July 2005
Monthly Archive
How to take the hassle out of advertising
MattE 29 Jul 2005 | : Marketing
Reading books can be motivating and transfer some really great information, but at the end of the day, nothing beats hands on processes for getting results. AdPack from Advertising Essentials seems like a winner of an idea…
I looked at this site a while back and still think it is a great concept. Essentially the product is an advertising ideas ‘generator’ for business. The site claims you can generate 125,000 ideas and I don’t doubt it.
What you get is 150 strategy cards (50 media, 50 offer and 50 power word cards), an instruction booklet, scribble pad and a brainstorming board. Each of these cards can be combined to create powerful marketing ideas.
New venture - caricatures
MattE 27 Jul 2005 | : Marketing, Web
I just cannot help myself - I just love starting new internet ventures. I shouldn’t really because I already spend too much time in front of the computer….
But here goes. Caricatures. No I have not learned to draw them, someone else does that. What I do is get good people like yourself to think, hey! that would be neat as a gift for Fred who is leaving next week, or even what a good idea for an avatar….or even print and frame it for the wall. Something different.
The web venture is part of it. I’m going to give Google adwords a go as an initial kick-off, and to experiment to see what draws the greatest clickthrough - test and measure, test and measure. When I’m confident about what pushes people’s hot buttons then I’ll splash out with an ad in a national magazine. Later it will be available for all the non-Luddites who have camera phones and MMS to get the image back to their phone.
68% of mobile phones sold in 2004 had color screens
The move towards more complex data services being made available on mobile phones is being assisted (or reflected) in the type of screens new mobile phones have. According to these stats, there is a ready market…
Survey: Web sites building better brand loyalty than physical stores
MattE 23 Jul 2005 | : Marketing, Web
A survey in the USA by on-line customer-satisfaction consultancy ForeSee Results and market research firm FGI Research, found that:
that shoppers who use the Web as their primary research tool are more satisfied than those who go straight to brick-and-mortar stores. And those who research and buy on the Web are the most satisfied and loyal customers, and are the most likely to make additional purchases in the coming year. Additionally, nearly as many people are doing their shopping research on-line regardless of whether they’ll make their purchases on the Web or in stores. Some 38% of shoppers use the Web as their primary shopping research tool, compared with 41% who rely on stores for their research. In the electronics/computers and toys/books/games categories, on-line research plays an even greater role, with nearly half of shoppers doing their research on-line. Read article
The survey also showed that while satisfaction of purchasing experience in bricks-and-mortar stares was low, 86% of shoppers still preferred off-line purchasing. This was even among the the 38% who make on-line research - 71% of those still made their final purchase in a physical store.
So should we give up on making our products available for sale on-line? Not according to the survey, which identified that the most loyal customers were those that purchased on-line, meaning several things: Continue Reading »
How old is too old for text messaging?
I was Technorati’ing (the same as Googling but on the blog search engine Technorati) today and via a link or two, came across this neat newspaper article. MARK PATINKIN: How old is too old for text messaging? | TheNewsTribune.com .
Now while I am right ‘into’ the SMS industry - providing competitions, outbound SMS services and the like (see our SMS services page) I must admit I HATE using the mobile phone keypad for txting. I do sometimes but much prefer to use Mobile Messenger which integrates into Outlook (plus its own window interface if you prefer).
As for Mark Patinkin - why wait till you are 52 - I feel that way at 46 somethimes…
Camera phones and anti-terrorism
MattE 22 Jul 2005 | : Media, SMS
The ubiquitous camera phone could be one of the greatest tools for gathering evidence in terrorism and other crime activities. This is an excerpt from the UK Police website:
Detectives today issued an urgent appeal for any photographs, video footage or mobile phone images that were taken on either Thursday 7th July or on Thursday 21st July 2005, either in or close to the areas where the incidents took place.
Police believe that these images could contain vital information and provide a crucial piece of the investigative jigsaw. Read more
Experiences with Skype
MattE 21 Jul 2005 | : Communications, Marketing, Media
A while back I wrote about how Skype, the internet VOIP service could be used to provide a cheap international presence for your business (see this post).
I have been using Skype to talk to clients from all over the place, but only recently started to use the SkypeOut service to replace normal phone calls. I was prompted by a business contact who used Skype in their business as a replacement for a normal telco account.
The first task is to buy some call credit. This is sold in 10 EURO lots, so that is equivalent to around 530 minutes at national call rates here in Australia - and the same to call landlines in the USA, UK and about a dozen other countries. This purchase process is straightforward using a credit card.
The internet’s role in expanding business potential
MattE 19 Jul 2005 | : Communications, Marketing, Web
I was having an interesting conversation with a lady who was buying some wages software she had seen featured on our software site. What started out as a phone order soon turned her experiences as a small business owner and how it was possible to successfully run one in a large regional centre of 21,000 people.
This lady runs a secretarial service. All but one of her clients are in her region, and all of the four casual staff live in the local area. New clients are generated from word of mouth.
Our conversation soon came around to the issue of if it was worth having a website. First was the issue of once a website is built, then it has to be found. With her focus on her region, I figured that locals using town names in their web searches would find her fairly easily, but then again, she was comfortably finding new clients via referral.
More ways to leverage value from existing customers
MattE 16 Jul 2005 | : Marketing
Recently I wrote about including discount offers and newsletters with mailed or email invoices.
Here are a few more ideas.
OK, so you don’t send out invoices to customers because all of your business is cash business, or sales via the internet. So how can you add value for every sale?
Here are some simple ideas:
- Use the back of the sales docket from the cash register. These can be pre-printed with offers. All customers have to do is present the docket next time they make a purchase. The offer can have whatever qualifier that you want - it could be that the purchase has to be over a certain amount to qualify.
- Have discount coupons next to the cash register so staff can hand these out for sales over a certain dollar value.
- Doing business online? Easy - just include a discount code on the customer’s email receipt that they can enter into a discount code field in your shopping cart next time they shop.
Just a bit of fun
MattE 16 Jul 2005 | : Communications, Marketing, Media, Web
If you are like me, and spend too long in front of the computer, you may enjoy this…I found it on the
Threadwatch.org website. Strangely captivating 
