blogging

Oct 08 2010

Ready, Fire, Aim Returns in the ’10s

Should you launch first, then adjust your plan?

It’s so bloody easy to launch a product these days. Find a need, exploit the need, get a website, send a few emails, and you’re launched.

Is it really that easy? Should it be?

: Gantt Chart, (c) SmartDraw.com

Or should you wait – plan, plan some more, sit on the sidelines watching others make mistakes?

We think the “Ready, Fire, Aim” approach is back with a vengeance.

We’re not saying the plan is dead. We’re not advocating “Fire, Ready, Aim” either.

Two cases in point, from our experiences here at Area 224 HQ.

One is the book idea “Nichification” – which is taking longer to get off the ground than we would have hoped. (The “we” is myself and Jim Alexander.)

We conceived the idea in the Winter and proceeded to conduct dozens of interviews with people, from a variety of places and walks of life, all of whom had one thing in common — a niche business. We got help from a professional writer (Jody Calkins from Emery Road, who I would recommend highly). We had discussions with publishers – not just the “fill out the form and we’ll get back to you” stuff, but actual discussions with publishers about real book deals.

So we’ve got content. We’ve got a concept. We’ve got a few chapters. But we don’t yet have the book. Why?

We have to adjust our aim.

Part of the aim adjustment process involves that dreaded word “Objective.” The objective of the book is NOT to sell it and make a zillion dollars in royalties from selling the book. The objective of the book IS…well, that’s the thing that we’re fine-tuning.

But there’s another example, too…

We see a need (and actually a niche within a niche, one of the themes we’ve heard over and over in the book interviews) for professional communicators and marketers in the energy industry to connect, to share ideas, to learn about best practices.

Having spent some time working in the energy industry and working with Realtors on things like “green” and “LEED” marketing — well, there’s a hook here.

So we fired — you can see the Facebook Group here — and we’ll adjust the aim as time goes by.

What’s the point?

You could probably point to a thousand examples of companies that launched product X thinking it would fill need Y and make Z money; only to find out that product X does A+B-C and the money is somewhere in the middle of the alphabet.

But you could point to 100,000 examples of the guy sitting at the bar saying “I had the idea back in the 90s to create…”

Ready? Fire! Aim.

Oct 03 2010

Teachable Moments from TechCrunch, Groupon and Freshbooks

Were it just that simple: come up with the concept, make things happen, make it big.

But, hey, there’s still time. Plenty of time. This is a marathon, not a sprint — and we found three “teachable moments” from the world of startups, technology, communicating your vision, etc. that we can’t wait to share. Here goes…

TechCrunch sold to AOL. Because they worked their collective a$$ off for a bunch of years, Michael Arrington and his team were able to leverage their position as the leading breaking news blog for technology into a nice payday. AND a chance to keep on doing what they’re doing.

Teachable Moment: Did you notice they worked really, really hard at it? Like non-stop, 24×7? Any doubts, read the Inc. Magazine Interview with Michael Arrington. Good stuff.

Groupon Spawns About 250 Competitors. If you haven’t heard of Groupon, that’s okay. You’ll be hearing a little bit about it, or one of its competitors, when it comes to a town near you with a daily deal site. In fact, you can learn about any of these daily deals by visiting a site called Deal Radar and sorting through all of the deals in a town near you.

Teachable Moment #1: (There is more than one teachable moment here.) First of all, while first mover advantage is huge in this case, the fact that there are 250 competitors — and even olde tyme sites like Open Table are getting into the act — there’s time if you’ve got a twist on a current idea, or you want to be hyper-local, or you just think you can do it differently.

Teachable Moment #2: Chicago, Baby! When this reporter was running his first startup, Chicago was very much a “who sent you?” and “old school banking” town. The fact that Groupon’s Andrew Mason (and people like Jason Fried from 37 Signals) can make it here gives hope to others in a town that, darnit, has finally gotten some entrepreneurial swagger.

Freshbooks Hosts Supper Club. I totally loved this event last week. In Chicago, over drinks and dinner. Pitch-free. Freshbooks invited customers to informally gather and talk business. No pressure.

Teachable Moment: Be Awesome. Freshbooks has a Chief Handshaker in Sunir Shah. Talking with him about marketing and engineering and how the two go hand-in-hand was totally cool. (Guest blog post to come. You’re all forewarned.) But Sunir seemed to think — and I agree — that focusing on the product (or service) and making it awesome is the way to go. In fact, I can’t totally remember where I saw any marketing messages from Freshbooks. I do remember, however, hearing people say how easy it is to use Freshbooks. How well it integrates with other stuff (like Basecamp, for instance). Etc.

So, go out there and make something — big, huge, simple, important, or just plain cool — happen.

Sep 16 2010

{!firstname} you’re gonna love this post {!firstname}

It is possible to overdo personalization.

Something has been bothering us here at Area 224 HQ. First we thought it was a pretty nice touch to receive personalized emails. Opening up an email because its Subject Line says something like this:

David, Want an Edge in Business with the Latest Industry News?

Or this:

David – Hot Franchises for 2010

I’ve got nothing at all against personalization. But there’s a way to do it right, and a way to muck it up.

First of all, for the newbies, the great thing about modern tools such as the Interwebs and social and CRM is this automation stuff that, while it won’t make my coffee for me in the morning, allows my messages to take on a “mass personalization” tone.

Simply put, by inserting a couple lines of code – similar to the “{!firstname}” tag above – allows you, the marketer, to send a message to me, the marketee, that drops my name in. Easy-peasy, {!firstname}.

Problems can abound, though, if you do something like this:

Dave Woops – bad link now fixed

, have you hit a plateau?

[BTW, all four of these subjects are from actual emails in my inbox. I find only one “actionable” – and that’s because of a combination of who it’s from and what it could do for me.]

AH, the WIIFM.

I can forgive the misstep on coding from the “plateau” message above. It happens.

I can also forgive the guy (or gal) who assumes that I, Dave, am interested in one of the hot franchises.

But the real – REAL – issue here is the following:

If your email doesn’t say “What’s In It For Me?” – I’m not opening.

Even if you are on a {!firstname} basis with me.

Aug 23 2010

Focus on 3 Things for Social Media Optimization

We are often asked how and where to start for Social Media “Optimization” – We Suggest these 3 Things…

Consistency. It’s important to be consistent with where you spend your Social Media time, and how you look on the social web. If people know to find you, your company, your product or your brand sharing information on Twitter but not really using Facebook — we think that is fine.

We also think that using a consistent voice, look and feel are all vital. If a clown is your company mascot and your brand tweets on behalf of the clown, great. Just don’t have the clown start talking politics on us.

Empathy. Folks like Al Ferretti on Twitter use the term “Go-giver.” Said another way – people who put helping others – sharing information, links, even positive vibes – ahead of their own needs on social media.

When empathizing, remember that you, too, started out somewhere. Maybe you opened up a Facebook account and didn’t exactly know why – but then someone friended you and you were off and rolling.

Fun. I spent virtually my entire social media time this weekend sharing links to YouTube music videos on Facebook. Throw in some back-and-forth with people I have met IRL (in real life), and a few comments with people who I genuinely enjoy interacting with.

Business took a backseat.

Three tips. Quick stuff for a Monday. Go get ’em.

Aug 08 2010

Questions from the Area 224 Mailbag

Here’s a smattering of the mail we receive. We’re calling this “Questions from the Mailbag,” even though our mail does not arrive in bags. Anyway:

Dear Area 224: We couldn’t make your recent “Lame Marketing is So Lame” webinar. Can you give us a synopsis?

Sure.” Don’t be Lame.”

But seriously, one way to avoid being lame with your marketing is to avoid having a lame product or service in the first place.

One of the folks we’ve met along the way to our book called “Nichification” is this guy – http://www.drinkthc.com – whose product is the opposite of lame. And his marketing is pretty clever.

If you don’t have a product that provides value that people will pay for, then you may not want to spend your time on marketing. Spend your time on developing a better product. And on unicorns.

Dear Area 224: Where is “Area 224?” Is it some sort of mysterious alien landing place?

Area 224…sounds mysterious, which is part of the point. But it’s really named after an area code – one that overlays the North Shore of Chicago.

This is the second most common question we receive, right behind “why would you name your firm after an area code?”

(If you want to know more about area codes in North America, this is one of the best sites. http://bennetyee.org/ucsd-pages/area.html. Also pops up early on if you Google “area codes.” )

Dear Area 224: Great site, that area code one. What other sites do you recommend for those who want to be uber-productive?

The list starts and ends with http://e.ggtimer. If you’re not measuring how much time you are spending on various tasks – how long it takes you to write a blog post, how much time you’re spending to respond to DMs on Twitter, etc. – then you’re probably wasting valuable time. The Egg Timer will change your life.

Dear Area 224: Are we there yet?

No.