.php?cid=4 0 http://www.thesebastian.com/rss.php?version=2.0&type=comments&cid=4 nospam@example.com (Sebastian Brocher) I've just finished reading Keith Ferrazzi's book entitled <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ferrazzigreenlight.com/nevereatalone/">Never Eat Alone</a> a few weeks ago. I loved it and find myself applying the ideas from the book in my everyday life, over and over again. Each time I do it, they keep making more and more sense while his theory keeps getting validated. It feels somehow as if each little step I take compounds with the previous one. This is no surprise. I think that's how its supposed to feel if you are doing things right. My friends are loving it too. Think about a tree. Or, if you are good with math, think about combinatory and set theory:<blockquote> How many unordered pairs can one take from a set of N elements?. That's N times N - 1, divided by 2. How many new relationships can get established by adding one element to a set of N? That's [ [(N + 1) x N] - [N x (N -1)] ] / 2 = N. What? You don't believe me? <img src="http://www.thesebastian.com/templates/default/img/emoticons/smile.png" alt=":-)" style="display: inline; vertical-align: bottom;" class="emoticon" /> In a set of 3 elements, there are 3 x 2 / 2 = 3 different unordered pairs. In a set of 4, there are 4 x 3 / 2 = 6. In other words, adding just one element to the set of 3 increases the possible number of relationships among the elements by 3! Exactly the same happens with social networks. When you meet someone new, you can introduce her to (read: she can benefit from) your whole network and so creating new N relationships! In other words, the total number of relationships in a network grow exponentially with the amount of people you know (hint: as long as you are connecting them with each other!). </blockquote>I must mention some of Keith's ideas come to me as common sense. However this is, in part, what makes the book so valuable. Growing your network of contacts and becoming successful is not just about approaching a few things differently here and there, or making a good move from time to time; it is about helping others, about being professional, about being persistent and being smart about it too. You can't afford just leaving it open to chance! (well, may be Paris Hilton can, but not me <img src="http://www.thesebastian.com/templates/default/img/emoticons/smile.png" alt=":-)" style="display: inline; vertical-align: bottom;" class="emoticon" />) So yes, I was already implementing some of the ideas before reading the book, but I think following the whole, complete set of ideas and processes as presented by Keith is really what makes the big difference. Call it being serious and organized about it if you wish.Anyway, Mark Goulston has posted a great summary with the main ideas at their blog (check out <a target="_blank" href="http://nevereatalone.typepad.com/blog/2006/06/never_eat_alone.html">Never Eat Alone made simple</a>). If you haven't read the book, I strongly recommend reading the article (and of course then buying the book if you like the article). If you have read the book, you should still read the article! On a similar line, although more simplistic, there is also a <a target="_blank" href="http://www.changethis.com">change this</a> manifest available for free: <a target="_blank" href="http://www.changethis.com/21.CareFeedingOfNetwork">The caring and feeding of your network</a>. Wed, 14 Jun 2006 12:13:00 -0700 http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/4-guid.html Blogging for individuals and small businesses: Part 1 - Why http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/2-Blogging-for-individuals-and-small-businesses-Part-1-Why.html Marketing http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/2-Blogging-for-individuals-and-small-businesses-Part-1-Why.html#comments http://www.thesebastian.com/wfwcomment.php?cid=2 0 http://www.thesebastian.com/rss.php?version=2.0&type=comments&cid=2 nospam@example.com (Sebastian Brocher) Professional individuals such as Realtors (TM), contractors, freelancers, financial advisers, insurance salesmen, consultants, writers, composers, teachers, sport stars, researchers, actors, musicians and artists alike, among others, usually need to take care of growing their own business (by growing, I don't necessarily mean obtaining a financial improvement but rather achieving a measurable improvement towards reaching their goals and objectives). This is the foundation to this series. I'm writing to you, the ambitious professional or small business owner who wants to get to the next level but has limited resources to get there. I strongly believe focusing on your Marketing activities is the best, natural way to achieve this. Wikipedia makes freely available different Marketing <a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing">definitions</a> which should help backing up my point. For example, let's take this one: <blockquote>...Marketing, as suggested by the American Marketing Association, is "an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders"</blockquote> This is kind of a traditional definition. For individuals and small businesses, a fresher approach like that of relationship marketing fits better. Again, from Wikipedia: <blockquote>...On the other hand, Christian Gr�nroos, in the context of a move to relationship marketing, summarized a rather different European view in his definition: "Marketing is to establish, maintain and enhance long-term customer relationships at a profit, so that the objectives of the parties involved are met. This is done by mutual exchange and fulfillment of promises"</blockquote> I've supposed above that your resources are limited. If that's the case, then implementing successful marketing campaigns can be pretty challenging. This is when Technology comes into place. I believe blogging is today's ultimate tool for you to implement a good part of your marketing activities. Some of the reasons are: <ul><li>It is a great channel to communicate with your potential and existing customers. It allows them to better understand your business and interact with your network (feel part of it). </li><li>It is very inexpensive. </li><li>It is simple and fast: allows you to have that quick reactivity your contacts expect from you and also differentiates you from the slower and bureaucratic big guys. </li><li>Freely sharing your content makes you an authority on your subject. It helps you differentiate from your competition and clearly define your value proposition. </li><li>It allows you to reach a global audience and leverage on existing social networks (read propagate buzz) that you might have not even though about. </li><li>It is also a great way to create exposure to other important people, such as existing and potential partners, angel and venture capital investors, the press, team members and future employees, associates, etc. </li><li>It is flexible: for example, if a given article doesn't work out well then you don't need to continue writing on it, or you may even choose to edit it (compare this to an expensive ad campaign) </li><li>It helps you leverage on freely available and existing technology. The technology behind blogs makes them the perfect networking tool. Pings, tracebacks, comments, feeds and sites like <a title="Boing Boing" target="_blank" href="http://www.boingboing.net/">boing boing</a> illustrate this (more about the technology will come later on the next parts). </li><li>It connects you with the early adopters. They love blogs. Connecting with them is one of the keys to your success (mostly if you are offering products to the end consumers). </li><li>If you have great content and keep updating your blog regularly, your audience (read prospects, customers, potential partners, etc) will keep growing and coming back again and again. </li><li>It helps you building your brand. Think Nike (more about this later).</li> <li>Because of the informal nature of blogs, they allow you to be more relaxed on your writing style. You are suddenly more human, have emotions and feelings. This will help you reach and connect with your audience on a more intense and personal level than, for example, the one achieved by a white paper, a press article or even by a traditional website.</li></ul> OK, that was long. I'd be surprised if you are still with me. In any case, I would like to hear from you <img src="http://www.thesebastian.com/templates/default/img/emoticons/smile.png" alt=":-)" style="display: inline; vertical-align: bottom;" class="emoticon" />. Thanks for reading! Mon, 12 Jun 2006 21:44:12 -0700 http://www.thesebastian.com/archives/2-guid.html