How limited resources can motivate teams to accomplish goals and breed solutions.
September 3, 2023
India last month joined three other countries in the exclusive club that has put a craft on the moon. What’s unique about India’s accomplishment is that it did this at a fraction of what the U.S. spends on space exploration, shares Ben Cohen in The Wall St. Journal. While the U.S.’s NASA program has a $24b budget, India’s ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) budget is just $1.3b. India, which started its space program in 1963, is able to do more with less because of ...
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How we can acquire new prospects by leveraging our existing network of customers.
June 2, 2023
In Andrew Chen’s book The Cold Start Problem, he breaks the network effect into three parts: engagement, acquisition, and economize. At Shop Local, we rely on the network effect and its three parts. I feel that we’re succeeding in terms of engagement but need improvement in acquisition.
Engagement
We use the 64,000 products in our Syncing service to engage 1,200 our retail clients. We email them new intros, price updates, archived items for these synced products. Once they ...
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How integrating a messaging service into our e-commerce platform can help us acquire new customers.
January 31, 2023
It takes a lot of people to build a bridge, but just two to tango. This applies to the analog world as well as the digital one. In the digital space, I'm using tango to refer to messaging between two people. I believe messaging is a service we can add to our offering to diversify how our company Shop Local grows.
Different Networks Require a Different Number of Users in a Group
Andrew Chen in The Cold Start Problem states that a key difference among network models is the required minimum ...
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While drinking Athletic, a non-alcoholic (fake!) beer, I noticed that its box proclaims that it gives back 2% to local trails. I love walking trails, and I thought: the next time I venture to have a sober night, I’ll pick up another box of Athletic. (Thanks, Athletic, for giving out $2.5m in trail grants.) Warby Parker gives a pair of eyeglasses for each pair bought (they've given 10m pairs!), while Bombas does this for socks. Bookshop.org gives a percent back to small ...
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Scott Galloway, the NYU business professor and firebrand, pens a weekly, attention-grabbing article about business trends. In last week’s post, he noted the rise of the attention economy. (...Yes, my post is an attention-seeker writing about an attention-seeker writing about attention.) Comparing our current economy to those of the past, Mr. Galloway notes that today’s oil is time. He tracks the growth of digital companies like Netflix, Microsoft, Facebook, and TikTok that...
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In the movie Good Will Hunting, Matt Damon, who plays a handsome MIT janitor moonlighting as a math savant (can one say, “Hollywood career vehicle”?), woos a young lady (played by the actress Minnie Driver) by outmaneuvering a few competing, obnoxious cads. When Damon’s character gets the girl's telephone number, he proudly shows it to the other guys and boasts, with his South Boston access, “How 'bout ‘dem apples?” I imagine Tim Cook imitating this...
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Celebrate the spirit of Christmas with the Nativity collection from Patience Brewster by MacKenzie-Childs. An ever-expanding group of handmade and hand-painted figures tells the story of the first Christmas in a colorful and captivating way. The Patience Brewster Nativity Set includes the Holy Family, Three Kings, Shepherd, and Sheep Figures, Praying Angel, and Nativity Shelter. Additional figures shown are also available in-stock at Glassworks.
Stop in to see our selection of Christmas ...
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Many brands are growing their DTC (D2C) channels, but a recent report by BMO Capital Markets suggests they may be a shooting themselves in the foot--which their retailers may be happy to hear. The report shares that wholesale is more profitable overall than selling direct.
A few things have enabled brands to grow their DTC aspirations:
Selling to customers via the brand's own e-commerce website.
Tracking customers using social media and ad networks (aka surveillance,
Costa Nova and Casafina commit to 100% recyclable and biodegradable packaging
Costa Nova and Casafina proudly announce the use of 100% recyclable and biodegradable packaging in the US.
First orders with “plastic-free” packaging were delivered at the beginning of April, for both B2B and B2C customers. The biggest change to this new policy is the use of eco-friendly starch peanuts to use as void fill.
Startch TM peanuts are an environmentally-friendly ...
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February 5, 2020
February 5, 2020
Gartner shared this advice for managing your company's marketing efforts:
Strategy for the partner marketing program, and how it aligns with the overall brand marketing strategy.
Funding and talent resources dedicated to driving and administering partner marketing relationships.
Campaign modes, or the balance of approaches to partner marketing. “To” campaigns provide information about a brand’s product and service for partners to use internally. &ldquo
Other important metric tools: + Customer Conversion Rate (CCR) + Average Order Value (AOV) + Online CRR (Customer Retention Rate) +Online Order Frequency + Average Order Processing Time + Net Promoter Score (NPS)
What grade would you give our industry for being ready in terms of online operations? After watching this video, you may have a better ability. This video by Gartner L2 market research ranks the top B2B companies and shares what is needed to prepare your business:
Does your brand have a high 'digital IQ'? Gartner shares that 62% of brands that deal with B2B have a low digital IQ.
Excerpt: "B2B companies have historically relied on manual and in-person methods to market and sell their products. Those include connections made at trade shows, tried-and-true sales team relationships, and channel partner agreements that have been in place for eons...[sic] Manufacturing brands must dramatically advance their digital competencies to keep up with massive shifts in ...
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October 6, 2015
October 6, 2015
Today's WSJ interviews a major PR company about social media trends for business. The PR exec promotes the value of using social media for B-2-B. Bridge's social media tool Chalkboard allows business partners to share news with each other and with each others' consumers - thereby speeding news to end consumers.
The article's take away is that social media requires planning - just like any form of business.