Article: Southwest adds charge to board sooner
Wow, this is a great [insert sarcasm] revenue generator. I scoff at this because the last flight I took on Delta Airlines charged $25/seat to upgrade to an exit row. As such, there were several empty exit-row seats on the flight. Good luck to anyone needing to evacuate through those rows. It doesn't matter how soon you board the plane or get settled into your seat; and likewise, it doesn't matter if you sit in First Class or Economy because if you have an aisle seat, you still have to get up and out of it to let in the middle and window seaters. What value is $10/flight to a passenger who gets to sit down first when the airplane can't even take off until everyone is seated?
It's bad enough that 150+ passengers have to share two bathrooms at the back of the plane. What's next?
Disney market strategy
When is the last movie or tv series that Disney was able to create on their own that was a blockbuster success? Exclude anything made by Pixar because that doesn't really count as being Disney-created.
Marvel Comics is a great franchise for Disney to pick up as a licensed brand. $4 billion is chump change over the lifetime ownership of all the Marvel properties and titles that could become movies. Kudos to Stan Lee for selling his soul to Disney. Miyazaki did the same by selling the rights to his library to Disney. Let's face it, aside from the failing amusement parks, Disney has what Time Warner, Fox Media, and Sony Entertainment have.. a distribution network and a very captive audience who wants to buy anything with their stamp on it.
Read more?
p.s. Stan Lee does not own Marvel; but his name is synonymous with the Marvel brand. If you read comic books penned by him in the early 80s.
Marvel Comics is a great franchise for Disney to pick up as a licensed brand. $4 billion is chump change over the lifetime ownership of all the Marvel properties and titles that could become movies. Kudos to Stan Lee for selling his soul to Disney. Miyazaki did the same by selling the rights to his library to Disney. Let's face it, aside from the failing amusement parks, Disney has what Time Warner, Fox Media, and Sony Entertainment have.. a distribution network and a very captive audience who wants to buy anything with their stamp on it.
Read more?
p.s. Stan Lee does not own Marvel; but his name is synonymous with the Marvel brand. If you read comic books penned by him in the early 80s.
Web Tools for Marketers
Every year, new web tools come onto the market. These are supposed to help make our lives as marketers easier with better time management, multi-layered views of web properties, or a better consolidated and aggregate dashboard. Many of them are free or have a "lite" version of the webware available. Here are a few good ones that come to mind:
YouSendIt - Ever get thwarted by IT's security or file size settings in Microsoft Outlook? YouSendIt provides temporary file transfers between users. It's not just a work-around for Outlook. Most email providers limit the send/receive file size to 10 mb. Their lite version is not too shabby for the occassional user. You can send files up to 100 mb with a 1 gb/month bandwidth restriction. Your recipients have up to 7 days to download the file before the system automatically deletes it. YouSendIt provides a handy link for users to download.
Icerocket - Using an RSS reader to track updates for twitter feeds or blogs is fine if you want to keep track of what people are saying about you. But what about all the other sites that are saying something about your company, its products, or brands? Icerocket is an aggregate search engine that looks for your keywords across a variety of online media: Blogs, the WWW, Twitter, MySpace, News, Images, etc., and does this all at once.
Mailinator - This is a service that lets you create a temporary email account. It's good for signing up for consumer newsletters that don't secure their account creation pages. Why is this relevant for marketers? If you're testing web contact forms, you might not want to have your work email address captured into your company's CRM; but you still want verification (e.g., like the autoresponder) that your web forms actually work.
ShareThis - Definitely not a new tool on the scene, but this is an easy sharing link for all types of web content. Check out their blog and why it makes sense for online marketers to use this tool. Did I mention? It's really easy to use, for users, content providers, and web publishers.
LovelyCharts.com - An online diagramming application. Ever wonder how flow diagrams (e.g., wireframes, flow charts, organizational charts, network diagrams, process flows) are created for PPT presentations? This tool can help map our your data bits into something graphical and more meaningful than drawing out the boxes by hand in PPT.
YouSendIt - Ever get thwarted by IT's security or file size settings in Microsoft Outlook? YouSendIt provides temporary file transfers between users. It's not just a work-around for Outlook. Most email providers limit the send/receive file size to 10 mb. Their lite version is not too shabby for the occassional user. You can send files up to 100 mb with a 1 gb/month bandwidth restriction. Your recipients have up to 7 days to download the file before the system automatically deletes it. YouSendIt provides a handy link for users to download.
Icerocket - Using an RSS reader to track updates for twitter feeds or blogs is fine if you want to keep track of what people are saying about you. But what about all the other sites that are saying something about your company, its products, or brands? Icerocket is an aggregate search engine that looks for your keywords across a variety of online media: Blogs, the WWW, Twitter, MySpace, News, Images, etc., and does this all at once.
Mailinator - This is a service that lets you create a temporary email account. It's good for signing up for consumer newsletters that don't secure their account creation pages. Why is this relevant for marketers? If you're testing web contact forms, you might not want to have your work email address captured into your company's CRM; but you still want verification (e.g., like the autoresponder) that your web forms actually work.
ShareThis - Definitely not a new tool on the scene, but this is an easy sharing link for all types of web content. Check out their blog and why it makes sense for online marketers to use this tool. Did I mention? It's really easy to use, for users, content providers, and web publishers.
LovelyCharts.com - An online diagramming application. Ever wonder how flow diagrams (e.g., wireframes, flow charts, organizational charts, network diagrams, process flows) are created for PPT presentations? This tool can help map our your data bits into something graphical and more meaningful than drawing out the boxes by hand in PPT.
OMS Portland
Am at this event today and overall the content presented has been pretty decent given the spread of the attendees and the industries represented today. I managed to sit through three sessions and two keynotes so far:
Resource links from the event:
http://blog.onlinemarketingconnect.com/
http://blog.onlinemarketingconnect.com/resources/
http://institute.onlinemarketingconnect.com/
- Morning Keynote "Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying"
The Medium Is the Message: Advanced Strategies for Email, SMS & Voice Marketing Success - Demand Generation Essentials
- Lunch Keynote "How to better understand your customers' online behavior and profit from it”
- Designing Your Email Program From Online Outreach to the Welcome Message
Resource links from the event:
http://blog.onlinemarketingconnect.com/
http://blog.onlinemarketingconnect.com/resources/
http://institute.onlinemarketingconnect.com/
40% of US Gamers are Women
In the Entertainment Software Association's 2008 report...
Audience Sample:
1,200 nationally representative households identified as owning either or both a video game console or a personal computer used to run entertainment software
Notable Stats:
So, how is this relevant to marketing? CRM strategy is one aspect that comes to mind. It is a marketer's ability to define, track, and market to specific demographic sets of customers who frequently buy certain game genres. Customer relationship management, CRM, is more than just a collection of people who bought your products and services at some point. A few challenges exist for anyone entering or playing in this industry:
- to create a substantial revenue stream of recurrent purchases from new or existing customers
- to maximize ad and marketing spends in the promotion of sales
- to anticipate what customers want to play next based on purchase behavior
A good CRM system helps marketers keep the customers populations in the right buckets, and by doing so, we're able to direct appropriate messaging and content to those customers. Just having software in place isn't going to tell you how or where to market, that's what marketers are for.
Audience Sample:
1,200 nationally representative households identified as owning either or both a video game console or a personal computer used to run entertainment software
Notable Stats:
- 65% of American households play computer or video games
- 35 is the average game player age
- 26% of gamers were over the age of 50 (in 2008)
- 13 years is the average number of years adult gamers have been playing computer or video games
- 22.3% Action
- 17.6% Family entertainment
- 14.1% Sports
- 12.1% Shooter
- 33.9% Strategy
- 18.8% Role-playing
- 14.3% Family entertainment
- 11.6% Shooter
So, how is this relevant to marketing? CRM strategy is one aspect that comes to mind. It is a marketer's ability to define, track, and market to specific demographic sets of customers who frequently buy certain game genres. Customer relationship management, CRM, is more than just a collection of people who bought your products and services at some point. A few challenges exist for anyone entering or playing in this industry:
- to create a substantial revenue stream of recurrent purchases from new or existing customers
- to maximize ad and marketing spends in the promotion of sales
- to anticipate what customers want to play next based on purchase behavior
A good CRM system helps marketers keep the customers populations in the right buckets, and by doing so, we're able to direct appropriate messaging and content to those customers. Just having software in place isn't going to tell you how or where to market, that's what marketers are for.
Book Review: Get Content. Get Customers.
Oooh! I'm so excited. My copy of Get Content. Get Customers. by Joe Pulizzi and Newt Barrett just came in the mail. I'll be posting a review of this soon and x-posting it to Amazon.com. The inside flap reads:
"Get Content. Get Customers. shows you step-by-step how to create and execute a content marketing strategy that works regardless of the size of your company or type of business you are in. This book provides dozens of examples of how large and small companies, associations, entrepreneurs, and international organizations are leveraging the power of content to drive their businesses."
I wholeheartedly agree with the authors' suggestion that all the rules have changed and marketers need to relearn the marketing game with a brand new marketing mindset.
This book pairs with the Right Content. Right Response. webinar hosted by BeGreeted.Com, Junta42, and Conversion Sciences.
"Get Content. Get Customers. shows you step-by-step how to create and execute a content marketing strategy that works regardless of the size of your company or type of business you are in. This book provides dozens of examples of how large and small companies, associations, entrepreneurs, and international organizations are leveraging the power of content to drive their businesses."
I wholeheartedly agree with the authors' suggestion that all the rules have changed and marketers need to relearn the marketing game with a brand new marketing mindset.
This book pairs with the Right Content. Right Response. webinar hosted by BeGreeted.Com, Junta42, and Conversion Sciences.
Nap technology.. good for the body, brain, and heart
This looks like something right out of a science fiction movie but it's real. It's a sleeping pod made by MetroNaps. It looks prettier and more ergonomic than the Nappak Sleeping Cube. But can these things really help boost worker productivity? Sleep studies say yes in addition to other health benefits.Related articles:
Effective Napping Can Boost Memory, Productivity
Nap Your Way to the Top
ABC News: Why You Need to Take a Nap at Work
CNN.com: Sleeping at work -- more of us are doing it
Sleep studies:
Study: Naps may cut heart deaths (article1, article2)
"Power Nap" Prevents Burnout; Morning Sleep Perfects a Skill
Read more from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
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