Online retail sales are down 2% for the period November 1 to December 1 comparing 2007 to 2008 according to Comscore. The good news is that from 2007 to 2008 online retail sales climbed 15% on Cyber Monday, the Monday following Thanksgiving. Perhaps online holiday sales are gaining momentum. Perhaps it has to do with when Cyber Monday landed. In 2007 Cyber Monday fell on November 26th. This year it was on December 1st. Perhaps heavy discounting and offers of free shipping by many online retailers this year attracted the rush.
We’re predicting increased online holiday sales this year but overall lower holiday sales, just another indicator of the increasing use of online shopping.
You’ve heard some form of the following nearly a million times, right?
“Figure out who your target customers are, figure out what you’re really good at. Then focus, focus, focus on attracting and servicing those customers with your unique offering.”
I visualize a proper approach to marketing and business strategy as a lighthouse. A lighthouse is built to address a particular concern for a particular customer. Its mission is to protect boats from smashing into a hazard, or perhaps to guide them to shore. It’s equipped well to do this. From a building that stays in one place, a bright light exudes that moves in a pattern which covers its territory well. It doesn’t protect boats from the next hazard or guide them into the next harbor. Another lighthouse does that. It focuses all its energy on that one area. Each lighthouse is unique, each lighthouse has its own beauty, its own purpose.
I visualize the other approach to marketing and business, which is trying to be all things to as many people as possible, as a man running up and down the shore with flashlights. He has several flashlights, one for each type of customer. He finds it necessary to cover large amounts of territory, too. His light isn’t nearly as bright as the lighthouse, and he can’t take a specific stand. Instead, he exhausts himself running back and forth, afraid to leave any area uncovered for too long. While this approach may guide some boats to shore, or protect some boats from hazards, the man doing the guiding and protecting will have to create a somewhat custom solution for each boat approach. Sure, he’ll eventually cover most of the custom situations if he lasts long enough. Then he could stand to gain some efficiencies, some economies of scale, but only if he hasn’t completely worn himself out first with all that running, lightbulb changing, and guiding. Another looming danger for the Flashlight man? He can confuse his customers so thoroughly, they decide to go just a little bit further downshore for the sure bet of a steady lighthouse, even wh.
What does your marketing strategy and business plan look like? How do your potential clients view you and your offering? Are you an exhausting, flickering, flashlight, powered by an endless amount of non-reproducible energy, or a steady, strong lighthouse shining its light in a predictable pattern so your prospects have a chance to figure out if you’re right for them, steering their boats in exactly your direction?
The December issue of Austin Woman Magazine is available!
This month’s Gadget Girl column is called “Fun Tops the List”. Stretch your holiday dollar, practice playing together so next year we can all work together, and create fun, lasting memories. How? By making more than one person happy with a single gift.
Google Docs is a free web-based word processor and spreadsheet, which allows you to share and collaborate online. You can upload Word, Excel and Powerpoint. You can create and share documents with others.
Del.icio.us lets you save your online bookmarks all in one place. You can login and go where you need to without being on the same computer every time or remembering all of your important links.
Remember the Milk creates online to-do lists. You can categorize your lists. You simply send an email to Remember the Milk OR you can hook it up with Jott!
Meeting Wizard is great for collaborating with multiple people in multiple groups. It also lets everyone suggest times so that you can easily find a time that works for everyone.
Keep in touch with Twitter! Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to simple questions.
Facebook is a social networking site that connects people together. Keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people you meet.
LinkedIn is an online network connecting professionals around the world. You can look for a job, discover inside connections to help you land a deal, be found for business opportunities and use other tools for business.
Goodreads’ mission is to improve the process of reading and learning throughout the world. See what your friends are reading and recommend books to them as well.
GoToMyPC allows you to remotely access your computer from any other Internet-connected computer in the world with almost any operating system through a secure, private connection. So stay connected remotely and even invite others to your PC!
I’ve gotten very addicted to Twitter in the past few weeks. I’ve learned an amazing amount in a short time about a variety of topics. I feel more in touch than I’ve felt in a long time with the outside world. I’ve learned to be more concise when writing. And best of all, I’ve met a decent number of knowledgeable, interesting, funny people at warp speed. For me, Twitter has become an extraordinary resource for information, and an excellent networking tool.
However.
It is also Link Heaven. People tweet about information they’ve found, and they include links. Which I click on. Which open new windows. I can’t read them right away, but I don’t want to lose them, so they stay open. It’s like a virus, these Twitter windows. @octane says I’m the only one who has this problem (:D), so perhaps you don’t need this blog. But just in case…
Trying to find my “regular work” among all the “open for later” tabs wasn’t working for me. This past week, I had this (really obvious) inspiration for how to begin addressing the issue.
I opened two browser windows. Not just two tabs; two totally different browser windows.
Open all your regular tabs in one. For me, I open our project management software, Google Docs, my status report, Remember The Milk, delicious.com, OtherInBox, and a few others.
Open Twitter in the other.
Yes, you can also use something like TweetDeck or Twhirl, completely removing Twitter from the browser, BUT…
You’re going to click on links. And if you only have one browser open, they’re going to land in that browser.
You don’t have to use this tip just for Twitter. Get emails with blogs or links in them you’d like to read? Other social media applications you want to keep open and active during your day without them taking over your “regular work”?
Open them in that second browser. (TIP: If they show up in the first browser when you click on them in your email, click on the second browser, press Ctl-T (in Firefox) to get a new tab, and drag that tab over to the second browser.)
BTW, I have a second monitor on my desk, too, which makes this solution even nicer. I read a statistic lately that a second monitor can make you 20% more productive. Certainly seems to be the case for me!
I’d love to hear what you think if you try this. And I’d be very interested in any other productivity tips you’re interested in sharing like this.
See the picture up there? Yes, I did have 304 tabs open. And, you know what happened, right? Firefox wanted to update itself, but first it needed to close. That’s a problem. I’ll tell you how I solved that problem in another blog.
Client conference call, with a need to discuss multiple images from multiple subdirectories. Want to EASILY go back and forth between these images, not necessarily sequentially, but based on the conversation. (BTW, I invited them to my PC via GoToMyPC, and I gave them access to my keyboard and mouse.)
NOT SO HOT SOLUTION
What opens by default for me, Windows Photo Gallery, doesn’t have perfect, predictable back and forth action, doesn’t provide for one click hopping to an image that’s not next in it’s concept of “order”, and doesn’t seem to go between multiple directories. Oh, it also doesn’t always seem to scroll all images in the subdirectory I’m in either.
COOL SOLUTION
Open up Firefox. This probably works in IE, but I’m a Firefox Fan, so that’s what I’m describing here. Drag the first image to a tab. It opens in all its glory, displaying the image name on the tab (an argument for meaningfully naming your images.) Open another tab (Ctl-T). Drag the next image to tab. Open up another tab….you get the pattern here, right? Want to display an image from another subdirectory? Go to that subdirectory, drag the image to a tab.
Now, my client and I can both see all the images I have open in Firefox, and we can easily go back and forth between them. And, because I gave my client access to my keyboard and mouse virtually, they can easily interact with these tabs, too, without having to know or touch my subdirectory structure.
One more Firefox tip you can use for this situation? You can use Firefox as a way to navigate through your subdirectory structure, too. Just go to the URL address bar, and type in c:/ and press enter. Watch what happens! It shows your C: drive directory structure. Change drive letters to access other drives. Navigate up and down the structure. Open up a new tab, and drag an image you find in this tab to the new tab. Okay, the TRUTH is that you don’t even have to open a new tab. Just drag it next to another tab, and it opens a new one on its own.
Now, this solution is completely self-contained. Enjoy your new Firefox Collaboration Station!
Coming Soon: Another Great Client Call Tool, and Firefox Tab Pollution Solution. Want to know when I’ve written them? You know how it works…subscribe to this blog.
She describes her blog as “a place to capture and share ideas, experiment with and exchange links and resources about the adoption challenges, strategy, and ROI of nonprofits and social media.”
This blog is jam-packed with great tips, information, and tools! I’ve bookmarked it and subscribed to it, and I’m looking forward to learning more.
If you’re helping non-profit clients be heard, or you’re a non-profit trying to connect, this is definitely worth reading.
TEXT FROM CHAT WINDOW OF TWITTER4BIZ WEBCAST FROM OREILLY MEDIA - @SarahM was the presenter
Done 2008.11.13
This doc created by @cjromb
Yes, my private comments to the Host (some of which didn’t make it to the Big Screen) are filtered out of here.
NO! This is not an attempt to drive traffic to my blog. Just the fastest way I could think of getting it out there without making everyone give me their email and sharing docs.
Welcome to Part I of an exciting series of IV, where we’re going to convince you that, whether any of us like it or not, it is INDEED, as you may have suspected, contrary to everyone denying it….that’s right, it is all about how you look.
There’s an article here I hope you’ll read. The BBC put this on their website in January, 2006. That may have been a long time ago in the world of the web, but it definitely still applies.
Summary of the article? Users make decisions about websites in 1/20th of a second; a mere blink of an eye. And they seem to stick to those decisions.
Researchers in Canada showed volunteers websites for only 50 milliseconds each. Those users then rated the websites in terms of aesthetic appeal. Turns out the decisions they made in that 50 milliseconds didn’t change much when they were given a longer amount of time to mull those sites over.
Researchers also believe there’s a halo effect in place here. If a user likes the way a site looks? That same user believes the content and offering of the website will be worthwhile as well. After all, who wants to be proven wrong about his or her decision?The competition is intense right now, and your website is most likely a major piece of your marketing material. Whether we like it or not, it IS all about the way we look. What does YOUR site say in 1/20th of a second? And, if a visitor stays longer, is he forced to change his mind about that initial positive impression he had?
1/20th of a second isn’t long enough to read anything. It’s only long enough to have the briefest of glimpses. Color, imagery, volume of content. I daresay I can’t imagine a user absorbing more than that in 1/20th of a second.
Don’t look at your website right now. Instead, look at your company. What three things are true about your company that you want everyone to know? How can those be conveyed visually, with color, images, and volume of content?
In Part II, we’ll talk about colors and user reaction to various colors.
In Part III, we’ll talk about imagery. What should it convey? Should it shock, soothe, invite, excite?
In Part IV, we’ll talk about the volume and characteristics of your content. Why your users are visiting your site should drive your content.
Subscribe to this blog so you don’t miss the next 4 parts!
Do you have a blog that you read almost every time you get notified? How about a blog you’ve learned a great deal from reading? Is there one that inspires you?
Will you share a favorite blog or two you read with me?
I’d be extra grateful if you’d take a moment to tell me what makes them different from all the other voices out there?
And last? Do you remember how you found them?
Thanx for stopping by and commenting!
Oh, want to know mine? I probably read about 10 or 12. I’ll call out 5 here.
Steve Harper - Author of The Ripple Effect - http://swotvision.blogspot.com/. His website is http://www.ripplecentral.com. Yes, he’s a client, but I was a fan, and he was a friend first! He’s an excellent speaker, trainer and consultant, and he’s exceptional at teaching others how to build meaningful business and personal relationships.
Seth Godin - He’s got a new book called The Tribes that I just ordered from Amazon. I get his blog every morning on my Blackberry, and it’s the first thing I do in the morning. Check my Blackberry to read his blog…before I even get out of bed. Do me a favor, and don’t tell Seth this. http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
Lifehack - http://www.lifehack.org/- This blog just plain rocks. Every day there’s different writers contributing productivity tips. Some days it’s better than others, but almost every day it is absolutely worth the time I’ve spent reading it.
Liz Lynch - Center for Networking Excellence - http://blog.networkingexcellence.com/ - I wrote a blog about her recently. I’m a big fan of Liz’s. She’s got a new book out, too, called Smart Networking, which you can get here. She knows how to network, and she knows how to help you learn how to network.
Brian Massey - The Conversion Scientist - Brian is a friend, too. Brian’s not a daily blogger, but I’ve really enjoyed some of his recent blogs immensely. http://customerchaos.com/
I’ve been thinking about posting my Top 10 favorite blog posts for the week here. Any interest?
I visualize a proper approach to marketing and business strategy as a lighthouse. A lighthouse is built to address a particular concern for a particular customer. Its mission is to protect boats from smashing into a hazard, or perhaps to guide them to shore. It’s equipped well to do this. From a building that stays in one place, a bright light exudes that moves in a pattern which covers its territory well. It doesn’t protect boats from the next hazard or guide them into the next harbor. Another lighthouse does that. It focuses all its energy on that one area. Each lighthouse is unique, each lighthouse has its own beauty, its own purpose.
I’ve gotten very addicted to Twitter in the past few weeks. I’ve learned an amazing amount in a short time about a variety of topics. I feel more in touch than I’ve felt in a long time with the outside world. I’ve learned to be more concise when writing. And best of all, I’ve met a decent number of knowledgeable, interesting, funny people at warp speed. For me, Twitter has become an extraordinary resource for information, and an excellent networking tool.
While indulging in my 
Welcome to Part I of an exciting series of IV, where we’re going to convince you that, whether any of us like it or not, it is INDEED, as you may have suspected, contrary to everyone denying it….that’s right, it is all about how you look.
