These guides are awesome resources for getting started with a new business or learning about how the tech and social media savvy non-professional marketers get the word out for their products and services.
The Etsy Seller Handbook: All Our How To's About Selling
OPEN Forum (hosted by American Express)
Harvard Business Review Blog
Bootstrapping a Startup (hosted by Businessweek)
SmartBrief - industry news
HubSpot Blog and eBook guides for:
Infographics by Visua.ly - not a guide per se, but a good reference site for how different types of datasets can be represented as graphics.
Holiday Marketing Ideas
And so it begins with Target announcing that it'll open its stores at midnight on November 25 (Black Friday).
Maybe you're just a small business or sole proprietor with limited shelf and store footprint, or you have an online business that's just starting up. Here are a few thoughts about making the upcoming shopping season the best experience for your customers:
Ease of use - make it easy and simple for customers to get in contact with you (telephone, email, Skype, Twitter, Facebook) or to shop at your store; make the research of the product with your online storefront easy to read on multiple formats (this means, no heavy use of graphics or Flash presentations); and add the personal touch of having a live person responding to these inquiries.
Comparable benefits - if you can't match or beat a competitor's low pricing or free shipping offers, then the next best alternative is to have better qualitative benefits such as superior customer service, faster turnaround times (from ordering to delivery), or alternative methods of shipping (maybe time isn't that big of a factor just as long as it gets to its destination within a reasonable amount of time; there is however, a big difference in shipping costs between FedEx, UPS, and USPS).
Get and respond to feedback whether it's positive or negative - Publishing a customer satisfaction survey link using Google Spreadsheet Forms or SurveyMonkey are a cost-effective way of capturing things you want to know about your products and the consumers that use them. You can use a free URL shortener like bit.ly or tinyurl to save on character printing space. Bit.ly even allows you to make custom urls if you have an account with them, for example: http://bit.ly/mktgurlblog
Final note:
Take industry revenue estimates with a grain of salt before comparing the potential of its impact to your niche market. In 2005, Forrester Research estimated that online retail sales would grow from $172 billion in 2005 to $329 billion in 2010. Then, in 2010, Forrester Research suggested that US online retail sales would grow by an average of 10% per year until 2014 from $172 billion to $248 billion. However, the US Commerce Department reported that 2010 e-retail sales in the US to be $165.4 billion.
ComScore draws on online purchase data from its panel of about 1 million U.S. online shoppers. Commerce Department estimates are based on a quarterly survey of more than 11,000 U.S. merchants.
Maybe you're just a small business or sole proprietor with limited shelf and store footprint, or you have an online business that's just starting up. Here are a few thoughts about making the upcoming shopping season the best experience for your customers:
Ease of use - make it easy and simple for customers to get in contact with you (telephone, email, Skype, Twitter, Facebook) or to shop at your store; make the research of the product with your online storefront easy to read on multiple formats (this means, no heavy use of graphics or Flash presentations); and add the personal touch of having a live person responding to these inquiries.
Comparable benefits - if you can't match or beat a competitor's low pricing or free shipping offers, then the next best alternative is to have better qualitative benefits such as superior customer service, faster turnaround times (from ordering to delivery), or alternative methods of shipping (maybe time isn't that big of a factor just as long as it gets to its destination within a reasonable amount of time; there is however, a big difference in shipping costs between FedEx, UPS, and USPS).
Get and respond to feedback whether it's positive or negative - Publishing a customer satisfaction survey link using Google Spreadsheet Forms or SurveyMonkey are a cost-effective way of capturing things you want to know about your products and the consumers that use them. You can use a free URL shortener like bit.ly or tinyurl to save on character printing space. Bit.ly even allows you to make custom urls if you have an account with them, for example: http://bit.ly/mktgurlblog
Final note:
Take industry revenue estimates with a grain of salt before comparing the potential of its impact to your niche market. In 2005, Forrester Research estimated that online retail sales would grow from $172 billion in 2005 to $329 billion in 2010. Then, in 2010, Forrester Research suggested that US online retail sales would grow by an average of 10% per year until 2014 from $172 billion to $248 billion. However, the US Commerce Department reported that 2010 e-retail sales in the US to be $165.4 billion.
ComScore draws on online purchase data from its panel of about 1 million U.S. online shoppers. Commerce Department estimates are based on a quarterly survey of more than 11,000 U.S. merchants.
Fast & Frugal Webinar - Running a Lean Startup with AWS
This was a multipart webinar series that Amazon AWS hosted. I thought that the speakers would shed some light into a few notions that are critically important to small business owners, primarily what a lean startup is, how these startups are using AWS for their business, and how to take this knowledge from webinar to execution. Some parts were way too technical for a mixed business audience.
"Lean" is a concept that is closely associated with manufacturing, and according to Wikipedia it is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination. Working from the perspective of the customer who consumes a product or service, "value" is defined as any action or process that a customer would be willing to pay for. Essentially, lean is centered on preserving value with less work.
Recommendations for Lean Startups:
Use innovation accounting with three learning milestones. (1) establish the baseline to build a minimum viable product and measure how customers behave right now. (2) tune the engine and experiment to see if we can improve metrics from the baseline towards the deal. (3) pivot or persevere when experiments reach diminishing returns, it's time to pivot.
Leverage AWS. Why? Your server infrastructure needs will change. If you are able to run on the same infrastructure at launch and a year later, you overbuilt your launch infrastructure, or even worse, your business is not scaling. Goal: find a Scalable Business Model.
Build your Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Toss the vanity metrics (ones use in frilly reports to senior management, shareholders, or key stakeholders) and instead measure key assumptions that answer what we are trying to prove with this startup. Use 3rd party SaaS metrics or Amazon's elastic mapreduce. Goal: learn from the process, iterate or pivot in a new direction.
Use the building blocks AWS provides. It is on demand, available, elastic (use as much or as little as needed), pay as you go, low cost, no contracts, no upfront payments, and no cap-ex.
Vertical scaling - increase hardware, cpu, memory
Horizontal scaling - increases instance number, master/slave replications
Database sharding - indexes partial customer datasets
Goal: stay lean by using only what you need and reduce costs.
"A startup is a human institution designed to deliver a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty." --Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup
"Lean" is a concept that is closely associated with manufacturing, and according to Wikipedia it is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination. Working from the perspective of the customer who consumes a product or service, "value" is defined as any action or process that a customer would be willing to pay for. Essentially, lean is centered on preserving value with less work.
 |
| The Toyota Way, an example of a lean process |
Use innovation accounting with three learning milestones. (1) establish the baseline to build a minimum viable product and measure how customers behave right now. (2) tune the engine and experiment to see if we can improve metrics from the baseline towards the deal. (3) pivot or persevere when experiments reach diminishing returns, it's time to pivot.
Leverage AWS. Why? Your server infrastructure needs will change. If you are able to run on the same infrastructure at launch and a year later, you overbuilt your launch infrastructure, or even worse, your business is not scaling. Goal: find a Scalable Business Model.
Build your Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Toss the vanity metrics (ones use in frilly reports to senior management, shareholders, or key stakeholders) and instead measure key assumptions that answer what we are trying to prove with this startup. Use 3rd party SaaS metrics or Amazon's elastic mapreduce. Goal: learn from the process, iterate or pivot in a new direction.
Use the building blocks AWS provides. It is on demand, available, elastic (use as much or as little as needed), pay as you go, low cost, no contracts, no upfront payments, and no cap-ex.
Vertical scaling - increase hardware, cpu, memory
Horizontal scaling - increases instance number, master/slave replications
Database sharding - indexes partial customer datasets
Goal: stay lean by using only what you need and reduce costs.
TED Talks "How to spot a liar", Oct 2011
"Lying is a cooperative act. A lie has no power whatsoever by its mere utterance. Its power emerges when someone else agrees to believe the lie." --Pamela Meyer, author of Liespotting
Attitude indicators are just behaviors. They're not proof of deception. They're red flags which don't mean anything in and of themselves. However, when you see clusters of these red flags that's your signal.
Patterns of Deception:
#1 non-contracted denial (e.g., Clinton's public statment about ML)
- People who are overdetermined in their denial will resort to formal rather than informal language
- Use of distancing language to distance self from another person (e.g., "that woman")
- Use of qualifying language discredits the liar
#2 body language (use science to temper your knowledge)
- Fidgeters freeze their upper bodies when they're lying
- While smiles convey honesty and sincerity, a real smile is in the eyes (wrinkled crows feet can't be consciously contracted)
deceptive person: withdrawn, look down, lower their voice, pause, their story is peppered with way too much detail in all kinds of irrelevant places, blink rate changes, point their feet towards an exit; will take barrier objects and put them between themselves and the person that is interviewing them; will alter their vocal tone, often making their vocal tone much lower
Related articles:
"The Truth About Lying" by Allison Kornet, Psychology Today
"Lying in Everyday Life", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology [PDF]
Radio Lab: Into the Brain of a Liar
Infographics 101
While text and data are standard methods of communicating concepts, infographics do it better. Many infographics shared through social media sites are often intended for humor or satire, and others illustrate market or demographic trends. One should keep in mind how that research was generated because the dissemination of data from a poorly constructed research study is still bad data, regardless of how pretty of a graphic it can be turned into. An infographic can be as simple as showing the different types of clouds relative to the elevations they are typically found at. Infographics can be used to illustrate any data set with meaningful attributions. More data on a picture is not necessarily better or adds more validity.
Notable Infographics
Data Viz Challenge (Google partnered with Eyebeam to sponsor the Data Viz Challenge: Visualize Your Taxes using data provided byWhatWePayFor.com)
Infographic World's The Life and Times of Steve Jobs
Interactive Map: Costs of Hunger
Social Media / Marketing
Randall Munroe's xkcd illustration about Online Communities
Michael A. Stelzner's How Marketers are Using Social Media in 2010
Social Media Facts & Figures for B2B Sales (2010)
NetProspex Social 50
Notable Infographics
Data Viz Challenge (Google partnered with Eyebeam to sponsor the Data Viz Challenge: Visualize Your Taxes using data provided byWhatWePayFor.com)
Infographic World's The Life and Times of Steve Jobs
Interactive Map: Costs of Hunger
Social Media / Marketing
Randall Munroe's xkcd illustration about Online Communities
Michael A. Stelzner's How Marketers are Using Social Media in 2010
Social Media Facts & Figures for B2B Sales (2010)
NetProspex Social 50
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