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A network of people you don’t know

Are you also trying to collect a lot of contacts in your Facebook, Linkedin or other social networking account?

Most people think these social network website contacts are important to them. But they are not.

The 2nd degree

Your 1st degree contacts normally are people you know anyhow. You don’t need a social network website to keep in touch with them. It may make it easier, but you can do without.

Your 2nd degree contacts are much more important. These are the people you don’t know. But they are known to your contacts.

That means your 1st degree contacts not necessarily need to be people you are going to sell to.  They can be important to you in another way. Because they may have contacts that are interesting for you. People you would never have known without your 1st degree contacts.

And the nice thing is, it also works the other way around.

That is the real power of social network websites.

March 13th, 2010 | Tags: , , | Category: Social Media, facebook, linkedin | Leave a comment

Google Adwords – connect to the future

If you run out of  stock or your stocks are low for a specific sales item, you may want to hold back a bit on sales. But at the same time you want to sell more of the other products that clog your warehouse. 

In the old days it would have taken you a lot of time, energy and money to adjust your promotional activities to your stock levels. Nowadays you can do it in real time, fully automated.

Adwords

In Google Adwords your position in the paid search results depends on the money you are prepared to pay for each click (CPC).

The click through rate (CTR) or the number of people that click on your ad and visit your website depends on your position in the search results. The higher you are, the bigger the chance somebody will click on your link.

Sales will be influenced by the number of people that visit your website. The more people, the more you sell.

So by changing your CPC you influence your sales results. A higher CPC will give you more sales and reducing your CPC will result in less sales.

Automatically

It is now possible to automate this process and link your stock figures in real time directly to your Adwords campaigns. Raising your sales promotion when stocks are high and lowering them when stocks get low. Or temporary interrupt a campaign when you have totally run out of stocks.

No more problems with delivery times because people buy products that are temporarily not available.

So connect your stock figures to your Google Adwords campaigns. Connect to the future.

March 12th, 2010 | Tags: , | Category: Adwords, Google | Leave a comment

Don’t mention the C word

When it comes to making information available to your customers, there should be no limit. Your marketing activities should of course focus on the advantages of your products or services. But your customers are also looking for drawings, certificates, specifications, updates, spare parts and a lot more.

Your website is the ideal on-line warehouse where all this information can be made available in a structured and easy to access way.

The C word

In discussions about making information available to customers, people often start talking about competitors instead of customers.

Although they have no problem with making the information available to their customers, they don’t want their competitors to have the same information. We should not make life for competitors to easy by handing them the information on a silver plate, they say. Competitors might misuse the information to steel your customers and revenues.

Who matters more

If competitors want to get information about your products or services, they will get it. One way or another. It may take them some more energy and time if the information is not on your website. But don’t fool yourself. They will get the information anyhow.

On the other hand your customers will very much appreciate if the information they are looking for is readily available on your website. It makes life a lot easier for them and they will like you for that.

Now who is more important to you. A competitor that is disappointed because he cannot find the information his looking for on your website. Or a customer that thinks of you as a professional supplier that is good to do business with.

So please never use the C word, unless you are referring to Customers.

March 11th, 2010 | Tags: , , , | Category: General Marketing, Social Media, Webdesign, b2b | Leave a comment

Wordperfect and Vook

Last Monday I wrote about Change To Survive. Seth Godin gives a few more examples of companies that did not change and therefore did not survive in his todays post The Wordperfect Axiom.

Godin is also writing about Vook. Vook is a new innovation in reading that blends a well-written book, high-quality video and the power of the Internet into a single, complete story. At least that is what they say on their website Vook.com.

Although only future can tell whether Vook will be a success or not, Vook is another good example of  a new platform that is threatening the existing business. Book publishers will now not only have to deal with e-books and readers, but also with Vook. That means less chance to survive. Unless they are able to adjust too.

March 10th, 2010 | Tags: , , , , | Category: New Platforms | Leave a comment
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