Why?

Because despite some nice comments from a few subscribers, the response in terms of traffic (442 visitors/month), Twitter subscribers (23), and email subscribers (23) has been pretty disappointing to say the least.

So why did it fail?

There are many reasons. But the main ones I think are: (1) it didn’t offer anything new; (2) I tried to cover too many topics; and (3) I didn’t really add a new voice to the blogosphere.

I started enthusiastically enough writing 6 new posts a day. Within a couple of weeks I soon realized I couldn’t keep up that work rate, and still have time for the rest of my business. So I reduced it to one post a day. But the lack of traffic squeezed any enthusiasm out of me that I had left for the blog.

I like to fail fast (this is one of many). And when I realized the site wasn’t going as well as I had hoped, I started to spend more time on new projects.

If by some miracle the site traffic picks up in the future, then I will look at it again.

For now, thank you for supporting the site.

Best wishes,

Michael

ReplaceDirect is one of the biggest parts and accessories retailers for notebooks and other mobile equipment in the Netherlands.

A Forrester study found out that shipping costs rank as the number one reason for shopping cart abandonment. ReplaceDirect decided to conduct A/B split testing on the checkout process to remove this barrier, and it slashed shopping cart abandonment by 25%.

ReplaceDirect tested their second step of the checkout procedure. It’s the page where customers are asked to fill out their personal information and shipping address. ReplaceDirect made several changes to the page, including adding an order overview, comprising the products, total costs and delivery date.

They also mention several benefits at this page that matched this step in the order process. Finally the page layout and form were redesigned with a cleaner look. Several fields, which were not absolutely necessary, were removed.

The new version performed significantly better, slashing shopping cart abandonments by 25%, and increasing sales by 14%.

The lesson learned is, in their own words, “Try to give the customers exactly the information they need at that particular page or section and leave out the redundant. Always put yourself in the customer’s shoes. This may not be easy so: test it!”

Are you continually testing your shopping cart to reduce its abandonment rate?

Full story at Visual Website Optimizer »

I have a confession to make: I am ashamed to tell you that I had become quite the grouch over the last few months.

You see, business took a turn for the worse in October and I could see us getting dangerously close to the point where we couldn’t cover our living expenses pretty soon. I was worried sick.

I know what you’re thinking: why didn’t I set aside a rainy day fund for such circumstances. I am a fool – what can I say. I have learnt my lesson. The rainy day fund is on the top of our to-do list.

Anyway, to make sure we don’t end up on the streets, I took urgent action by slashing costs, both in the business and domestically. The problem is that once you decide to make cuts, it’s hard to stop. You find all manner of things that can be cut.

The more I cut, the more negative I got, and the more I didn’t like what I was doing. It was the opposite to who I am – I have always been a positive, optimistic person. The low-point was when I had a heated discussion with my wife about reducing the number of treats our son was getting.

I felt that if my wife and I had to make sacrifices, then our son should too. I’m not talking about candy or soft drinks either. I’m referring to relatively healthy treats, such as Yakult, cheese sticks, and yoghurt. Ridiculous, huh?

Luck would have it, my computer died on me last week. It took Apple three days to send out a technician, so I had three days of downtime. I decided to pick up one of my favorite books for some inspiration: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Released in 1936, How to Win Friends is a classic self-help book that has sold over 15 million copies.

It is full of positive affirmations and words of wisdom. Rereading the book reminded me of the many lessons I had forgotton. The words had a profound effect on me. The more I read, the more my mindset changed from negative to positive. I felt my spirit being uplifted by the wisdom pouring out of this book.

As I was reading the book, I realized that many of the principles that apply in winning friends and influence people also applies in business and marketing. You could retitle the book, “How to Win Customers and Influence Prospects.”

Here are the 30 principles taught in the book:

Fundamental techniques in handling people

1. Don’t criticize, condemn, or complain.
2. Give honest and sincere appreciation.
3. Arouse in the other person an eager want.

Six ways to make people like you

1. Become genuinely interested in other people.
2. Smile.
3. Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
5. Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.
6. Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.

How to win people to your way of thinking

1. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
2. Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “you’re wrong.”
3. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
4. Begin in a friendly way.
5. Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately.
6. Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
7. Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
8. Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.
9. Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires.
10. Appeal to the nobler motives.
11. Dramatize your ideas.
12. Throw down a challenge.

How to change people without giving offense or arousing resentment

1. Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
2. Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly.
3. Talk about your mistakes before criticizing the other person.
4. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
5. Let the other person save face.
6. Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be “hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.”
7. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
8. Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
9. Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.

Do you agree that many of those principles can also be applied to business and marketing?

Before I finish, I want to share with you a passage in the book that brought my wife and I to tears as I read it out to her.

“Father Forgets” by W. Livingston Larned first appeared in Reader’s Digest. Since then, it has been reproduced in hundreds of magazines and newspapers, and reprinted in many foreign languages.

If you are a parent, I highly recommend you read this piece to or with your partner (assuming you have a partner/spouse). I found that when I read it alone in my head for the first time, the effect wasn’t as powerful. The words may have as a profound effect on you, as it did on my wife and I.

I don’t have permission to reprint it here, but here is a link to it on another site.

http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~chrislw/dadforget.html

If you haven’t read “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, I highly recommend you pick up a copy today. You can buy a copy at Amazon.com or try The Book Depository where it’s available for just $7.35, including FREE worldwide shipping!

If you can’t afford to buy a copy, see if your local library has a copy.

If you live somewhere without a library nearby and can’t afford to buy a copy, I’ll be glad to buy you a copy. I don’t ask for anything in return for myself. All I ask is that you promise to give away copies of the book to other people when you can afford to.

Oh, I forgot: you must live in a country that The Book Depository delivers to (see full list), because I will be ordering the book from them.

Send me your full name, address and phone number, and I will gladly order you a copy. My email address is: ‘email at marketing munch dot com’.

Money is a bit tight for me at the moment, so I can only afford to giveaway a copy to 10 people. I’ll keep this offer open until all 10 copies have been claimed or the end of January, whichever comes first. The books are available on a first-come, first-served basis, so don’t delay.

Thanks to How to Win Friends and Influence People, I am now in a much more positive mindset. I don’t worry anymore about my situation, and consequently I am happier, and my family are happier. Thank you Mr. Dale Carnegie. God bless you.

According to Dale Carnegie in his book, “How to Win Friends & Influence People”, a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.

I came across a couple of examples where companies used that principle to generate buzz for its promotion by appealing to consumers by their name.

Travelodge UK

Travelodge UK, a hotel chain, ran a Christmas promotion offering free accommodation to couples called ‘Mary’ and ‘Joseph’.

Married couples who were registered on a special email address could with proof of identity claim a free night’s stay at a Travelodge hotel over the Christmas period.

Boost Juice Bars

Boost Juice Bars, an international chain of retail outlets that specialise in selling healthy fruit juice, ran a “What’s Ya Name Game” promotion in Australia, whereby first names were randomly selected each day and people with the same first name could claim a free drink.

The names were announced each day at Boost Juice stores, on their website and in the media.

People with the same first name, even variations of the name, could claim on that day a free smoothie or juice (of any size – Kids, Medium or Original) or a free wheatgrass shot.

To redeem the free drink, the person had to produce a driver’s license, passport or other formal photographic ID.

Drinks could be redeemed only once per store, but could be redeemed at multiple locations on the same day.

I recall my wife receiving SMS’s from friends to inform her that she could claim a free Boost Juice drink.

By giving away free drinks only to people with the randomly selected name for the day makes people feel special. If Boost Juice gave free drinks to everyone, not only would the promotion not have the same appeal, but they probably couldn’t cope with the massive flood of customers.

Have you come across any promotions that appealed to people by their name?

Full story at the Guardian »

I admire the creative minds that came up with these eye-catching guerrilla marketing stunts.

• Dulcolax used the all-too-familiar posting pillar, present in nearly every city-center, to showcase their name in a comedic way.
• FHM put the Mini Cooper’s curvy, feminine body-styling to use in such a way with great results.
• Volkswagen showcased the dependability of their product in new and always-surprising ways.
• A full-scale viral campaign for The Dark Knight cleverly placed Bat-Signals that could be spotted from time to time as a guerrilla side-project to get noticed.
• Volkswagen left a Polo, carved out of ice, sitting on a London street for the local denizens to find in the morning.
• In Mumbai, Aseema drives home the thought of children living on the streets by placing a child’s toy in a sidewalk drainage grate.

Brilliant!

Has your company come up with any effect guerrilla marketing stunts lately?

Full story at WebUrbanist »

The Board of Innovation’s ’10 Business Models that rocked 2010’ slideshow offers a look at some of the most interesting business models that came to prominence in 2010.

Here are the highlights:

1. Kickstarter.com: Kickstarter is a new way to fund creative ideas and ambitious endeavors. Project creators inspire people to open their wallets by offering smart, fun, and tangible rewards (products, benefits, and experiences). Every project must be fully funded before its time expires or no money changes hands. If a project is successfully funded, Kickstarter applies a 5% fee to the funds raised.
2. AirBnb.com: AirBnb connects people who have space to spare with those who are looking for a place to stay. Users rent out spaces, such as an apartment or a room, to each other. AirBnb charge the host a 3% fee. They also charge the traveler a 6-12% fee on top of the price.
3. Quirky.com: Quirky is trying to socialize product development. Anyone can submit ideas. The community and Quirky.com staff rate the ideas and the one with the highest score becomes Quirky’s next product. Quirky shares 30 percent of all top line revenue brought in by direct sales on quirky.com, as well as 10 percent of indirect retail sales revenue, with each product’s influencers. About 35 percent of that reward goes to the ideator/inventor.
4. Free with in-app sales: The sales of virtual goods often outperforms mobile ads – 6 out of the top 10 grossing iPhone apps used the in-app business model.
5. HumbleBundle.com: Humble Indie Bundles are a series of game bundling experiments that allowed users to purchase collections of multi-platform DRM-free independently developed video games online in a ‘pay-what-you-want’ manner. Customers decide how much they pay, and how the money is split between developers and charity.
6. PayWithATweet.com: In today’s world the value of people talking about your product is sometimes higher than the money you would get for it. ‘Pay with a Tweet’ is the first social payment system, where people pay with the value of their social network. More a marketing tool that a business model.
7. Spotify.com: Spotify offers a basic music streaming service to music fans for free. Advertisers cover the costs. A small percentage of fans pay for a premium service. Record companies are starting to make more money out of Spotify than iTunes.
8. Groupon.com: Launched in November 2008, Groupon features a daily deal on the best stuff to do, see, eat, and buy in more than 300 markets and 35 countries. The deal of the day group buying business model turned Groupon into the second fastest company to reach a billion dollar valuation – the fastest being YouTube. Groupon even turned down a $6 billion acquisition offer from Google recently. Customers typically saving 50% or more off the retail price. Groupon takes 50% commission from every sale.
9. Flattr.com: Flattr was founded to help people share money, not just content. Before Flattr, the only reasonable way to donate has been to use Paypal or other systems to send money to people. The threshold for this is quite high. Flattr solves this issue. When you’re registered to Flattr, you pay a small monthly fee. You set the amount yourself. At the end of the month, that fee is divided between all the things you flattered. Flattr takes a 10% commission.
10. PatientsLikeMe.com: PatientsLikeMe enables people to share information that can improve the lives of patients diagnosed with life-changing diseases. To make this happen, they created a platform for collecting and sharing patient data and establishing data-sharing partnerships with doctors, pharmaceutical and medical device companies, research organizations, and non-profits. People find other patients like them to connect and learn from their experiences. PatientsLikeMe collects the data and sells them for huge sums to pharmaceutical companies, research organizations, etc.

Did you come across other inspiring internet business models in 2010? Please share them below.

Full story at Board of Innovation »

Dharmesh Shah launched HubSpot in 2006. Since then it’s grown to about 2,900 customers, 170 employees and $33 million in capital raised.

Dharmesh shares 7 lessons he learned during this time:

1. You are financing your customers: Most SaaS (software as a service) businesses are subscription-based. As a result, sales and marketing costs are front-loaded, but revenue comes in over time. This can create cash-flow issues. The higher your sales growth, the larger the gap in cash-flows. This is why SaaS companies often raise large amounts of capital;
2. Retaining customers is critical: In the SaaS world, everything is usually some sort of recurring revenue. This, in the long-term is a mostly good thing. But in the short-term it means you really need to keep those customers that you sell or things are going to get really painful, very quickly. Figure out your total acquisition cost and your monthly subscription revenue, and calculate how long you need a customer to stay to recover your acquisition cost;
3. It’s Software — But There Are Hard Costs: To deliver software as a service, you need to invest in infrastructure — including people to keep things running. Talk to other SaaS companies in your peer group (at your stage) that are willing to share data. Try and figure out what monthly hosting costs you can expect as you grow (and what percentage that is of revenue);
4. It Pays To Know Your Funnel: One of the central drivers in the business will be understanding the shape of your marketing/sales funnel. What channels are driving prospects into your funnel? What’s the conversion rate of a random web visitor to trial? Trial to purchase? Purchase to delighted customer? Make sure you have a way to generate the data for your funnel as early in your startup’s history as possible. At a minimum, you need numbers on web visitors, leads/trials generated and customer sign-ups, so you know the percentage conversion at each step;
5. You Need Knobs and Dials In The Business: One of the great things about the SaaS business is you have lots of aspects of the business you can tweak, such as pricing, packaging/features and trial duration. Don’t make too many changes too quickly (because often, there’s a lag-time before the impact of a change shows up). Try not to make several big changes at once — otherwise you won’t know which of the changes actually had the impact. If you do experiment with pricing, try hard to take care of your early customers with some sort of “grandparenting” clause;
6. Visibility and Brakes Let You Go Faster: One of the big benefits of SaaS businesses is that they often operate on a shorter cycle. You’re dealing in days/weeks/months not in quarters/years. What this means is that when bad things start to happen (as many experienced during the start of the economic downturn), you’ll notice it sooner. If something really big happened in your industry, do you have internal alarms that would go off in your business? How long would it take for you to find out?; and
7. User Interface and Experience Counts: The applications you are getting compared to are ones where someone likely spent some time thinking about UI/UX. Design matters so start recruiting great design and user experience talent now. They’re in-demand and hard to find, so it might take a while.

Full story at OnStartUps »

Groupon recently rejected Google’s $6 billion acquisition offer. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

I read that Google are trying to set up their own Groupon killer. According to the Wall Street Journal, Google has apparently hired several hundred sales representatives to call local businesses.

One person who has experienced the results is Debbie Codino, a manager at Bob Brown Tire Center Inc. in Portland, Ore. She received a call from a Google salesman and agreed to pay $25 a month to highlight her store and show a 10%-off coupon when people search using terms like “Portland tires” in Google.

I think Google is missing the boat completely! Yes, that’s right – you heard me.

Google are trying to copy Groupon by hiring a bunch of tele-sales people to contact local businesses. That is wrong! And charging merchants a monthly fee is also wrong!

Google at its heart is a technology company. They do everything with computers. So hiring tele-sales people to call up local businesses doesn’t quite fit into their core competency. It doesn’t scale as easily as if it were built using technology.

I think Google’s Groupon Killer should be a self-service coupon advertising program, similar to AdWords. And I think it should take the best features of Groupon Deal of the Day, Groupon Stores, AdWords, and Yelp (which also spurned Google). Hmm… they could kill two birds with one stone!

Here are my ideas on what features Google’s Groupon Killer should have:

• Target every internet user: Groupon and other deal of the day sites currently target major cities, which means unless you live or work within one of those cities, you’re out of luck. Google’s targeting abilities would allow it to target offers based on a user’s location, or desired location. Consumers are much more likely to purchase a coupon that’s within driving distance of their home or desired location.
• Millions of offers: Deal of the day sites have a few daily offers for each market they cover, which adds up to a few hundred to a thousand deals a day at any one time. Google could easily build up a searchable database of millions of offers targeted to within 15-25 miles of a user’s location or desired location. It could present these offers on its search results, advertising network, Google Shopping, Google Maps, Google Mobile, and maybe a Google Coupons site.
• Live within minutes: Like AdWords, Google could make offers live within minutes of approval.
• Self service: Deal of the day sites like Groupon require large numbers of expensive local telesales people to contact local businesses and sign them up. Google’s Groupon Killer should be like AdWords, a self service program, which would require less expensive advertiser support staff to maintain. It could easily draw from its existing AdWords support staff.
• Centralized system: Merchants can promote coupons, manage sales, and communicate with their customers via a centralized user interface, online or on any mobile device. Using the same centralized system, consumers can manage all their coupon purchases and redeem coupons electronically via mobile devices or print coupons. This way all the processes are handled on one centralized system.
• Cheaper to expand: Groupon requires huge capital to expand into other countries, which is one of the reasons why it has raised so much money – $1.12 billion so far. They have to set up offices and hire local telesales and admin staff. Google’s Groupon Killer wouldn’t require as much capital to expand. It could expand in the same way it expanded AdWords, only needing to translate its web site into different languages, and hiring less expensive advertiser support staff fluent in the local language.
• Costs: With much lower start-up and running costs, Google could take as little as 5% to 30% of the coupon sold. Most deal of the day sites, like Groupon, currently take 50% of the sale.
• Google’s existing customer base: Google can leverage on its existing customer base of over 1 million AdWords advertisers.
• Gift marketplace: With millions of offers, available 24×7, Google’s Groupon Killer would allow consumers to purchase coupons as gifts. This would open up a whole new market for Google.
• Unwanted coupon marketplace: Have you purchased a coupon only later on to regret buying it? Well, sites have sprung up that allow consumers to buy and sell coupons. Google would be foolish not to build it’s own unwanted coupon marketplace. Alternatively, it could offer a refund policy. Customers can ask for a refund, minus a ‘processing fee’. This way, it would make money on a coupon twice. Refunds don’t cost merchants anything, aside from lost sales.
• Protecting consumers: Merchants are only paid when customers redeem coupons. This protects consumers, and Google, from losing money if a merchant goes out of business. Of course, this means Google gets a lot of cash upfront to make money from. Sweet!
• Merchants can set limits: Merchants can set limits on the total number of coupons sold, restrict it to new customers only, and on how customers use the deal. For example, one coupon per table or per order.
• Limit to genuine customers: One of the complaints from merchants is that they have noticed customers who they have never seen before, and don’t appear to be from the local area, visit their business specifically to use a coupon they have purchased. If a customer doesn’t live or work near a business, the chances of them returning are minimal at best. Coupons are loss leaders – merchants use them in the hope of attracting repeat business. Merchants would save money if Google Coupons allow them to limit sales to customers who live or work within a certain distance from the business as indicated in their customer details.
• Constant stream of customers: Google Coupons would deliver customers on a regular basis – as opposed to the flash floods of customers which can overwhelm and damage small businesses. Merchants could pause promotions if business becomes more than they can handle.
• Merchants can run multiple test campaigns: Merchants could do limited test campaigns and tweak them to their hearts content to see which offers work best. Google will remember every coupon so that customers get exactly what they paid for.
• Merchants can limit offers: Merchants could set offers to only be available on certain days, or certain times of the day.
• The coupon you want, when you want it: Have you wanted a coupon immediately but had to wait days for one to appear? If Google offered a searchable database of millions of offers, it would fix this problem. Groupon is trying to fix this problem with its Groupon Stores.
• Customers can use coupons right away: If you buy a coupon from any of the deal of the day sites, there is a long delay between making the purchase and being able to make use of the coupon. First you have to wait for enough customers to jump on the deal. Then you have to wait for the offer to close, which can take up to 24 hours, or longer. Then you have to wait for the email confirmation of your purchase. Then you can use the coupon. Google could allow consumers to find, purchase and use (print/digital) coupons in minutes.
• Social feedback: Have you ever seen a deal and thought wow, but hold on… I have never heard of that business – I wonder if it’s any good. Deal of the day sites don’t typically provide customer reviews. You have to leave the site to search elsewhere for information on the merchant. Google’s Groupon Killer should allow customers to rate and comment on merchants and individual offers. It should also allow users to share/recommend offers to other Google users, via Twitter, Facebook, etc. This could be help them build a Yelp Killer and maybe also add the social layer that’s missing from Google.
• More individual user data: Google currently has limited individual user data. By offering a personalization option to its Groupon Killer service, it would encourage users to provide more personal demographic/psychographic information to help it personalize offers to users’ interests.
• Personalized e-mailings: Google could promote the best coupons to users who sign up to email promotions. They could use an algorithm to select the most popular coupons based on size and percentage of savings, number of purchases, customer ratings and reviews, customer’s purchase history, search history, user entered data, interests, etc. The mailings won’t go out everyday and annoy users. Consumers would only receive the best offers that are of interest to them.
• Email marketing: Google could easily sell ad space in the personalized emails to major companies, like American Express, Ford, etc. Imagine the mailing list Google could build up and the targeting ability they could offer.
• More sales data: Groupon provides limited aggregate customer data to its merchants. I’m sure Google could provide much more useful customer and promotional advertising data to help merchants optimize return on investment on offers.
• Distribution partners: With millions of offers, Google could partner with mobile and in-car GPS distribution partners, so that users can access these offers on the go.
• Would it cannibalize AdWords?: I don’t think so. I think the Groupon Killer’s CPA coupons could sit nicely together with AdWords’ cost-per-click ads. I think it would encourage a lot of small businesses who don’t understand or are afraid of AdWords to give Google Coupons a try. After all, it won’t cost them a dime, unless Google delivers real paying customers.

So, what do you think of my Google Groupon Killer ideas. Have I missed anything?

Yes, I know some of it sounds a lot like Groupon Stores. But as far as I know Groupon hasn’t gotten very far with that so far. And I haven’t read about any of the other deal of the day sites come up with anything similar.

Google with its massive customer base of AdWords advertisers and millions of users could easily catch up and overtake Groupon Stores in no time.

Revenge is sweet, and it is there for the taking if Google plays its cards right.

Covario, a search marketing agency, ran a campaign for Intel on paid search and on Facebook in seven countries, including the United States.

They found that on a dollar-for-dollar basis Facebook and Google performed the same. However, when the budget was ramped up by 10 times, the statistics didn’t degrade for Facebook in any way. For 10 times the spend, they delivered 10 times the results.

In fact they saw 100 times the impressions delivered on Facebook as delivered through paid search on Google, Yahoo, and Bing during the campaign run. The key point is that the inventory available on Facebook is huge, its global, and its growing.

So where should the budget for Facebook campaigns come from?

In 2011 Covario’s clients are planning on major budget increases for Facebook advertising. They estimate that advertisers are planning to spend between 10% and 20% of their pay-per-click (PPC) budgets on Facebook.

This budget is not coming out of PPC. It’s coming from display or offline budgets, or as an incremental override to the overall digital budget, specifically increasing the shift toward digital more aggressively.

Facebook has passed the tipping point. Search is still performing. Facebook is performing too — better than display and comparable to search. Facebook is delivering truly big time inventory, at comparable pricing to PPC, and with display-like CTRs.

Is your company still wondering whether it’s worthwhile advertising on Facebook?

Full story at Search Engine Watch »