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The Apprentice episode 7 – Can engineers be successful entrepreneurs?

Covered-MagLast night’s Apprentice show was as entertaining as ever, although it had extra appeal to the over 60’s and ‘lads’.

In my previous job I created and edited our staff newsletter, so this weeks project of producing a free magazine was of particular interest.

As is always the case with The Apprentice, the teams were given almost no time at all to come up with the concept, the title and some content, including a photo shoot. The next day they then had to sell their ‘finished’ product to three media buying agencies.

Team Venture sensibly went with the over 60’s market as this is now a fast growth area, thanks simply to demographics (see my blog on The growing grey market in the UK). The others more predictably went with the ‘lads mag’ target audience. Although they didn’t seem to be aware that this has been in decline for at least five years (see our YouTube video of Loaded founder James Brown).

Team Logic initially planned to go for something tasteful and business related, rather than the clichéd girls in their underwear approach. But, somehow they ended up with something quite tawdry. It may have had something to do with their project leader Natasha Scribbins‘ belief that ‘porn sells’, or perhaps the lure of a catchy headline, with ‘How do you blow your load’, being the most memorable.

The teams struggle to come up with decent names for their magazines, the 60+ one was called Hip Replacement (it was supposed to be ironic), reminded me of our struggles when creating our staff newsletter.

After a company wide competition, with some very poor entries, we ended up with the uninspiring name of ‘The Insider’. I also remember all too well the hours we spent toiling over our story headlines. If it hadn’t been for my colleague Christine, who it turned out was something of a natural sub-editor, our headlines would have been almost as cringe worthy as those on The Apprentice.

Once again the winning team were as surprised as the viewers at the outcome. In this case one of the media buyers decided to go for an exclusive with the tasteless ‘lads mag’, giving them a massive winning margin.

glenn-wardAnd on the losers team was Glenn Ward, whose misfortune was to be a software engineer. As Alan Sugar said ‘I have never yet come across an engineer that can turn his hand to business’ so Glenn was fired.

This seems a rather biased approach to the selection process, but as Nick Hewer explained on the follow up show You’re Fired, Sugar has twice given engineers companies to run in his business empire, and they both times they failed.

This seems a rather un-scientific sample to base his decision on. The names of Bill Gates of Microsoft, Steve Wozniak of Apple Computers, Bill Hewlett of Hewlett Packard, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google,  show that software  engineers can indeed be successful business leaders.

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Linking Marketing and Sales with Kimberly Davis

Kimberly_DavisHaving previously covered social media (The Marketing Master Class – Social Media for Business), Kimberly Davis kindly invited me along to the third in her Marketing Masters Series. And this time the topic was Linking Marketing and Sales.

Kimberly started with a very simple definition; Marketing is anything that represents your company.

Marketing vs Sales
–    example of a football team – team is the marketing effort – the striker is the sales
–    Better if different people due to different goals
o    Marketing – long term – brand building – consistency – impersonal
o    Sales – short term – translates interest into a sale – personal (one to one)

Fear of sales
–    If your product is good, you are doing them a favour by telling them about it.
–    It’s is just a conversation – not a sales pitch
–    People buy from people they know, like and trust

Company name
–    You should be able to say what you do in two words
–    Forget witty tag lines that say nothing
–    Example – Campbell’s condensed soup – Sasparilla marketing detoxification

Target market
–    Forget your gut instinct – you can’t sell to everybody
–    Who is your ideal customer?
–    Create a profile for them – age, race, interests, position, salary etc

Selling the right thing
–    What is going to make you the most ROI (return on investment)?
–    Are you selling the right thing to the right people?

Identifying need
–    Where does it hurt for your customers?
–    Solve a problem
–    People buy what they want, not what they need.

Focus on the benefits
–    What are your benefits?
–    What problem can you solve?
–    How can you make their life easier?

Unique Selling Point
–    What are you USP’s?
–    Be ‘the only …’
–    Focus – If you try to be everything to everyone, you will be nothing to no one

The Elevator Pitch
–    It is the most important thing in your marketing strategy.
–    You have twenty seconds to make an impact.
–    Can you clearly articulate what you do in that time?
–    People will decide whether to file or forget you based on this.
–    No more that two short sentences long.
o    Who, what, why when and how?

Communication
–    Find the right words to use
–    Keep it simple
–    Focus on fears and needs
–    Read it out and hear how it sounds
–    Test it on lots of people and get feedback
–    Ask them to say it back to you to see what they remember

Kimberly’s elevator pitch for Sarsaparilla:
50% of marketing is wasted. Sarsaparilla is a marketing consulting and training agency that specialises in marketing purification – the process of detoxing your marketing, protecting you from The Flash, Fluff and Fakers, and helping you make more money with less.

  • Sales across the Marketing Umbrella
  • Branding
  • Business cards
  • Literature
  • Social Media
    .com
  • Merchandise
  • Eshots, flyers, emails etc
  • Website
  • Testimonials
  • Advertising

PR
–    Getting other people to say it for you

Networking
–    Time to use your elevator speech
–    How to get in out of a conversation – ‘I don’t want to keep you from networking with other people here’… Don’t be too obvious
–    Business Cards
–    Carry a nice pen – cheap pen = cheap company
–    Think beyond the person in front of you – they may know someone relevant
–    Ask for what you want – they may be able to help
–    Pay if forward
–    5 minutes per person

Ways to measure your return on marketing investment
–    Take an inventory
o    List of clients and what they buy from you
o    Review you client profile
    How many
    Average spend
    Repeat clients?
    Their profile – hobbies, interests etc
    When they buy
    Why they buy
    Survey with SurveyMonkey
o    Do your market research – not with family and friends
o    Gives you a starting point for measurement

  • Creating a process (funnel?)
  • Positioning
  • Permission Marketing
  • Incentivise your customers
  • Data capture
  • Generating new leads
  • Ask why people aren’t buying
  • Cost of customer acquisition
  • Retention / Customer service
  • Multiple revenue streams
  • Reminders
  • Experiential marketing

Pricing
Referral and Affiliate plans

Stop selling and allow people to buy from you

Find a mentor
A Hobby or a Business?

Sharon Wright and Magnamole 

Kimberly’s keynote speaker for the final slot of the day was Sharon Wright, who’s claim to fame is delivering the best pitch in the history of Dragons Den.

–    Took one day off in the first year of developing the idea.
–    Single parent entrepreneur
–    ‘Think big and you will be big’
–    Decided to start with the biggest BT
o    2 hours of negativity
o    6 Sigma proof required
o    Would be virtually impossible
o    Had never been done before
o    One positive – the product had legs

–    First paying customer was with Cromwell tools – told them BT was a buy (a bit cheeky)
–    From creation to market within 6 months
–    Strong self belief is 1st important ingredient for business success
–    Aim was to be the best presenter on Dragons Den – achieved this goal
–    Preparation (2nd key ingredient for business success)
–    Practiced her three minute pitch 100 times a day for three weeks
–    Read all of the Dragon’s books to help choose which partner to go with
–    After the show was aired Sharon received 7,000 emails
–    Was now working 22 hours a day, seven days a week.
–    Loneliness of starting a business (3rd key ingredient)
–    As time went on her self belief began to drop
–    Met Tony Larkin at the British Inventors show who offered to invest in her
–    Sharon has now sold her Magnamole to an American company keeping a 10% holding.

–    The most important lesson learnt was to trust her instincts, and get a business mentor. You are often too emotionally close to your business to make objective business decisions.

–    Story reminds me of one of my earliest blog posts on Dragons Den
Dragon’s Con.

Sharon’s book ‘Mother of Invention – How I won Dragons Den, Lost my mind, Nearly lost my business and ended up reinventing myself’, tells of her personal struggle as a single mother, inventor and entrepreneur.
It has been reviewed on my colleague Steve Van Dulken’s Patent Search Blog.

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Visit from the School of Communication Arts

School of Communication ArtsYesterday I hosted a visit for thirty students from the School of Communication Arts. I have to admit I had not heard of the school before, but have been very impressed by Marc Lewis their enthusiastic Dean.

I was initially a bit intimidated by presenting to such a young and dynamic audience, but they gave me an easy ride, and seemed genuinely interested in what the Library and the Business & IP Centre had to offer.

The school have created a great Prezi slide show to explain how they are different.

And here is an introduction from their prospectus:

Have you noticed that the best ideas are usually so simple that it is hard to believe that it took so long for someone to conceive of the idea in the first place?

School of Communication Arts is unique for so many reasons. Here are three things that make it such a unique place for you to launch your career;

A student to teacher ratio of 1:6 (that’s six teachers to every student!!). Every teacher is a top creative practitioner. Which means that our students develop a powerful network of valuable contacts whilst developing their abilities.

An entirely new vocation (Ideapreneur). This has captured the imagination of the advertising and venture capital industries. So much so, that some of our Ideapreneur students will receive £10,000 of funding for their start-ups whilst at the school.

An accredited curriculum written by practitioners using wiki tools. This simple idea enables us to teach the most up-to-date knowledge, which is essential in such a fastchanging world.

There are plenty more ways in which The School of Communication Arts is considered to be the leading school for advertising, some of which you will find in this prospectus. But the thing that sets us apart, more than anything else, is our cohort.

I wish you good luck in winning a place at the school. If you are successful, you are on a fasttrack to a very rewarding creative career. All the best, Marc Lewis

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The re-branding of Beachy Head

logo_beachy_headThe biggest surprise on my recent four day perambulation along the final section of the South Downs Way, in England’s newest National Park, came on the final day of walking.

Although the established local beer for the area is Harveys, famous for its Tom Paine Ale, and still brewed beside the river Ouse in the heart of Lewes, there is now a new rival.

It comes in the form of Beachy Head Ale, produced in a micro-brewery based in the pretty village of East Dene.

We enjoyed a delightful lunch in their brewerytap pub, the Tiger Inn, sitting in the sun on the village green looking across to Sherlock Holmes’ retirement home.

The surprise came when reading their promotional brochure and discovering the re-branding of Beachy Head. As a relatively local inhabitant, I am well aware of the stunning beauty of Seven Sisters and Beachy Head, but also cognisant of its more well known feature. For most UK residents Beachy Head it is quite literally a jumping off point for those who want to end it all.

This, less attractive aspect has featured in many films, documentaries and news items. Beachy Head suicide spot.

Now, working as I do on the Euston Road opposite Kings Cross Station, I am all too aware of the stigma that can cling to an area, even if that reputation is no longer deserved.

So I was fascinated to see how the Davies-Gilbert family, who have farmed the Beachy Head area for 200 years are attempting to re-invent and re-brand Beach Head. As you can see at Beachy Head.org.uk, it is a beautiful part of the country, with lots to see and do.

While there, I began to notice the clean and modern Beachy Head logo almost everywhere I looked. And it will be interesting to see if the media starts to pick up on this more positive story about the area. However, given their predilection for the gory and ghastly, I have my doubts.

As a geographer, I was somewhat perplexed by the brochure map of the area. I would expect it to concentrate on visitor highlights, but, the designers have decided to omit the large village of Friston. Perhaps because it is adjacent to, and somewhat overwhelms the village of East Dene which appears to be the heart of Beach Head.

Have a look a the maps of area below and see what you think.

Beachy Head Map 3Beach Head Map 1

 

The re-branding of Beach Head

 

Beach Head logo

 

The biggest surprise on my recent four day perambulation along the final section of the South Downs Way, ??? in England’s newest National Park, ??? came on the last day.

 

Although the established local beer for the area is Harveys, famous for its Tom Paine beer, ??? and still brewed beside the river Ouse in the heart of Lewes, ??? there is now a new rival.

 

It comes in the form of Beachy Head Ale,??? produced in a micro-brewery based in the pretty village of East Dene.

 

We enjoyed a delightful lunch in their brewerytap ??? pub, the Tiger Inn, ??? sitting in the sun on the village green looking across to Sherlock Holmes’ retirement house. ???

 

The surprise came when reading their promotional brochure and discovering the re-branding of Beachy Head. As a relatively local inhabitant, I am well aware of the stunning beauty of the Seven Sisters and Beachy Head, but also cognisant of its more well know aspect. For most UK residents Beachy Head it is quite literally the jumping off point for those who want to end it all.

 

This, less attractive aspect has featured in many films, documentaries and news items. ??? wikipedia – ??? Green Wing clip

 

Now, working as I do on the Euston Road opposite Kings Cross Station, I am all too aware of the stigma that can cling to an area, even if that reputation is no longer deserved. ???

 

So I was fascinated to see how the Davies-Gilbert family, who have farmed the Beachy Head area for 200 years and are attempting to re-invent and re-brand Beach Head. As you can see from the map and at Beachy Head dot org, ??? it is a beautiful part of the country, with lots to see and do.

 

I began to notice the clean and modern Beachy Head logo almost everywhere I looked. It will be interesting to see if the media starts to pick up on this more positive story about the area. But given their predilection for the gory and ghastly, I have my doubts.

 

The re-branding of Beach Head

Beach Head logo

The biggest surprise on my recent four day perambulation along the final section of the South Downs Way, ??? in England’s newest National Park, ??? came on the last day.

Although the established local beer for the area is Harveys, famous for its Tom Paine beer, ??? and still brewed beside the river Ouse in the heart of Lewes, ??? there is now a new rival.

It comes in the form of Beachy Head Ale,??? produced in a micro-brewery based in the pretty village of East Dene.

We enjoyed a delightful lunch in their brewerytap ??? pub, the Tiger Inn, ??? sitting in the sun on the village green looking across to Sherlock Holmes’ retirement house. ???

The surprise came when reading their promotional brochure and discovering the re-branding of Beachy Head. As a relatively local inhabitant, I am well aware of the stunning beauty of the Seven Sisters and Beachy Head, but also cognisant of its more well know aspect. For most UK residents Beachy Head it is quite literally the jumping off point for those who want to end it all.

This, less attractive aspect has featured in many films, documentaries and news items. ??? wikipedia – ??? Green Wing clip

Now, working as I do on the Euston Road opposite Kings Cross Station, I am all too aware of the stigma that can cling to an area, even if that reputation is no longer deserved. ???

So I was fascinated to see how the Davies-Gilbert family, who have farmed the Beachy Head area for 200 years and are attempting to re-invent and re-brand Beach Head. As you can see from the map and at Beachy Head dot org, ??? it is a beautiful part of the country, with lots to see and do.

I began to notice the clean and modern Beachy Head logo almost everywhere I looked. It will be interesting to see if the media starts to pick up on this more positive story about the area. But given their predilection for the gory and ghastly, I have my doubts.

As a geographer, I was somewhat perplexed by the brochure map of the area. I would expect it to concentrate on visitor’s highlights. But, the designers decided to omit the large village of Friston. Perhaps because it is adjacent to, and somewhat overwhelms the village of East Dene which appears to be the heart of Beach Head.

Have a look a the maps of area below and see what you think.

As a geographer, I was somewhat perplexed by the brochure map of the area. I would expect it to concentrate on visitor’s highlights. But, the designers decided to omit the large village of Friston. Perhaps because it is adjacent to, and somewhat overwhelms the village of East Dene which appears to be the heart of Beach Head.

 

Have a look a the maps of area below and see what you think.

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The Marketing Master Class – Social Media for Business

Kimberly_DavisOnce again I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the second of Kimberly Davis‘ Marketing Masters Series, this time the hot topic of Social Media for Business. See Apprentice Kim and her Marketing Masters Series for my notes from the first.

Kimberly promised us eleven ways to turn free resources into powerful marketing and sales tools, and she certainly delivered, with additional excellent contributions from Warren Cass and Stefan Thomas.

Here are my notes from the day:

Definition of Social Media – A conversation between you and your customers (or potential customers).

Why you should use it:

  • ­    Powerful
  • ­    International
  • ­    Instant
  • ­    Connects people
  • ­    No barriers
  • ­    Viral
  • ­    Easy (you don’t need to be tech savvy)
  • ­    Is the future of marketing

 

Facebook

  • ­    Half of UK population is now on Facebook
  • ­    Average user has 130 friends

Twitter

  • ­    “The SMS of the Internet”
  • ­    58% of tweeps have +$60k income

Linked In

  • ­    Six degrees of Kevin Bacon
  • ­    Job searching

YouTube

  • ­    Owned by Google
  • ­    Increases your SEO

Research – Use Social Media to find out what are people saying about you and your competitors?
Surveys – Test – Feedback
Tools

  • ­    www.Uservoice.com
  • ­    www.Openmind.com
  • ­    www.Topsy.com
  • ­    www.Clueapp.com
  • ­    www.Surveymonkey.com

 

  • Build a database
  • Building your Brand
  • Trust is essential
  • The power of blogging
  • Customer Service
  • Events and promotions
  • Networking
  • Referrals
  • Recruitment and Refresh
  • Sales
  • Create a Social Media Strategy
  • Do you need a Social Media manager?

Tools

  • ­    www.tweetdeck.com
  • ­    www.hootsuite.com
  • ­    www.cotweet.com

Words of caution

  • ­    Facebook owns your photos – and changes the privacy rules regularly
  • ­    15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes at night
  • ­    Friends don’t equal love
  • ­    Beware of bots

The Marketing Master Class

Social Media for Business

Kimberly Davies

Story of Sarsaparilla

Flash, fluff and fakers

11 ways to turn free resources into powerful marketing and sales tools

Definition – A conversation

Powerful:

International

Instant

Connects people

No barriers

Viral

Easy (you don’t need to be tech savvy)

Is the future of marketing

Pre social media customer experience sharing

Good = 3 people, Bad experience = 9 people

Social media connects you to the world.

22% of online time in the US is on social networking

40 million tweets per day

20% of Twitter updates mention a business or brand

The Big Four – YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Linked In

Twitter – 190 users – more tech savvy and higher incomes

Facebook – 600 million – casual not business – B2C

Linked In – 90 million – more service based businesses.

Facebook

half of UK population is now on Facebook

average user has 130 friends

90 items of content per month on average

Gets more visits than Google, people asking friends they trust for recommendations

25 fans enables you to get your own facebook domain address

Friends activities are recorded on stats page

Only .04% of adverts work on Facebook – compared to 8% on Google

Wall post conversions work better

Point your adverts to your Facebook page, not out of Facebook

Set your keyword campaign to run for two days, then go back an use same words at a lower price

Twitter

“the SMS of the Internet”

58% of tweeps have +$60k income

Mentions of you are visible

Needs a better tech understanding

Enables a direct link to people

Search topics and see what people are saying

You can brand your Twitter page

Tools – tweepi.com, twitpic

Hash tags – follow events and trending topics

Linked In

Six degrees of Kevin Bacon

job searching

gatekeeper

B2B

Great SEO – at least put in your basic profile details

Get recommendations for your business – much better than promoting yourself

YouTube

owned by Google

increases your SEO

for people who like to learn by watching than reading

can use Flip or iPhone – cheap and easy

Research

Use Social Media to find out what are people saying about you and your competitors?

Surveys

Test

Feedback

Tools

www.Uservoice.com

www.Openmind.com

www.Topsy.com

www.Clueapp.com

www.Surveymonkey.com

Build a database

lists, groups

get people to register their data

offer something for free in order to get people to sign up

don’t do it the wrong way – quality is more important than quanitity

www.getsatisfaction.com

Building your Brand

establish yourself as an expert – answer questions

have an opinion

loyalty

write articles and promote

www.ezinearticles.com

www.scribd.com

What can you write about?

What are you an expert on?

Trust is essential

– Your customers need to trust that you genuinely have their interest at heart.

Warren Cass

www.warrencass.com

www.business-scene.com

Why you should Network Online

Examples of Will it Blend and United Breaks Guitars on YouTube

Useful tools

www.Tweeteck.com

The power of blogging

host guest bloggers who have lots of traffic

comment on popular blogs

Customer Service

Monitor and respond to service issues

Give support

Answer questions

Respond to people’s comments, good and bad

People want to talk to people, not companies

Tools

CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

Via www.CoTweet.com

Events and promotions

invite

register

contests

direct people to your website, blog, etc

fundraising via sites like www.kapipal.com

increase awareness of who you are and what you do

ReTweet and Follow to enter

Networking

Keep up to date with what everyone is doing

Who moved

Build relationships

The world is listening

Reach a wider audience

Referrals

Introduce people to each other

Pay it forward

Recommendations – use in your marketing materials

Like Amazon Book reviews

Recruitment and Refresh

PR

Create a buzz

Viral Marketing

What you say can go further than you think

Sales

Promoting a sale. Launching a product

Build rapport

Today’s fans are tomorrow’s buyers

Create a demand, teasers, new products etc

Offer discounts

Create a Social Media Strategy

What are you going to use social media for?

Think long term

Plan

Write 5 things you’d tweet today

Do you need a Social Media manager?

Interns

Assistance

Virtual Assistants

Outsourced Professionals

Dual identities – business and personal

Tools

www.tweetdeck.com

www.hootsuite.com

www.cotweet.com

Words of caution

Facebook owns your photos – and changes the privacy rules regularly

15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes at night

Friends don’t equal love

Beware of bots

Stefan Thomas – www.noredbraces.co.uk

Story of being an estate agent, made redundant

Pathological fear of public speaking

Top tips for real and social networking success

Don’t sell to your audience

Passion and confidence

Be aware of what you want to say – don’t make it up on the fly – you wouldn’t do that for a brochure or advert

When you get to a one to one – still don’t sell – treat it like a first date

People don’t go into online forums to be sold to – so don’t do it – build up a relationship first

Don’t use social media for selling

Social networking complements person to person networking, it complements it and keeps them warm.

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Inspiring Entrepreneurs: Mothers of Invention

Last week was a busy one for me with three events worth noting. The most memorable, for two reasons, was our Inspiring Entrepreneurs: Mothers of Invention evening.

One, because – sadly this is likely to be last of our Inspiring Entrepreneurs events for the foreseeable future, due to our funding running out. Secondly, because I got to show Natasha Kaplinsky around the Business & IP Centre. She got quite excited about our Success Stories, in particular the David versus Goliath saga of Mandy Haberman’s Any Way Up Cup.

Natasha had kindly agree to chair our session of four inspirational and pioneering female entrepreneurs.

Although businesses run by women contribute £130 billion a year to the UK economy, still only 15% are led by women. I am proud to say that 50% of the people we help in the Business & IP Centre are women, so we are doing our bit to help redress this inequality.

Mama-MioSian Sutherland the co-founder of Mama Mio skincare was our first speaker. Since starting five years ago Mama Mio is now distributed in 2500 stores and five spas in eight countries.

Their mission is very simple and straightforward – to be the most recommended skincare brand in the world.

Sian described the three key ingredients to competing – Business, Brand and  Product.

To her brand is the most important ingredient for long term business success. And that chimes with several of my recent blog posts on the subject of branding.

She explained how you need to gain brand loyalty using emotion, rather than price.

Sian’s vital ingredients for success:

  • ­        learn from the mistakes of others
  • ­        use the ‘why bother test’
  • ­        don’t follow trends or fads
  • ­        understand who your customer is
  • ­        know how to talk to your customers
  • ­        have a unique and own-able brand tone of voice
  • ­        deliver on every level to your customers
  • ­        make you customers feel special
  • ­        have a plan
  • ­        if it was easy, everyone would do it
  • ­        love what you do, and do what you love

Sara Murray is serial entrepreneur having founded the price comparison website, confused.com and more recently developed buddi, a miniaturised tracking device for vulnerable people..

She told us that success does not come overnight. It takes on average eight years for a business to become successful.

Buddi is Sara’s third business, and the initial idea was to give the product away and charge a rental. However this approach was rejected by her investors, so she went back with a revised plan which was accepted. So the lesson there, is be adaptable.

She said that luck favours the persistent, failure is good, and that you shouldn’t wait for the big idea to come along – just get on with it and see what happens.

Every product however good will eventually becomes obsolete, so you need to develop a range of products in order to have a successful business.

For funding, forget about the banks, use Angel investors, friends and family.

Vanessa Heywood created  Tiny Mites Music in 2004 to provide music and drama classes for pre-school children. By 2010, Tiny Mites Music was being performed in over 80 day-care nurseries and at holiday parks across the UK.

In November 2010, Vanessa was the recipient of the Stelios Award for Disabled Entrepreneurs.

She told her heart-rending story of having to bring up two small children on her own while trying to cope with MS.

Shazia Awan is the founder and Director of Peachy Pink.  a ladies shaping and anti-cellulite underwear brand launched in 2009. In late 2010, Shazia introduced Max Core, shaping and posture-control garments for men.

Every bank she went to for funding said the business would fail, so Peachy Pink started with life based on her savings and credit card.

The great thing about starting your own business is that no one can tell you how to market your products.

Peachy PinkPeach Pink was launched with fifty women walking down Oxford Street just wearing their underwear. This generated a great deal of press coverage for free.

Now Shazia has launched a search for the peachiest bottom in the UK

Last year she launched Max Core for men, a posture control clothing, purely from demand from customers. Her initial product line sold out within a week.

She feels that unique selling points are key for new products, for use in marketing and promotional activities.

Success comes from a great product, innovation and PR.

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Insider Trends – The Future of Online Marketing

logo_insider_trendsOnce again Insider Trends founder and all round marketing guru Cate Trotter raced through an enormous number of ideas and examples.

Tonight’s topic was the Future of Online Marketing, and she started with a shocking prediction. If Google was dominant internet power in the 2000’s, then in the 2010’s it will be Facebook. In fact Facebook already drives more traffic to some websites that Google.

An interesting example from a recent net@night with Amber and Leo is the launch of Internet legend Guy Kawasaki’s tenth book called Enchantment. Rather than building a website to promote the book, he simply created a Facebook fan page.

Here are my notes from the excellent workshop:

Online Marketing in Context

It is big and growing fast:

– UK online retail growth is predicted to grow by 20% a year.

– 30 million UK residents already access the internet every day.

– UK Broadband has grown from 40% in 2006 to 71% in 2010.

– People are prepared to spend more money online than in the past.

– Increase in use is right across the age spectrum, with 65+ the fastest growing demographic on both the internet and Facebook.

– By the end of 2011 the majority of phones in UK will be smartphones.

o        But the number of smartphone online sales are still only a tiny proportion of online retail.

Selling Online

The evolution of online retailing. The initial advantages over bricks and mortar were price and convenience.

More recently we have seen the development of rich media and additional functionality. e.g. Spotify, with online music and social media links.

The future of e-commerce will be experiential – informative – personalised – social – convenient and reliable.

Experiential – a richer, more immersive, more interactive retail experience.

– e.g. www.leverduredelmioorto.it – a grocery services which allows you to layout your own allotment, which they plant for you, with a webcam to show how your veg is growing.

– www.zappos.com – in 2010 they hosted 8,000 shoe videos on their website, and found that between 6% and 30% of viewers went on to buy a pair of shoes. So, for 2011 they plan to host 50,000 videos.

– Augmented reality

o        An IKEA app for the iPhone which places virtual furniture in you rooms.

More informative retail experiences with extra layers of information and advice.

– Amazon customer comments and recommendations system helps enhance customers buying decisions.

– www.argos.com have added similar approach and increased by sales  by10%

– When you are buying apples on the Tesco website, you will be asked if you want to see recipe suggestions using apples.

More personalised shopping

– www.tailor-store.com – allows you to customise almost every aspect of your shirt.

– www.boutiques.com – recently bought by Google – allows you to create a personalised shopping experience.

– Tesco have released an API to open up their enormous database to developers. An example would be a recipe website which would enable you to buy all the necessary ingredients from Tesco.com with one click.

Social shopping

– iTunes recently went social, using Ping, enabling you to see what your friends are listening too and buy the same easily.

– Facebook Commerce (could it be the next big thing?)  – shops within Facebook which turn shopping into a social experience – evidence shows visitors are 2.5 times more likely to buy than on standard websites.

Confidence online has increased

– From marketing – to initial enquiry – to purchase – to delivery – and repair/upgrade.

– Facebook stores provide ease of access – reduced barrier to access – same familiar Facebook interface.

o        e.g. 1800flowers.com – a mini shop still inside your Facebook newsfeed.

–www.tobi.com – a virtual reality changing room to preview online clothes.

– Dec 2010 Christmas online shopping experience – 45% had problems – 32% abandoned shop – 50% said they were unlikely to return.

o        One solution is 24 hour 365 days phone customer support. e.g. Zappos.com

o        www.nutshellmail.com – will monitor tweets or online comments about you within the hour – currently free (positive or negative)

– Simplify payments to improve the experience

o        Amazon – one click shopping – a patented (in the US) idea.

o        PayPal can sit on any website.

o        Facebook credits – still quite new – But you can already buy them in Tesco supermarkets.

Delivery

– Home delivery concerns deter 44% of online shoppers.

– Perhaps not surprising as 1 in 10 deliveries fail.

o        www.collectplus.com – using local conveniences stores for collection or drop-off – already adopted by Littlewoods etc

Marketing

Get the basics right first –Search Engine Optimisation is the number one thing to boost your online retailing.

The evolution of marketing

– Billboards, newspapers, TV etc.

-10 years since Internet marketing began in earnest.

– Now users have the same power and reach as companies.

– We are listening to each other, not companies – peer recommendations have value – advertising has the least impact.

o        e.g. Shoes of Prey – One teenage fan’s vlog increased their traffic by five times.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ-FrW0KraM]

o        Facebook Facepile application – lets you see which of your friends have visited a website

o        www.blippy.com – shows what you have been buying on your credit card

How do you make your brand the thing people want to talk about and share with their friends?

Two approaches – organic and nudge:

Organic

– You need to create something special to catch people’s attention.

– Quality products and service will generate positive marketing – blogs – Facebook etc.

o        www.songkick.com – tell it the bands you like – it will send you when they are playing

– Think about putting an amazing deal on your website – people will comment on it.

o        www.hoxtonhotels.com – rooms for £1, once a year

Nudge promotion – works on a sliding scale from blatant to elegant

– www.lockerz.com – a blatant form of nudging – 17 million members since 2009 – all around selling – you get points for activities – many for getting a friend to do them – if you get 20 friends, your points double.

– www.snatter.com – less blatant – rewards for tweets and Facebook mentions

– www.tipfromme.com – benefits for sharer and share.

– www.dropbox.com – service enhanced in reward for sharing with friends.

– www.polyvore.com – lets customers promote themselves.

Polyvore

– Facebook Connect Comment – natural sharing.

– www.skype.com – the value only comes when others use it – so at the elegant end of the spectrum.

Overall conclusion

The web is becoming more sophisticated, and more satisfying (much more product information) and more social.

Retailers will need to think how they are going to move from a marketing budget to satisfaction budget.

“If I had to guess, social commerce is the next area to really blow up”, Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook founder)

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Kate Middleton to marry Prince Harry

The most important activity for any start-up (or existing business come to that) is research. If you don’t understand your customers, your market, or your products properly, you will make mistakes. And these could cost your business.

With this in mind, it looks like Guandong Enterprises ltd failed to do their research when producing a piece of memorabilia to celebrate our forthcoming royal nuptials. Although the names are correct on the ‘Royal mug’, the image is of red-haired Harry, instead of his older brother, less colourful brother Will.

Ironically although this mug is not likely to be a best seller, its value is going to go sky-high due to the mistake.

Will and Kate
http://www.guandongenterprisesltd.com/

Kate Middleton ‘marries Prince Harry’ on souvenir mug

Posted on

Join our Facebook tagathon and win a Squid London umbrella

This week we are celebrating some of the wonderful products made by our success stories, who we have helped in the Business & IP Centre. Each day there will be a chance to enter our competition to win one of their innovative products on our Facebook fan page.

We have made it easy to enter.  Just keep an eye on the Facebook fan page,  and at some point during the day we will post a photo of the ‘Business & IP Centre product of the day.’

When the photo of the item appears, tag it with your name, and at the end of the day we will randomly select a lucky winner who will be sent that item in the post.

We are kicking off with one of my favourites, an umbrella from Squid London which changes colour in the rain.

Squid_London

Are you fed up by the rainy days?

Imagine you are walking down the street, it starts to rain and your ordinary black umbrella interacts and changes colour in the rain, creating a walking piece of art – called a ‘wearable piece of art’ by Time Out New York. The inspiration came from Jackson Pollock who dripped and splashed paint onto white canvases creating a spectacle of colours.

Emma-Jayne Parkes and Viviane Jaeger are the co-founders of SquidLondon, an innovative product design brand based in London. The Squidders won several awards including the Deutsch Bank runners up, the Creative Enterprise Winner and People’s Choice NACUE and the Smarta 2010 award.

Currently SquidLondon stocks its Squidarellas in 8 major cities including London, New York Paris and Tokyo and work with significant artshops including Tate Museums, MoMA New York, the Saatchi Gallery and ArtBasel. The Squidarella has generated some excitement and publicity at BBC Radio, BBC Television and was voted in to the top 5 products in Instyle US.

The Squidders brighten up the wet and gloomy days. A simple idea, a fun gift – who does not have an umbrella? Come squidding along!

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An innocent clash of trademarks?

I’ve been thinking a lot about branding and trademarks recently (Logos with customer appeal – Apples and Marmite).

So this story in yesterday’s Evening Standard caught my eye (I’m innocent over trademark clash, says children’s vitamins maker).

Innocent Vitamins was started by Dawn Reid in July 2010, based in the tiny village of Ashurst Wood in East Sussex, close to where I grew up. According to the Standard article, Mrs Reid claims that her brand was not inspired by Innocent Drinks, and that her customers do not get the two brands mixed up.

However, the smoothie company, founded in 1999, and now with a turnover of £128 million, sees things differently. They say their customers are confused by this new brand, and that using such a distinctive name in a similar category is not an appropriate thing for another company to do.

“We have given the company a way out by respectfully asking them to stop using the brand name, which we believe is more than reasonable, and doubt that most other companies would be so tolerant. We have to protect our brand and everything we have stood for over the past 12 years.”

It seems that Mrs Reid is planing to fight to keep the Innocent Vitamins brand, so this one could run and run.

“I genuinely believe that my company can peacefully coexist with Innocent smoothies, and I would be delighted to meet up with them as we have already offered.”
http://innocentvitamins.blogspot.com/2011/03/innocent-vitamins-refutes-innocent.html

My limited knowledge of trademark law includes the topic of passing-off, and the deciding factor in many court cases is whether a reasonable person would get the two brands confused side by side on a supermarket shelf.

However, as the Intellectual Property Office IPO points out, it can be very difficult, and as a result, expensive to prove a passing off action. http://www.ipo.gov.uk/t-protect-passingoff

If you register your mark, it is easier to take legal action. This allows you to take legal action against infringement of your trade mark, rather than using passing off. Further information is available under Benefits of registered trade mark protection.

I know what I think, but have a look at the photos below and decide for yourself.

innocent_smoothieInnocent_Vitamins

The IPO have a nice summary page on Trademarks on their website.

In summary:

  • A trade mark is a sign which can distinguish your goods and services from those of your competitors. It can be for example words, logos or a combination of both.
  • You can use your trade mark as a marketing tool so that customers can recognise your products or services.
  • A trade mark must be distinctive for the goods and services you provide. In other words it can be recognised as a sign that differentiates your goods or service as different from someone else’s.
  • A registered trade mark must be renewed every 10 years to keep it in force.

Fortunately the IPO make it very simple to search their database of registered here http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/tm/t-os/t-find.htm