The Marketing Message Blog

Customers Will Co-Design Your Company's Future

I highly recommend Patty Seybold's new book "Outside Innovation: How Your Customers Will Co-Design Your Company's Future." (See Required Reading.)  In it she states, "you no longer win by having the smartest engineers and scientists; you win by having the smartest customers."

I know, it sounds like something new for small business owners to worry about—smart customers!  But don't be dispirited.  Small business owners actually have a 'leg up' in this arena. They are closer to their customers and can really encourage and use feedback.  I also touch on this in my free ebook, Small Business 2.0. which deals with how small businesses can utilize the latest tools to grow their business. 

The key take-away here is that if you aren't figuring out how your customers can participate in the growth of your business, either by collaboration or evaluation of products and methods you are wasting a great resource. 

Grow Your Small Business

I have been writing this blog for several months now.  I've gotten great and thoughtful feedback from my readers.   I'm really interested to find out what you'd like to read about and which topics interest you most.  Can you fill out my survey below and let me know?  If I left out a topic you are interested in, please feel free to comment.

Which incentives leverage your brand?

There's an interesting article by Gary Kreissman called Qualified Lead Quality in BtoBonline.  It addresses an important point about what really constitutes a quality  lead.  He says, "...consumer brand marketers no long consider an email address a 'qualifier'. Rather they are using the Internet to identify prospects based on deeper characteristics, such as emotion, motivation and opinions."

You may have noticed that many popular internet marketers are now asking for a street address as well as an email address.  Ostensibly, this is to cover them in case something happens to their online mailing list.  More importantly, marketers should be thinking about what their mailing list tells them about the motivations of a potential customer. 

Is your mailing list segmented by offer?  Do you know if your customers respond to ebooks more than podcasts?  Can you tell what kind of offer stirs up a big response?  If not, you need to do some work on analyzing the list you have and not simply assume that a big list is a responsive one.

Reset your thinking; grow your business

John Naisbitt's new book Mind Set! is a must-read for small business owners (see Required Reading.)  He presents 11 'mindsets' that will help you understand how future trends can impact your business today.  If you understand how to view trends, you will be able to maximize opportunties. 

This is not an esoteric exercise.  If you are too focused on the limitations of today's marketplace, you will not be poised to seize opportunities as they present themselves.  His mindset is stated as, 'you don't get results by solving problems, but by exploiting opportunities.'   He recounts several stories of business people who saw an opportunity and took it as opposed to following a set plan with no deviations.  Louis Pasteur is quoted as saying, "Change favors the prepared mind. I was ready."

This is a key notion for business owners who stubbornly cling to their ideas and don't invite change.  Try to listen and keep your mind open to new opportunities.  When a problem presents itself, instead of trying to fight it, think of it as a chance to do something new.  Let me know if you have a great example you can share with us.

Does Your Blog Utilitze Autoresponders?

Although autoresponder technology has been around a while, I am finding that lots of beginning bloggers are not using them.  I thought that might be because they seem 'too technical.'  But I'm finding that it's not fear, people just don't know they need them.  If you have a blog and you're not utilizing an autoresponder, you are either not following up with your customers or you are spending all your time following up with them.

Either way, if you want to build your mailing list and satisfy your customer's need for your expertise, get an autoreponder quickly.  I use 1Shoppingcart.com.  Others I know use and like AWeber.com.  The key is to get one and start using it to build your mailing list. 

When you started your blog, you worried about getting readers.  Now that you have some readers, you think your work is done.  Unless you engage your readers and continue the dialogue with more specialized information, you are missing a great opportunity to grow your business.

Time for a Joint Venture?

Business Week's Small Business Fall 2006, has an interesting article on partnering with a company larger than your own.  What I find particularly interesting is the chart they display showing 6 different ways of structuring that partnership.  They include joint ventures, joint R&D, licensing, marketing, distribution and sales.

Many small business owners seem to dismiss this idea because they think it has to include a very large company.  It doesn't.  A company larger than your own could be anyone whose gross revenues are larger than yours, or who have more employees.  In fact, it should include anyone who has a complimentary product or service.  The good thing about an arrangement like this is that it can be time limited and restricted to a test.  If the test succeeds, you can go further.  If it doesn't, you haven't committed a great deal. 

Think about who you can approach.  Widen your thinking beyond your own product category.  You might hit on something that takes you to unexpected places.