When you look at marketing, there are so many things you can do.

Attention

Conversion

Retention

I‘ll come clean first:
- My customer list isn’t as good as it should be
- My communication isn’t nearly as often as it should be
- My messages are good, but not optimised or split tested

Having said all that, every time I communicate, something comes out. My last e-mail to 485 contacts was about the office being closed on a specific day.

Still, I got responses:
- 2 3 requests for a price list
- 1 order
- 1 technical issue to solve
- 1 personal e-mail

Not bad for an e-mail that was only intended to inform – not to sell.

The lesson here is that people want to hear from you. And not just when you’re “selling”. Plus, it doesn’t have to be a lot of work if you have the tools in place to do it.

For e-mail that means:
- a list with contact details integrated into your e-mail program, if that’s how you’re communicating
- a program that’ll handle your e-mail (I use interspire’s e-mail marketer for that)

If that’s the case, a message doesn’t take a lot of time to write and send.

Just do it regularly – plan if at all possible and you’ll reap the results.

Otto

A great looking site will pull in more visitors and give your site and company credibility. But if
you don’t have the resources to pay a designer at the moment – free is the best option.

I’ve been looking at typography lately and how it impacts the look of a site. Smashing magazine did a great
project and the result was a range of free templates.

There was one that I really liked, as it was intended for businesses. You can easily
customise it and combine typography with powerful images. Get the right colorscheme
and images for your business and you could have a great looking site in a short amount of time.

Here’s a preview: http://media2.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/images/type-layouts/binaryd-goldenrod/
and here’s the download: http://media2.smashingmagazine.com/images/type-layouts/binaryd-goldenrod.zip

Enjoy!

Otto

Jasper cabinets, a US based furniture maker has taken over TheaterXtreme, a home theater franchise operation, which went under a few months ago.

This gives the manufacturer a more direct control of which products would be available to the franchisees. This is a possibility for projection screen manufacturers as well. Because many screens are seen as commodities. Especially of those companies that have been selling to OEM customers or who don’t have a strong brand presence.

The good thing about projection screens is that they offer good margins, compared to the flat panel versions. This makes the product very interesting for specialised integrators. So by taking control of a distributor for example, a manufacturer can ensure his products reach the market place.

This takes a strategic vision though. One which realises that projection screens are and will always be a niche product. A vision that sees the market for projection screens get smaller, because flat panels are getting bigger. A vision that sees the value of a projection screen for a reseller.

Now, with the players we know in Europe, who has that vision. I know of one company. You tell me of the others

Otto

See the official story here

Yes,  I did it. I made a site in under 30 minutes. Even though I am not a designer and my CSS skills are limited to the very basics and.. copying and pasting. Before I show you the result, as well as what I used and how I did it – why does time even matter when setting up a site?

Well, you’re busy right? And spend your time mostly on what the day brings, correct?

It’s the exact same thing for me. Before I know it, the day is over. And, nothing structural has been accomplished. And that’s just wrong. Nowadays, you need to be constantly building.  To be able to do that, when you’re already busy is hard.

Unless…

You make it easy on yourself. And that’s exactly what I did. See the result here:

An example of what the 30 minute site looks like

Now, I have one thing to admit… The text and the graphics were made in advance. I still had to:

- Make the categories for the different products

- Make the drop caps (the red letter that starts the page)

- Insert the image and text

So what’s the secret?

Well, it’s using software you’re familiar with. In my case, the Smart FTP, WordPress and Thesis. Which leads to step 2, using software that makes stuff easy and efficient for you.  And that’s what these 3 do for me.

In a next post, I’ll show you how.

Thanks,

Otto

Wow, things must be getting desperate. When asked what the most succint message she could give, Projecta’s marketing and sales manager said: “Please, call us”.

Hmm, if that’s all you have to say.

Here’s the video, which is absolutely awful (due to compression I guess): http://www.sgpartners.it/ise_2009_special/default.asp?action=play&id=7

I wasn’t fond of Peter de Kroon’s boastful interview last year, but it was a lot better than this….

Otto