Marketing
I must confess, I wasn’t expecting much from the Open Web Vancouver conference. I read the schedule, and perhaps the strong emphasis on Drupal turned me off, but I didn’t find myself salivating like I do when I go to An Event Apart‘s website. And as the saying goes, you pay for what you get; so how good can a $150 conference be? Today’s conference proved me wrong.
This morning’s session was opened by two keynote speakers and left me inspired and eager to learn more about the Open Source community.
The first keynote was given by Rick Falkvinge on one of Sweden’s political party, the Pirate Party, whose platform is to reform laws regarding copyrights and patents and other civil liberties issues. The Pirate Party succeeded in gaining popularity and attention simply by using the Internet and very little money. In fact their campaign budget during the last election consisted of only $50K. As a result of the communication tools and methods they’ve used, they are now the political party with the largest percentage of voters 30 years old and younger. This of course as alarmed other politicians who have never been able to reach out to this age group.
Now that the Pirate Party has secured a seat in the European Parliament, it will be interesting to see if other political parties start discussing issues such as privacy and file sharing. Just like Al Gore has put Global Warming on everyone’s mind, Rick Falvinge is spreading the word about what needs to be done to create a better online world for all of us and he deserved the standing ovation which followed his presentation.
Following this great keynote, came Angie Byron who spoke about Women in Open Source or rather lack of. I was a bit surprised that this topic was chosen and discussed. I’ve been working as a so called “geek” for a over a decade and never experienced any sexism at work or conference and Angie admitted herself that until she started researching the numbers, didn’t think there was a problem either. Turns out the percentage of women in Open Source is staggeringly low. The reasons and solutions that were discussed were obvious and applicable to all minorities, not just women. At least they felt obvious to me, but a few hours later, I read about the incident at Flashbelt‘s conference just a few days ago. It seems like a lot of boys think that the saying boys will be boys still stands and should simply be accepted.
Angie provided great advice on how to create a safe and inviting community and how to stop tolerating bullshit. The gem, for me, were her views on contribution to Open Source. Having worked with Open Source during all of my coding years, I’ve realised that I’ve used the stuff, but never really contributed. Providing contribution whether it be marketing, documenting, designing and of course coding, is a great way to empower yourself and feel like you are part of the team.
I look forward to learn more during tomorrow’s event.
One of the many benefits of living in Vancouver is that we have a great community of Social Networking experts. In the next few weeks, there are numerous upcoming seminars and workshops which you may want to attend.
Social Media Marketing Training in Vancouver and Victoria
Capulet Communications are leaders when it comes to Social Media Marketing. Following a very successful workshop at UBC Continuing Education this past winter, they’ve now scheduled two new sessions. The first in Victoria will be on April 30 and Vancouver on May 28. Having heard both Julie and Darren speak on many occasions and having read their eBook Getting to First Base: A Social Media Marketing Playbook, I highly recommend this workshop to anyone interested in learning how to use their blog, twitter, facebook, etc… and raising their visibility online.
Full details on the workshops can be found on their website.
Mental Health Camp
Following a very popular session at this year’s Northern Voice Conference panel session called Coping Digitally, a few passionate bloggers have put together a full day event. The purpose of the event is to discuss the many ways social media and blogging can help remove the stigma of mental illness. Registration for this event is free and will be held on April 25. Full details and a list of speakers can be found on their website.
THIRD TUESDAY APRIL: Tris Hussey
Next Tuesday, April 21, Republic will host this month’s Third Tuesday event. Tris Hussey, Social Media Concierge and New Media Specialist will discuss the importance of getting your message out. He will look at the different ways to get your message out and which ones work best. Third Tuesday events are also free of charge and you can sign up by becoming a member of the meet up group.
A few days ago, while under the weather, Darren thought about the future of Soap Operas. This reminded me of something similar which I consider to be out of date. I’ve often wonder why charitable organizations insist on calling me at home to ask for money. Personally, I just treat these organizations the same as telemarketers. Tut, tut you say..I know, I know, but I just don’t like being disturbed at dinner time and thus refuse to donate to anyone who requests by phone.
Raising money is tough, but the Web seems to be a pretty effective means. I’m just wrapping up the most wonderful book I’ve ever read called “Three Cups of Tea“. At the end of the book, the authors lists how we can continue the work started by Greg Mortenson and how we can help. Of course spreading the word about the book and letting everyone know that they should read it is the best way, but visiting their website and the charitable organization’s website, are other ways to get further information. Additionally, by following the link on their website, all purchases of the book and all other Amazon purchases will generate 7% of proceeds to the Central Asia Institute. Kudos to Amazon!
Other organizations have made it quite easy for users to create profiles and raise money. Just a few weeks ago, a friend mentioned that he was participating in a 24 hour yoga relay to raise money for kids suffering from Aids and HIV. He simply sent an email, I clicked the link, inserted my credit card details, and now my name and contribution amount appears next to a thermometer on the charity site. Easy as pie.
My friend Karis, sent me an email just a few minutes ago telling me about the Animal Rescue not getting enough daily clicks on their website to get free food donated to rescued animals. I’m not sure logistically how this works, but simply by clicking the link, the site is able to raise money. This kind of button as been used on many charity sites.
These methods of raising money seem pretty good to me. Do we still need “telemarketers” calling us at home?
Vitrium Systems released the latest version of Docmetrics, a web-based lead capture and PDF analytics technology, last week. If you send out a lot of PDFs and always wanted to know who is reading them, printing them, how long are they viewing each page… then this tool may be right for you.
We’ve been working with Vitrium for almost three years now and have seen both their company and their website evolve. The latest version of their website launched a few weeks ago, has a great video right on the home page demonstrating how Docmetrics can be beneficial to your company. If you’ve been wanting to add a new feature to your marketing arsenal, then check out their website.
If “Free is the future of business“, then the folks at Backstage have created an interesting marketing tool for all the Radiohead wanna-bes out there. They offer musicians a platform for sharing free music and gathering a database of interested listeners. For the rest of us, it means a few free tracks in exchange for our e-mail address and for recommending the page to a friend. You fill out a quick form, and the downloads are yours.
At first I was irked by the requirement to give a friend’s e-mail address in the form. But then I realized that’s the hook their model is hanging on. You probably have a friend who likes the same music as you, and since you’re recommending a freebie, and Backstage promises not to spam them, they’ll probably forgive you for sharing their address… Probably. There’s a bit of a leap of faith in that assumption. I think this requirement to share a friend’s address will affect their uptake on the offer somewhat but it also makes viral marketing more effective than it would be otherwise. So the net effect is probably a positive one for them.
What do you think?
Backstage Free Music Downloads
Online customer service is not as hard as you think. It’s not quite as simple as smiling when someone enters a retail store, but you certainly can convey that your business is focused on meeting customer needs.
Websites have been around long enough that it’s easy to compare and see which ones make it easy to do business and which are causing their customers grief. Try it yourself. Go to a few sites you have never visited before and see how easy it is to locate specific information. Then go to a few of the rock star online retailers and see how they do the job.
There are a lot of rules to good online customer service. Here are a couple of my favourites.
- First stop, create a site that is easy to use. And I don’t mean easy for you or your coder. I mean it needs to be dead easy for your site visitors to use. Frankly, even if you’re the one building it, your opinion doesn’t matter nearly as much as your prospective visitors’ needs do.
- Make sure there is a way to contact your company available from the home page and every other page in the site. And don’t bury it in text at the bottom! Make it bright yellow if you have to, but make it stand out. Often this is done somewhere in the top right quadrant of the page and many site visitors look here first.
- If you’re selling online, let people know the price before they input their personal information. Would you pull out your credit card and ring through a purchase before you know the price in a bricks and mortar store? Many site visitors will opt out of the selling process if they have to provide their personal data before seeing the full price of the product, including shipping.
In a nutshell, make it easy and you’re more likely to make the sale.
Here’s an easy way for bricks and mortar businesses to reach new customers. Use Google Maps to point them to your front door!
When potential customers search Google Maps for information about a business in a specific area (e.g. Flower shop in Vancouver), they will find details like a business description, address, hours of operation, methods of payment, unique services, and even a coupon or a photo of your storefront.
It’s easy, free and takes just a few minutes to set up your business with Google Maps. Remember to use your keyphrases in your business description whenever possible.
Once you’re registered, Google Maps will send you a postcard to confirm your address before adding the listing. This may take a few weeks. When your business is on Google Maps, you can update or edit your listing at any time to improve its effectiveness.
I may have mentioned this before, but what I like about a website is that it can do a lot of stuff for you. For instance, you don’t actually have to talk to people in order to speak to them.
Liz from Market Navigators tells the following interesting story:
“I’ll never forget the first time it happened to me. I got a call from a woman asking about my entrepreneurs marketing program, wanting to sign up. I’m pretty good with names, but I didn’t recognize hers, so I asked how she’d found me.
Turns out someone had referred her, she checked out my website, and decided to buy. Just like that.
I didn’t have to explain, meet with her first, sell her on the value…none of that. The website did it all for me.
That was easy! Hmmm, I think I’ll give that online sales guy a raise…”
Have I ever mentioned that what I like about websites is all the stuff they can do for you?
I saw a commercial a while back where a fellow arrived at the office first thing in the morning, put a fake steaming cup of coffee on this desk and then left for the day. All day long that cup sat there steaming. Everyone who stopped by his office to speak with him assumed they had just missed him. They thought he’d be “back in a minute” meanwhile he was out having fun, enjoying the sunshine.
A website is a little like that. You don’t actually have to be there, to be there.
With the end of 2007 approaching fast, it’s time to reflect on this years’ ups and downs. Business at Bluelime Media has shifted dramatically (more about that later) and grown exponentially and our blog has evolved to include posts by Tzaddi and Mhairi. Since I’m not an expert in everything, having guest authors allows me to offer you more website tricks. I’ve decided to extend this invitation to a few more colleagues and present to you the first post by marketing maven, Liz Gaige.
–Christine
The thing I like about websites is that they can do a lot of stuff for you — kind of like an assistant.
I chatted recently with a woman who launched a business and is now about to “launch” a family. She spent the past year building her consulting practice and is now stepping away to devote time to her new addition. “So, no need to bother with a website,” was her thought.
Here’s the thing. If she steps away from the marketplace completely, she truly disappears. All the momentum gained by getting out in front of the people and telling her story in the past year will be lost. And when she does come back, it’ll be from scratch. Again.
Everyone knows from science class long ago that the hardest part of rolling a heavy boulder is getting it moving to start. Better to keep it going, even at a slow roll, than stop and try to restart from a state of rest. (Hah, I was listening in class Mr. Carlson!)
The point is, with a minimum of effort your website becomes your agent, representing you in your absence. And when you are ready to come back, it won’t be like you’ve disappeared altogether and are starting from zero.