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Tagged: Business RSS

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  jonpape 8:59 pm on February 27, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Books, Business, Marketing (6)   

  5 Best Professional Business Books 

  I’ve been thinking recently about the five books that have helped me the most professionally.  These books are sort of hard to classify under a single category but all of these books will broaden your outlook and breakdown operational silos that abstract the connections that exist between different business units.

  

  Image by Getty Images via Daylife

  The best analogy I can think of would be a description of Pixar University I read about. At Pixar University, accountants, chefs, and any one who works at Pixar are encouraged to take drawing classes.  When questioned about the appropriateness of teaching accountants to draw, the head of Pixar University answered, “Why teach drawing to accountants? Because drawing class doesn’t just teach people to draw. It teaches them to be more observant. There’s no company on earth that wouldn’t benefit from having people become more observant.”

  Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

  by Dan Ariely

  This behavioral economics book offers a wide variety of experiments and explanations about why people act the way they do and more importantly, how to recognize subtle marketing tactics in everyday life.

  

  Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

  by David Allen

  The simple premise of this amazing book is that if you can close the endless thought loops in your mind then you will get more done by not over thinking (or maybe better put, redundant thinking).
  Three simple steps:

  • One “inbox” with all the tasks/emails/projects that you need to analyze or want to remember.
  • Categorize the information, determine what you need to do to complete it, schedule it.
  • Forget about it.

  

  A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future

  by Daniel H. Pink

  A broad base of ideas to help people become better problem solvers and thinkers. Encourages better communication and better ways to communicate. Explains why creativity can be beneficial to all professionals.

  

  Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

  by Chip Heath & Dan Heath

  If you have to give a speech, give a presentation, write a paper, write ad copy, COMMUNICATE, read this book. The principles and conclusions in this book make presenting ideas (that will be remembered) straight-forward and easy.

  

  Permission Marketing : Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers

  by Seth Godin

  Seth Godin is a marketing genius. This book is widely accepted as how marketing should be done in the 20th century. People don’t want to be sold to. But people want information about products and companies they are already interested in. This book tells businesses, step-by-step, how to build relationships with customers online, as well as, in real life.

  

  
   

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  jonpape 1:56 pm on January 26, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Business   

  Top Retailers Using a Rotating Billboard Banner 

  

  Image by Getty Images via Daylife

  Rotating banners on the homepage of top retailer websites is becoming more and more common.  Out of the top 15 websites survayed, 7 had rotating billboard banners, approximately 47%.  Most of the retailers who used rotating banners used Flash to display them.  Sears used a JavaScript method probably jQuery.

  Retailer	Status (1-26-2009)	Method
  Amazon	No Rotating Billboard
  Bestbuy	4 Button Rotating Billboard with Pause	Flash
  Costco	No Rotating Billboard
  Ebay	No Rotating Billboard
  Home Depot	4 Button Rotating Billboard with Pause	Flash
  JCPenneys	No Rotating Billboard
  Kmart	No Rotating Billboard
  Kohls	No Rotating Billboard
  Macys	Rotating Billboard	Flash
  Meijer	3 Button Rotating Billboard with Pause	Flash
  Overstock	No Rotating Billboard
  QVC	No Rotating Billboard
  Sears	3 Button Rotating Billboard with No Pause	JavaScript
  Target	3 Button Rotating Billboard with Pause	Flash
  Walmart	3 Button Rotating Billboard with Pause	Flash

  

  4 Button Rotating Billboard with Pause

  

  4 Button Rotating Billboard with Pause

  

  Rotating Billboard

  

  3 Button Rotating Billboard with Pause

  

  3 Button Rotating Billboard with No Pause

  

  3 Button Rotating Billboard with Pause

  

  3 Button Rotating Billboard with Pause

  
   
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  jonpape 2:43 pm on January 19, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Business, Circuit City, Retailing   

  Circuit City Posts "Out of Business" Sign on Website 

  

  Image by F33 via Flickr

  Circuit City effectively posted an “out of business” sign on their web site ceasing US operations.  Siting challenges to business and a “bleak” business enviornment, the company will be liquidating assets to pay off creditors.

  567 stores in 153 media markets will close and approximately 34,000 people will lose their jobs.

  Liquidation sales started at stores Jan 17, 2009 and are expected to continue through March 2009.

  Click the link below to see an archived version of the Circuit City home page.

  

  Circuit City Website 1/19/2007

  
   
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  jonpape 12:37 pm on December 22, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Business, Customer service (2), Internet Marketing (4), Market, Marketing and Advertising (2), Permission marketing (2), Seth Godin (3)   

  Permission Marketing in Two Sentences 

  

  Image byhttp://www.prestonlee.com/archives/67

  via CrunchBase

  “The goal is to teach, cajole, and encourage this stranger to become a friend.  And once she becomes a friend, to apply enough focused marketing to create a customer.”

  -Seth Godin, Permission Marketing, pg 63

  
   
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  jonpape 12:24 pm on December 22, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Business, Wal-Mart   

  SEM Co-Branding 

  SEM co-branding is the process of two corporations, usually a manufacturer and a retailer, working together to promote a product or service.

  

  Walmart-Pampers SEM Co-Branding

  Above is a recent example of an ad Walmart and Pampers is running.  I have also seen Pampers recently teaming up with Target running a very similar ads.

  Splitting search engine marketing costs between retailers and manufacturers seems to be a  strategy that is becoming more and more common.  For merchants, make a list of large manufactures that you carry or services that you work with (MasterCard), and approach them with the idea of promoting their brand in ads pointed directly to a landing page on your store.  The biggest risk for the merchants is diluted ad copy that will minimize the effectiveness of the SEM campaign.

  
   
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  jonpape 2:24 pm on December 21, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Black Friday (2), Business, Costco, Internet Marketing (4), Marketing (6), Marketing and Advertising (2), Search Engine Marketing   

  Costco Search Engine Marketing = Fail 

  

  Image via Wikipedia

  Managing a search engine marketing (SEM) campaign for a brick-n-mortar store has its advantages and disadvantages. Internet marketing professionals are accustom to studying analytic data, crunching numbers, and optimizing campaigns on conclusive data. But for brick-n-mortar stores, internet marketers are forced to rely on the same subjective data used for TV, radio, and print marketing. A lot of marketing managers focus on impressions and a lot of mangers focus on clicks but most internet marketers know that either of these metrics are easily manipulated by bid, position, ad copy, keyword relevance, etc.

  This Costco ad caught my attention recently:

  

  Costco AdWord Ad

  Initially, I thought the ad was odd because it was promoting Black Friday (Friday, November 28) and I was viewing the ad on Sunday, December 21. I let this obvious error go because I figured Costco was referring to “all” Fridays before Christmas as Black Friday.

  Second, I tried to figure out what triggered the ad. My Gmail account is almost empty (keeping with good GTD principles) but there was a Kohl’s email (you get a Kohl’s email everyday). Either Costco was using a very broad term like “Christmas” or “Sale” or the competitor term “Kohls” but neither term seemed very targeted or relevant.  It would have been much wiser for focus on the keyword “Costco” or use keywords relevent to the products in the promotion.

  The most asinine aspect of the campaign was the landing page:

  

  Costco Landing Page

  Not only was the Google AdWord ad copy out of date, the campaign expired six days ago on December, 15. Costco’s marketing manager or Costco’s SEM firm had forgotten to pull-down the campaign after it had expired and were now just wasting money.

  
   
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  jonpape 12:34 pm on December 21, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Business, Customer, Customer service (2), Marketing (6), Money, Permission marketing (2), Seth Godin (3)   

  Four Things to Focus on When Selling to Customers 

  

  Image via Wikipedia

  Excerpt from Seth Godin’s Permission Marketing.   Short checklist from Peppers and Rogers on what businesses should focus on when selling to customers.

  • Increase your “share of wallet”.  Figure out what needs you can satisfy, then use the knowledge you have, and the trust you have built with the customer, to make the additional sale.
  • Increase the durability of the relationship.  invest money in customer retention because it is a small fraction of the cost of customer acquistion.
  • Increase your product offerings to customers by being customer-focused, not retail-focused or factory-focused.  Offer products based on what the customer wants not on how you define your business.
  • Create an interactive relationship that leads to meeting more customer needs.  By constantly encouraging the customer to give more information, the marketer can offer more products.