Darren Contardo's Netrepreneur

What do my customers want?

Ever wonder what attributes, benefits or claims are perceived as valuable for your customers? Without knowing you could spend a lot of money bringing a product or service to market that is of little value. For example, say you have a online store and you think that your advanced search feature is what people want, it's what makes your online store unique, etc. The reality is though, that's what YOU think is important. Your customer make think that an email with the invoice and tracking number immediately after the purchase is the most valuable thing to them.

How do you know what's important? What's valuable? Here's a hint: ask them! Put an online poll (websitegear.com) or an online survey (surveymonkey.com) on your website and ask them what they want. They'll tell you and you can spend more time on what matters to them. Give them what they want and YOU GET THE MONEY!

Facebook? Friend or Foe?

OK, if you're on Facebook, then you're popular right? Well, maybe, but maybe not. Depends what popular is actually. In fact, maybe popular means that you have a fan base of people who want to "get to know" you in the bad way. Why do I say that? Well, turns out the MySpace had something like 29,000 registered sex offenders on it. That my friend is not a friendly thing at all. In fact, those are the foes. No matter how you look at it, Facebook is a great place to attract the wrong type of people. If you have kids, then make sure they aren't spending too much time on Facebook and don't let them keep it in their room. It's better to be proactive and strict than the possibility of those nasty predators. Even though Facebook is a social utility for connecting friends, it's also a social utility for those thousands of people looking to connect with niave, attention-seeking adolescents wanting to be popular online. On the next post, let's talk about what you can do positively with Facebook.

How Do I Make Money on YouTube?

Heard of YouTube? Thought so. So here's the deal -- media is fragmented, everybody is infatuated with celebrities, everybody wants to be famous, advertisers are confused, agencies are buying one another, merging, diverging, emerging clueless at times and everything costs money! What do you do? How can you take advantage of a tool like YouTube to get your message out there?

Here are a few things that people have done already:

1. Esmee Denters did karaoke on YouTube and got singed to a deal with Justin Timberlake's record label.
2. Leptopril a diet pill created a commercial that was viral (it was funny as H*LL) to deposition FDA approved Alli.
3. Cell Phone makers do a parody of the Mac commercials to take on iPhone.
4. I can't seem to find it, but I read in a magazine that there is guy in Toronto who does a Tiki Lounge show where he gets drunk, interviews his friends and wears a lab coat. Sounds silly, but he has an audience of 300,000 people continuously and now is in talks with Fox Networks.

So, get a video camera, get out there and start your cheapest advertising campaign ever!

Good luck.

Google vs. Microsoft Office

So, you have a small business and of course you don't use pirated MS Office software. What to do? Well, believe it or not, Google is going beyond just search to provide small business users with all the office functionality you need. Google Labs has a bunch of apps that you can use for your small business that are free, cross-platform functional and even better -- collaborative. You can take advantage of key apps like:

1. Calendar for keeping your projects on track.
2. Docs and Spreadsheets for your typical Word and Excel-type documents.
3. Gmail for business email.
4. Notebook for keeping key information available to share across your organization.
5. Google Talk for chatting IM style with your contacts within Gmail. Why type an email, when you can chat and get immediate feedback?
6. Google Pack - a great selection of free software including: Google Desktop, Picasa (photo sharing), Firefox, Acrobat Reader, Norton Security Scan, Spyware Doctor, Skype and more.

When you compare Google's free software that is ready to access anywhere vs. Microsoft Office that is around $300 and local on your machine, there is no comparison. Google wins again.

Design is a big deal

So I have to say that design is where it's at. Great design just makes things better, more attractive, more fun to use and puts a smile on your face. A beautiful and easy to use website can command a better price for its goods. It encourages trust and communicates the benefit of the product or service. A poor designed website causes you to get frustrated and ultimately leave. Design makes your home look like it's worth more. Design makes your car stylish (just ask BMW). Design in an office building or spa can mean the difference of charging average rates or premium rates. Design is and will always be the best branding tool for creating a perceived value...period.

Reality check. Is your website designed well? Does it command a premium or are you just competing on price? Did you get a template website, your friend's son who is in high school to design it for you? Or worse yet, did you try to do it yourself with a web-builder program? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you just may have yourself a poorly designed website. You can change that though. You can start to charge a premium and have more business. You can separate yourself from the competition. You can use design.

Right, Left, India

After reading "A whole new mind" from Daniel Pink, I've begun to ask myself the question: "How do you insulate yourself from globalization?" More specifically, how can you ensure that your "safe" job as a software developer, lawyer, or even doctor for that matter isn't going to be outsourced to India, China or some other foreign nation? Well, according to Mr. Pink, right-brainers are going to rule the world. That is, the intuitive, emotional, abstract-brainers if you will. The analytical folks will be looking for work at Wal-Mart if they don't insulate themselves soon. So how do you protect your ASSets? Here's some thoughts:
1) build your brand
2) charge a premium for your services (people export services due to cost...don't play that game)
3) get a good designer to help you build your brand and support your premium price
4) become an artist (this doesn't really pay well, but you'll be irreplaceable)

Flamenco?

Sometimes you just have to talk about something other than marketing and this is one of those times. I was at a local Spanish restaurant the other night called Embrujo Flamenco Tapas Bar and the Tapas were amazing, but more importantly the flamenco dancers were outstanding! Great guitar, great dancing and pure entertainment. It's great to see that this little gem caters to a niche (hey, this sounds like marketing talk?) and create a total experience. This little restuarant doesn't seat more than 50 people, the menu is printed on authentic-looking Spanish paper and the Tapas are purely Spanish. If you're in Toronto, I suggest trying this one out.

Craigslist.org Makes Money

Well, you learn something new everyday. I was wondering how Craigslist.org makes any money, since I've been using their site to buy/sell merchandise I haven't paid a penny to them. So how do they afford to pay their 28 employees? According to numerous articles and of course Wikipedia, they make their cash off of their job listings. At $75 a pop or less they're making about $10 Million a year. Although they are a non-for-profit, they are still generating revenue (secret: all NPOs have to make money to survive). What I found priceless though was their world headquarters in San Fran Bay area...modest at best proving that it pays to stay small, give away want to you want to receive and always, always stay humble.

Understanding Web Analytics

Keep your eyes on Key Performance Indicators:

Visits = Awareness
Referrers = who's linking to you or what search engine is pulling for you the most
Keywords = what keywords are pulling for you in your website on search engines (is it category or brand name words?, can you optimize your site to get more traffic?)
Page Views = Engagement
Email Sign Up = Acquisition (chance for sale and growth)
Sale = Sale, but now you need to follow up and sell again, cross-sell, and up-sell. Heck, you should have done that before they even checked out!
Conversion Rates = How many visitors you're converting to a successful sale. Spend most of your time here optimizing conversion before spending money on traffic-building activities (you'll sell more this way and have a much higer ROI)

Are you a Designer and Want to Sell Online?

Don't bother paying a web designer to build you a website (or if you're one yourself you don't even have too) because you can have your own product line with fulfillment, logistics, and accept credit cards immediately!!! The solution is CafePress and it enables creative people to have a turn-key website where you can display all of your creative wares.

More importantly, CafePress has spent a lot of time tweaking their checkout process to drive sales higher (conversion rates). By increasing conversion rates you can sell more of your products without increasing the traffic to your site. So if you're thinking about having your own site to sell your product, then give it whirl.