marketing fundi

Chris Anderson’s, he of Long Tail fame, new book Free is causing a stir. As it should do. The topic of free is a hugely complex one. It’s been brought on by the culture inhabiting the internet and is currently contributing to the part-demise of the print industry. More deaths will follow.

In particular the debate on this subject between Seth Godin and Malcolm Gladwell is interesting and worth a read. That is anybody wishing to participate in this economy as a marketer or business person should be following this discussion.

Chris Anderson says in his book that the ‘digital age is exerting an inexorable downward pressure on the prices of all things “made of ideas” further writing that ‘you can try to keep Free at bay with laws and locks, but eventually the force of economic gravity will win”.

Seth Godin surmises that Free is what you need to have in an attention economy. As a marketer or business person you struggle for the attention of your customer or consumer. How do you get it? By giving away something. This is because the interruption process TV advertising used to use is no longer popular.

Malcolm Gladwell on the other hand has a great argument that says that it might appear that certain areas of our lives should be free because the cost has come down to such an extent.

He gives the internet as an example. Hardware is now unbelievably cheap. However, the amount of hardware that YouTube needs for it’s billions of videos might be next to nothing per unit, but still a huge amount for the billions of videos on their servers.

And the reason that YouTube can’t make money is because advertisers don’t want to be associated with the rubbish that Joe Blogs posts on YouTube. So YouTube has had to buy good quality video so that they can attract advertisers.

Gladwell also points out that although most people may want their information for free they will pay for the good stuff. This is impacting on newspapers where there seems to be little of value. However, the Wall Street Journal has over one million online subscribers for the good and relevant content on offer. Where’s the free in that.

As much as I agree with Seth Godin that it’s about grabbing attention, I also agree with Gradwell that the reason so much on the internet is free is because its rubbish or in the consumer’s mind not worth paying for. It’s also free because the consumer has no idea whether it’s worth paying for.

Facebook for instance isn’t worth any money, it’s purely offering convenience. You can share your information in other ways, maybe go back to old fashioned tools such as email. Facebook would not be able to introduce a subscription fee.

On the other hand Flikr has a small fee for a subscription service that extends your capacity to upload pics. Some people take that up, others don’t need to because they just don’t share that many photographs.

So what’s the answer to this question of free? Definitely there will be free. And definitely people will pay for what they see provides them with value. However, overall I don’t think we are heading into a Free only economy.

At some stage companies such as YouTube and Facebook will need to start making money. They will run out of venture capital donations. Secondly, the good stuff will rise to the top and people will be prepared to pay for it. That doesn’t mean that you don’t need to have some carrots dangling around such as bits of free goodies.

But I just can’t see there being a totally free economy. We’d all starve. People and companies will make their money in other ways. But however they do that, that won’t be free! And ideas as being free? Apple has charged a fair price, and for years, for their great design ideas….. Doesn’t it depend on what kind of ideas?

Whether you are wanting to start a business as an internet marketer or are working in the offline environment you will need to find your own small space. Most people have some idea when they start their business what they want to do. Not so it seems for the online entrepreneur.

In the ‘real’ world people start their business knowing that they will sell a product, or make one, grow one, trade ideas, create beautiful things and many more business ideas. Whether they are passionate about golf and end up making and selling golf shirts, or love gardening so end up propagating seedlings, most people know what they want to do.

Put them in front of a computer and the vast real estate of the internet and they haven’t a clue. But it is the very same principle whether the business is situated in the high street or whether it is on a blog or site in cyberland. The same business theory needs to be adhered to.

As a small trader or new business entrepreneur you are not going to sell fifty different cameras. You wouldn’t have the capital for the stock, in all likelihood. So why would you go with a broad topic online? Sure you don’t need stock, but you certainly need the knowledge and expertise to be able to run this shop effectively.

Wouldn’t it be more sensible to start off with a very small part of photographic equipment for instance, but become the total expert on this? Select a niche, a small area of expertise for your business.

Gathering a lot of information on a niche rather than trying to be an expert in a broad context makes a lot more sense. In other words knowing a lot about dating for seniors living in Outer Mongolia is a manageable niche rather than the vast topic of dating.

For internet marketers the saying ‘find your niche and grow rich’ is most appropriate. The same principle does apply in real life too of course. As an example, if you find there isn’t a specialist deli shop in your town or village you might consider opening up one.

What does it mean for the internet marketer though? It means that you have to dig down and find a very specialised topic. More than even the deli shop example, you will need to be even more specific. Maybe you only offer miniature Italian sausages from a particular district. That’s how specific you need to get in order to find a niche for your online business.

Of course the more specialised your niche is the fewer people will be interested in your topic. However, it also means you are up against less competitors. This is where your targeted marketing will then be the most effective.

It is also good at this point to remember that the vastness of the internet and the huge numbers of visitors ensure that even a small niche will have many thousand interested people. If someone is looking for exactly what you are offering you will find that your visitors will become loyal followers.

As a kick off point you might want to see if there is a topic you might be interested in already. If you are interested in sheet music for instance which is already a niche on it’s own, you might want to go even more specialised and consider just sheet music for wind instruments.

Regardless of your interest you do need to underpin your niche selection with extensive research. You might be interested in sheet music for wind instruments. But if there are only five other people interested in the same market you will starve rather than make a living.

At the other end of the spectrum you might be interested in smart phones and set up a site talking about iPhones. This is such a huge topic that you will never be able to compete with the big competitors. It will not be worth your while to establish a business in this field.

Take time and make an effort to find your niches. The time and money spent on selecting the right niche for you will be well spent. That applies whether you are setting up an online or offline business. Become an expert. It makes sense.

Wimbledon is quite something. It is such an English thing. For months leading up to the competition, the speculations are rife as to whether a Brit could possibly win it this time and just for a change. And the pressure on the poor English players is horrific.

Today is the first day of the competition and already there are all sorts of strange and wonderful things popping up. Some tabloid magazine has sent reporters to measure the grunt factor. They want to expose the tennis player with the loudest grunt. Have you ever?

Besides the obligatory tabloid ’scandals’, it’s wonderful to see how Wimbledon is so much more than just a tennis tournament. I’ve been fortunate in that I’ve managed to attend a day. My daughter took me as a birthday treat three years ago. It was amazing. Prices quite high, food dreadful - really awful, including the strawberries and cream. And expensive. All in all it was a fabulous day.

From the first moment when you stand at the top of the hill, miles away or so it seems from the entrance and inch your way slowly towards the styles it’s one big experience. The whole queuing thing is part of the Wimbledon day. We didn’t send in our application to get pre-sale tickets! Those have to be in December the year before. So the line it was.

We got certificates to say that we had queued! Whoever does the marketing knows a thing or two about how to hook your people in by creating experiences even when it’s standing in a queue. But nobody minded, well I suppose being in England, who would! Still, lots of chatting and sharing of the experience helped to make the walk a pleasure.

Inside the grounds it seemed like total pandemonium. But it wasn’t actually. Everything was well organised. Everywhere queues. Everywhere loads of volunteers making sure that the show ran smoothly. And does it just. Like clockwork. And the discipline of the young ball boys and girls, the volunteer lines people and umpires. It’s incredible, the way everything is marshaled.

So on the first day of Wimbledon that’s all about competitive spirit and will a Brit finally win it again I read a fascinating story in the Independent online. It was about Mumsnet and its message board and what the modern mum in England has to say.

One of the conversation streams was about the lack of competition allowed at schools! When the kids play a team sport such as hockey they are not allowed to cheer if their team scores or boo if somebody makes a mistake. They are not even told the score at the end of the game.

There are no more sports days, just ‘outdoor pursuits days’ and there are such bizarre events as relay teams running on their own, so there is no competition, heaven forbid, with another team.

Sounds all nice and cuddly doesn’t it. Kids don’t have to worry about coming second because there is no more second place. We are all winners.

So how do you get a winner at Wimbledon then? I watched Federer play in his first game today. He came on court and his total intention within the first few minutes was to absolutely intimidate his much weaker opponent. Needless to say he had a fairly easy win.

Not competitive? So where between their school’s non competitive outdoor activities and adult games such as Wimbledon, do kids in England suddenly find that competitive spirit that they would need to win this tournament? Bit of a quandary I would imagine.

The media might have to wait a very long time before they can celebrate an English Wimbledon champion again. In desperation they’ve had to attach their hopes to a Scotsman who refuses to be considered English by wearing a wristband with the Scottish flag on it. Well that was last year anyway. Let’s see what Murray does this year. Let the games begin!

No matter what business you are in, what service you offer, what skills you have there is one underlying skill you have to have. You have to know how to sell. All business is about selling. In fact all life is one big selling campaign.

The point of business is to trade. I offer one thing and you buy it. It can be a skill, it can be knowledge or it can be a widget. It doesn’t matter. There is always a trade happening. One person offers something that another person accepts or rejects.

Everybody needs to be able to sell.

Sometimes the selling process is hidden and you don’t recognise it to be that. Let me give you a few examples.

The artist, and this applies to the bulk of the creative people making a living through their art, is not able to sell his art. He is shy, he doesn’t think his art is worth it, he can’t deal with people and many more reasons.

So he appoints an agent or gallery to handle the sale of his work. The bottom line is that all the artist has done is sell only to the gallery owner, rather than sell to individual buyers. It’s still a sale.

If the artist is unable to sell himself to a gallery then he can’t make a living.

You are a salaried employee. You push paper all day. You don’t have to sell. Yes you do. You sell every day. The first time you sell is when you sell yourself for the job. Then you sell yourself every day by pushing that paper efficiently. You are selling yourself to a boss every day to reassure him that you are a worthy member of staff.

You come in late to work every morning? You are losing a sale. Yourself as a staff member. Guess on whose desk that pink slip will land.

So every thing you do is a sales situation. You build a good relationship with a coworker, you are selling yourself as a good team member. You are friendly to a customer even though you are not in the sales department, maybe the receptionist, you are selling the company to the customer.

What about that Facebook entry? You set up a page about yourself. You are presenting yourself to the world. You are selling yourself as a product. It could be just to keep your friends. Whatever the reason, you are exhibiting yourself.

If your entire life is one big sales presentation then wouldn’t it be good to learn how to do it effectively? One would think so.

The current statistics of unemployed University graduates are quite alarming. Of course this is not necessarily a totally unique event. Forty odd years ago, my then fiancé was trying to find a clerkship with a firm of solicitors/lawyers. It took many months and the pulling of strings by family members before he managed to get into a law practice.

It seems to work in cycles and every few years there are a rash of graduates who find it particularly difficult to find employment. Of course the fact that the Universities on the whole don’t educate the young people for the work environment is another issue entirely. Don’t get me started on that topic. I could end up writing a book.

The point of this article though is to speculate what these young people could do while they wait for the economy to open up more jobs for them.

For me the biggest skill the youth and in fact all ages lack are business skills and basic financial management knowledge. How many people out there can actually balance a cheque book. How many people are able to keep their outgoings inline with incoming revenue? Few it seems.

If you can’t find a job, then get yourself upskilled in this area. Invaluable. There are books available, tons of online resources which are mostly free, there are reasonably priced courses available at night school and community colleges.

There are many other skills that young graduates can accumulate that regrettably have been missing in their formal education. Amongst these are learning a relevant language for instance. Learn Chinese. It’s the biggest nation on this earth. They will be the future economic power. English could just end up losing its shine.

Besides the above seriously important skills, create a relevant online presence and start publishing within your field of interest and expertise, take part in forums and make a name for yourself, speak at conferences, offer to teach courses at the community college. With other words get famous.

Best advice for graduates milling around in the unemployment halls, create yourself a public persona that people will get to know and associate with as having credible knowledge and information.

Worst thing to do during this time? Watch TV, feel sorry for yourself and get depressed. You never know, taking a pro-active step like this could open up business opportunity or even get you that job you had hoped for.

Oh right. Using an Article Writing Service is going to do that for you? Couple of thousand dollars or even pounds? Never! More like Zimbabwean Dollars. Oh wait, you can’t get those anymore they ran out of paper trying to print mega Zim dollar bills!

However, it’s not really an over-hyped statement. You can really save yourself thousands. Let’s see how that works. And let me know if I’m wrong. I’m always happy to learn something new.

Let’s have a look how much it costs you to write your own articles. Do you know how much it costs you to write your own content?

You probably haven’t worked that out. And you wouldn’t be alone. Hardly anybody I’ve ever talked to has worked out what their time costs. It’s one of those things you take for granted you will invest in your online business. It’s called your time.

Let’s look at a very basic calculation here. Don’t want to confuse the issue and make it too difficult. Besides which if I get too fancy in all of this you will work out that I’m not an accountant and that could mean you won’t be interested in what I have to say. Can’t have that.

What do you think your time is worth? I’ve pegged it at $30 an hour. Nice round number to work with and I think pretty close to what is the true value of your time. Of course if you are an accountant then we are talking mega money per hour.

But no, you are but a lowly internet marketer writing for a living - like me. No mega fees in that - I know. Although of course writing is a creative process and is definitely worth far more than your basic living wage is.

Let’s use $30 an hour. You can argue with me by leaving a comment. To keep your internet marketing business going you need to write at least five articles per week and if it’s a decent one it should take you on average about one and a half hours. At $30 per hour you are in effect spending $45.00 per day on your article writing service.

How am I doing so far? All good?

How much is that per year at 52 weeks per year? That’s a cool $11 700.00. There are your thousands. Quite mind blowing isn’t it.

Of course you can tell me that this is your investment in your business and that every business person spends long hours building their business without getting paid for it. I’m going to take your point as a very valuable one. Because it also give me the opportunity to point out another factor here.

By spending that many hours writing content for your blog, how many hours do you have left for the real stuff such as making money? As much as good content on your money making blog is a must, what is even more critical is working on ways on how to bring in actual dollars.

Using an Article Writing Service would allow you to get on with a whole bunch of other stuff, such as create your own eBook that you can sell. Do some consulting. Make training videos. Or maybe sell somebody else’s product. What the bottom line is that you are not only spending thousands of dollars on your article writing in terms of the time you are using, you are also wasting opportunity costs.

That’s right. That’s what the eBook is called if you never get around to writing it. That’s what the affiliate program is called that you never have time to sign up to. It’s the value you place on the opportunity you lost because you did not have time.

So what is your time truly worth? A lot more than $30 per hour. And as a final dagger in the heart, let’s just remember that once you have used up that time, it ain’t ever coming back. Phew. That’s a low blow if ever there was one.

At what stage would you consider using an Article Writing Service? If it’s a ridiculously low cost or if they are amazing articles that you just have to have? What if it’s both. How would you know? Trying it out might be a route to go!

So here’s your link. Try it out now. Five articles for free in a niche of your choice. Can’t get much better than that. Go on. Get thee there!

It’s really sad when a scientific research project provides evidence that companies should be nice to their clients and it suddenly gets business folk to sit up and take note.

This is what happened when Harding and Yorke presented their findings. Their final finding was that if companies treat their customers like human beings your profits will increase dramatically.

In the real world of business what that means is that companies will have to ditch the call centres and start focusing back onto what the customers is actually saying. They have to remember the olden days where staff used to know their customer by name and reintroduce a two way conversation.

That could be a real blow to large companies who have been treating their customers almost like an overhead. Same thing that they were and are still doing to their staff. It seems that anything human has to be despised.

Now companies will have to set up departments that handle client concerns and actually mean it when they take up on enquiries and complaints. They can’t sweep it under the carpet anymore.

These consultants used something called an Empathy Index to measure the customer’s experience of the interaction. They proved that there is a direct correlation between showing empathy towards your customer and profitability.

The idea of an Empathy Index could be from a science fiction movie. Bizarre, one would imagine. But regrettably all bits of common sense has gone out of the corporate environment.

It seems that it’s not logical that if you treat your customer right she will come back for more. You have to have a study and some weird Empathy Index to prove what anybody with half a brain cell could understand instantly.

Why does all logic seem to leave the minds of senior management? It’s the same with the car manufacturers in the USA. They were constantly losing market share to small fuel efficient cars from Europe and the East. But none of the CEOs changed direction.

Now they are bankrupt and now suddenly they are going to start offering cars the customer wants. How many years did they not listen. How many years did they ignore the signs.

It’s the same with management studies. Business Schools make tons of money teaching CEOs how to manage people. Yet if one were to look at the logic behind the jargon it always boils down to the fact that if you treat your staff with respect, pay attention to them, praise them for good work (heaven forbid) you actually end up with a pretty good team of folk working for you.

It’s just pretty much common sense. It’s a pity that it’s something nobody in senior management seems to have any of. It could be that everytime you get promoted one more level up the ladder you have to leave a bit more of it behind. A prerequisite so to speak.

No better time will ever come for small businesses to make their mark. As the big giants of enterprise continue to shed jobs and post declines in income and profits, so one needs to understand that here is an opportunity of gigantic proportion for the little guys.

There are many reasons why big business is failing. It could be that their size makes them too clumsy to change with market demands. Or the reason could be that their consumer has moved to other more appropriate markets. It could be that the consumer is no longer spending at all. It might be that traditional advertising is just not reaching the people anymore.

Whatever the reason, and there are usually more than just one, big business is feeling pain. Look at the motor industry crumbling on all fronts. It’s not only the ailing US auto makers that are dying. It’s trusted brands such as BMW and Toyota who are also looking pale and thin.

There are many more examples. Just follow the business news for a few days and they are popping up all over the place. No industry sector has been spared.

So surely this means that these are bad times all around and it will be especially difficult for a small business to keep its head above water?

I don’t think so. I think in these hard times the customer is looking for the kind of service the small guys can offer. They are tired of their hard earned money going into the pockets of uncaring companies who are only out to make huge profits.

The customer, who now has limited resources and needs to be cautious with budgets, will want to spend the money on total value. But it’s not only value that’s the issue here. The customer wants to see you care. They want to feel valued.

When there is limited money around and where customers are cautious when spending their money then there is a shift in power.

Before this shift in power the company could say take it or leave it. In fact they cared so little all customer support got outsourced to call centers. How uncaring is that. Letting people who have no vested interest in your company handle calls must be the ultimate in ‘I don’t care’.

How can the small business person capitalise on this? Be close to the customer. Constantly check back in person to ensure your service or product is providing the value that was promised. Give great after sales service and listen to everything being said about you and above all else respond to all.

Build a true and warm relationship with your customer. Be a face, a person, somebody who is approachable and will address issues and you will be ahead of the pack.

In a way the internet has helped bring a higher level of accountability to the market place. It is so much easier to spread the word about a bad product and the audience is so much larger and easier to get to. Of course good things can be said as openly as well. But it’s the negative stuff that has the highest traction.

Take advantage of the economic situation and build your own small business. It couldn’t be a better time to do

Sometimes that drive to be the rooster on top of the hay stack is just too compelling. It can wipe out all reason. This malaise can attack anybody. So no sniggering is aloud.

The drama playing out between Porsche and Volkswagen is one such fight for the top of the hay stack. It has been quite something to watch this play out over the last year or so. Pity a few other folk got their fingers burnt at the same time.

The story goes like this. Just broad strokes to see an example of the games CEO’s and shareholders play.

March 2007 Porsche obtains 31% of Volkswagen. I’m not sure why. They are not exactly playing in the same market. But there you go.

October 2008 Porsche announces that it will take over Volkswagen. 50% by end of 2008 and in 2009 by 75%. This little announcement drives the share price of Volkswagen into the stratosphere causing many an investor to lose his marbles and jump on the bandwagon. A few senior investment managers commit suicide once the market corrects itself and sanity returns.

Porsche starts wielding the arrogant management stick with some quite strange proposals. For instance the 12 000 employees of the sports car manufacturers are supposed to hold the same voting clout as the approximately 360 000 Volkswagen employees.

Bring on 2009 and the recession hits the car manufacturers with a vengeance. First to suffer are the manufacturers serving the popular market, but eventually even the luxury car builders start to feel the pinch. In fact at this moment in time both Porsche and BMW are ready to feed at the German government bail-out trough.

How the mighty have fallen. Now the big deal bully conquerer is getting some of its own medicine back from the Volkswagen management whose senior folk have been insulted and humiliated for a fair number of months.

Latest news is that Volkswagen have refused to continue with any merger talks stating they have no common grounds anymore. Well they haven’t had those for a while, I should think. Oh and they are considering buying Porsche.

It’s such a bad business move to lord it over people, to belittle and to run them down. This includes your opposition as well as a company you may want to take over. At the end of the day you never know when the tables may be turned and you end up at the mercy of their scorn.

The power can change hands overnight. Be careful of what you say and what you do. You could need the help of the opposition you have been bad-mouthing. You might get trampled by a competitor because he just doesn’t like your bad manners anymore. I’m sure you got the point with the Porsche and Volkswagen example.

Don’t think it couldn’t happen to you. Even if you are a small business, be nice to everybody. You never know when it could be pay-back time. You want nice to be paid back to you.

I was reading Anja’s last blog post about the importance of customer-based service and I thought I’d add my say to the subject.

I am quite actively involved in the financial services sector in South Africa and it has been quite interesting to watch the definite shift in attitudes as this “financial crisis” has played out.

It has been amazing to see how important customer reassurance, customer-focus and ultimately customer retention has become to financial services businesses in the last few months as many of their big money clients have literally evaporated before their eyes.

Let’s be honest - financial services have seen some pretty good times in the last say 6 - 8 years. Profits at these firms have rocketed and many had become very choosy about the nature of the clients they “wanted”… Fast forward a few months into one of the biggest financial and economic crisis’ of our time and suddenly people who were telling you “sorry you can’t afford to be our client” are now wanting to “chat about opportunities”.

In the same way - those who were “too good” to talk to the press are suddenly vying for some time with journalists to get their message out there.

Earlier this week I went through to two new financial services firms and got walked through their two offerings. Now bear in mind I don’t have huge disposable income and (unless I get very lucky) am not going to generate big profits for them in my first few months. Despite this, their CEO’s both took the time to take me through their product offering. Not some impersonal sales guy - but the person who has attached his reputation to the brand that is being pushed to you.

That on its own is something that I think companies can learn from. There is little more motivating than seeing your most senior executives come down out of their glass or ivory towers, roll up their sleeves and get stuck in.

Don’t let anybody fool you - this economic crisis is creating a lot of opportunities - but the real entrepreneurs are not those who succeed when times are good - but instead are those who change the rules of the game when things are bad….