there's nothing new under the sun, or is there?
Post on 21-Jan-2015
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Hi, I’m Mike Darnell
Nice Meeting You!
I’m a Web Project Manager You can find me at
KPIs.co - The Key Performance Indicators blog & at
Vimi.co – my business
I was born in 1974. My 1st job was
modeling underwear and Roman toys
Man’s engagement in commerce predates
written history
In many respects it’s astonishing how little has
changed…
But sometimes it seems we’re so inundated with buzzwords we forget human behavior has changed very little over time…
As far as our behavior is concerned
THERE’S
NOTHING NEW UNDER
THE SUN
Whether our business is focused on providing
Services, Products or both,
its goal is to generate…
PROFIT
Achieving this goal depends on our ability to make
Sales
“The process of promoting products and services to enhance sales…
…Generating the strategy that underlies
sales techniques, business communication, and business developments…
…an integrated process through which
companies build customer relationships and create value for their
customers and for themselves”
“The process of promoting products and services to enhance sales…
…Generating the strategy that underlies
sales techniques, business communication, and business developments…
…an integrated process through which
companies build customer relationships and create value for their
customers and for themselves”
Even though this definition is based on
Wikipedia, a service that owes its existence to the Web,
in no place does it mention we need the
Web to do marketing…
For me this is a key observation
that lies at the heart of
successful online marketing
Every business aims to provide value via the services and products
it offers
Successful businesses determine what motivates clients to seek them
out and implement strategies to capitalize on these understandings
• Price
• Location
• Quality of Service
• Business Intelligence and Practices
{Of course other options exist too
but we only have about an hour…}
Once you understand why your clients choose you, you can look for ways to
Amplify
your advantage
The Web offers businesses that compete on price a multitude of
options to reduce operational costs in
order to further increase their competitive edge
The most obvious of these is using the Web to sell your
products
Offering products online reduces the overheads associated with brick-and-mortar shops.
Contrary to what many people think, you don’t always have to start your own Website…
…In fact in some cases you’re better off without one.
The Web offers many opportunities in this respect.
Ebay and Amazon Marketplace are two of the bigger names
Identifying a niche and focusing one’s
efforts on matching its needs is a great
marketing strategy
This is the premise at the heart of sites like:
Etsy {handicrafts}…
Reducing sourcing costs is another way to make your pricing more attractive
Sites like Alibaba…
…and Ec21,
have opened up the sourcing process, making it simpler than ever to find the products you want, at the prices you need.
Location
Elance, Odesk, and other sites like them, are all evidence to one of the most
profound changes the Web has made to how we do business…
…The Web has voided the traditional correlation between our location,
and our revenue streams…
...Many of us deal daily with clients and suppliers we’ve never met,
and think nothing of it.
This was inconceivable just a few years ago…
Interestingly over the past 2-3 years we’re witnessing a new phenomenon.
One that owes its existence to the ubiquity of the social Web, and the rapid ascent of Web-on-mobile.
The Web now connects people
not only Globally, but also at the
Hyper-local level too
We’ve become so accustomed to Facebook events we no longer think much about what a revolution they represent in comparison to the way we did things before…
…But Facebook is so all-encompassing that we have a
hard time making events stand out.
Both as guests and as organizers...
…Enter sites like Meetup and
Eventbrite.
Both are dedicated exclusively to organizing and managing events,
each with it’s own particular twist on the paradigm.
Meetup focuses on the community related aspects of any given gathering, and serves as an excellent platform for meeting and interacting with individuals with like minded interests and passions.
These can range from the relatively
mundane…
Eventbrite’s approach is perhaps more pragmatic and oriented towards the commercial aspects of event organization: Promoting, Managing, Ticketing…
…But it has its fair share of “Clothes
Optional” events too
QR Codes and
Location based services
like Google Latitude and
Foursquare,
are empowering us to interact with our contacts and clients not
only based on Where
they are but also
When…
QR Codes,
those little funky Black and White square “barcodes” we see everywhere, enable users to use their mobile phone’s camera to connect to a URL.
Your
“Closed” sign
can now be an opportunity to send people to your Website’s
“Contact Us” page…
Simply enabling Google Latitude on your mobile device and sharing your location with your contacts will let you see at a glance
Who’s Where Now
Foursquare enables businesses to incentivize clients based on location, venue or branch.
In Thailand look at Ensogo…
The Web has completely revolutionized how businesses
address their
Customer Service issues
For better or worse
everything ever posted online will eventually be
available for all to see
The real-time aspects of Web connectivity we mentioned before add a new level of urgency to handling these issues.
One unflattering tweet can easily turn into a PR nightmare…
The real-time aspects of Web connectivity we mentioned before add a new level of urgency to handling these issues.
One unflattering tweet can easily turn into a PR nightmare…
My HTC has not yet attempted this…
Often spammy and noisy it is, for better or for worse,
a reflection of what people
have to say RIGHT NOW
The secret to using it successfully is to be able to
zero-in on the conversations that matter
To YOU
Involvement is, by definition,
at The Moment of Relevance
The scope for optimizing your Customer Service via the Web
is far from being limited to Twitter…
Designed with customer service and support in mind, services like
Uservoice and
Getsatisfaction
enable you to interact with your clients about service and support issues
Every comment and idea is
accounted for, and serves as a
platform for debate
Over time you’ll deal less with recurring issues, freeing you to dedicate more time to the new ones that pop up...
For many smaller businesses this might seem excessive,
however an occasional poll or survey is still very much a
requirement…
The Web abounds with great free poll services designed to meet this exact need.
Polldaddy and Surveymonkey are
two of the market leaders in this respect…
…But countless others exist as well. Including a bunch of Facebook apps you can use to add polling to your business page.
At the end of the day the quality of your Customer Service depends on how efficiently you run your
business...
…If you’re not yet using a
Customer Relation Management
system {CRM} now is as good a time as any to start
Designed to address all the aspects of managing your teams’ relationships with your clients and prospects
as they mature through your sales cycle…
…Any one of these systems, when properly and meticulously used,
will minimize the risk your business misses a task or
opportunity because someone “Dropped the Ball”
…Furthermore, as time passes they’ll gradually amass and store all the data your business accumulates ensuring changes in personnel, or
Unforeseeable Disasters, have a
minimal impact on your operations
We live in a Data Driven age.
Accessing, processing and distributing
the Right Data at the Right Time
to the Right People dictates our success
LinkedIn is by far the world’s
largest business oriented networking site
A good profile should be a great way to learn more about you and your business contacts:
• Testimonials
• Experience
• Interests
• Etc…
Being active on Linkedin groups relevant to your
business is a great way to Demonstrate your expertise, Promote your business and Generate leads
The Q-A paradigm has been addressed a few times on the Web already,
including by the giants:
Yahoo! and Google {Google’s service is no longer active}
The most promising service in this niche today is
Quora.
It’s popular with early adopters
and When Properly Used, can be
a great way to get the answers you need
When we accept that no matter what our business our ability to interact with People is always
a core competence…
…It immediately becomes evident that it’s in our best interest to know as much as
possible about the individuals we communicate with
Social email services like
Xobni and Rapportive
give a great deal of insight about the people we’re in contact with and have the added benefit of not actually requiring much from us in terms of time investment…
Xobni
reveals a wealth of
data about our Outlook contacts
Obviously there are other ways, beyond those listed here to rise
above the fray, distinguish ourselves,
and attract customers…
…It’s safe to say that whatever the strategy you’ve been using,
if it provides benefit, someone probably created a Web service to leverage it…
{if they haven’t you’ve got a killer startup on your hands!}
All you need to do is find that service and dedicate the time and
effort required to Master It.
Yes, this is Hard Work…
…But it’s Worth It
The past few slides listed a bunch of sites that,
with Dedication, will give you the edge you need
in order to succeed
Now’s the time to circle back to our basic premise:
It’s Not About Technology. It’s About People!
And it’s also about You:
Which of these technologies can you implement to gain the
Greatest Benefit in the Shortest Time?
1 Ask yourself:
What do I hope to get out of this?
2 Do your research and figure out which services are most likely
to provide you with the results you hope for
3 Set a goal for the
Return On Investment you hope to get
4 Determine how you’re going to
evaluate your results
A
B
Which is why it never ceases to amaze me how few and far between
are the businesses that actually conduct themselves this way…
There’s very little that’s new under the sun insofar as our interactions with ourselves
and one another are concerned
THANK YOU : ) Mike@KPIs.co | 08-2441-8150
The Key Performance Indicator Blog
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