Archives for November 2010

Sometimes Price Does Not Matter

November 12, 2010 by 2 Comments

I got a nice email from Ramit Sethi today:

Hey, Kelvin

A few days ago, I threw a party in my NYC apartment. I went to the nearby liquor to buy some drinks, and when I got to the vodka area, I started trying to decide which brand to get.

Absolut? Ketel One? Grey Goose? Vladimir?

Interestingly, I know all the research about taste-testing for drinks. When you subject people to a double-blind test, they essentially cannot tell the difference between vodkas, wines, or soft drinks. In fact, I wrote about this extensively in my book, where I cited a famous wine study where the world’s top experts could not even tell the difference between white wine and red wine when the drinks were disguised.

So there I was, standing at the counter deciding which vodka to buy, steeped in research, knowing full well that my friends wouldn’t be able to tell the difference in taste.

Yet I still bought one of the most expensive bottles.

Why?

This will be useful to you when you sell your services to earn more money on the side.

The bottles ranged from about $10 to $40/bottle. In my budget, $30 makes no difference to me. Yet I was throwing a party for friends. I was a little nervous to show off my new apartment. I was in a rush. All of these things add up.

What went through my head — as someone who has extensively studied the research behind marketing and decision-making?

“Yeah…I know all the research…but I have a nice apartment, and what if my friends think I skimped on the drinks? It’s only $30…I might as well get the good stuff….damn, I’m running late…this lady has been watching me stand here for 9 minutes and probably thinks I’m a weirdo…I should just get this one and go.”

Notice what’s going on?

I’m not stupid. I know that “premium” vodkas cost more, with essentially no difference in product, and the owners take the extra money as pure profit. I knew all of this logically….yet it didn’t matter.

No matter how educated or smart you are, you are STILL subject to the same influences as anyone else. I’m influenced by social approval…and scarcity…and price.

And so are the people you’re trying to sell your services to.

If you like that, you may want to join Ramit’s Earn1K course.

Does price always matter to you?

Filed Under: Make Money, Small Business

Getting Free Advertising Online

November 11, 2010 by 1 Comment

You. You are in business for yourself, hopefully in a field you know a little something about. And while you know something about it, chances are a lot of others don’t. That means you have something to share. And there’s your ticket to a little free advertising on the internet.

Blogging
First off, if you do not have a blog for your business, start one now. A little thing worth noting: Google LOVES blogs. They index blogs and their spiders are all over blogs. So, by starting a blog and writing effective and helpful content which targets your target market, you will get into the search engines. Do so effectively and often and you will be established as an authority in your field.

Blogging is a very effective means of free advertising for your business, but let’s take it the next level.

Article Hubs
Article hubs are sites which collect content written by a large collection of authors into one site. What makes a hub different is that the authors put their content up there for the specific purpose of being republished. An example of this is Ezine Articles. There a LOT of them out there.

Now, a TRULY lazy blogger would go to a site like this, grab some content for free, and republish it on their own blogs. That’s a way to go, but the real benefit comes in being on the author side of the equation. If you are running a blog site (and you should be), you are obviously writing some content. You are making the content public anyway. Why not put some of that stuff out onto the article hubs and allow other sites to republish it? One of the conditions of doing so is that the person republishing your article has to include your short bio and a link to you with the article. YOU write this bio and you can link it using your own keywords. When they republish your article, you get credit for it and, more importantly, a link to your website.

That’s free advertising, guys. Your articles can go viral, just like a video on Youtube.

It Takes Writing
Yes, this method of online promotion takes writing. I know we have some lazy website owners on this site, but all owners (lazy or not) would like to get free publicity on the internet. So, it’ll take some writing.

Happy marketing!

Filed Under: Internet Culture, Small Business

Very Cool: Safaricom Annual Report 2010

November 10, 2010 by Leave a Comment

The Safaricom annual report for 2010 is available online. Why are we writing about it on Like Chapaa, you ask? We dislike like Safaricom just as much as the next guy, but we have to give credit where it is due.

Before any further talk, have a look at the Safaricom Annual Report 2010.

I’ve personally never even seen company reports that look so good. Let alone a Kenyan company. Safaricom, you did well, very well. Kudos! More of the same innovation, creativity and ingenuity, please.

Are you a Safaricom shareholder? Aren’t you proud!

PS: Thanks to SkunkWorks for pointing this out.

Update: It appears that this is nothing new, Zain had one just like it: Zain Annual Report.

Filed Under: Cool Sites

Blue Ocean Strategy (Free Book Inside)

November 10, 2010 by 16 Comments

Blue Ocean Strategy is an outstanding book. It clearly outlines the steps to developing new market space and breaking out of the trap of competing head to head with competition. Red oceans are defined as bloody battlegrounds where companies compete against each other in a head to head fashion. Blue oceans are new market space conceived by forward thinking managers to de-commoditize their businesses. Examples of businesses that have implemented this strategy are such as Curves, Southwest Airlines, Cirque du Soleil, Yellowtail Wine, Bloomberg, and even the New York City Police Department.

Tools such as the “strategy canvas”, the “four actions” and the “blue ocean idea index” are provided to assist the reader in visualizing how to create a blue ocean in their industry.

The authors also provide relevant direction on how to successfully integrate a blue ocean strategy into any company by selling it into the organization correctly. Finally, the very useful appendix provides detailed examples in history of continual blue ocean creation over decades. Examples given are the automotive, computer and theater industries.

I would highly recommend this book to any business person or business student. You can purchase the book here.

You know what? We’re giving away free copies of this book to anyone who leaves a comment below. You don’t have to say anything specific, just join the conversation. Good luck!

Filed Under: Tips Hacking and Reviews Tagged With:

The Kenyan Spammer

November 10, 2010 by 3 Comments

I don’t know, sometimes I think everyone in Kenya is a spammer.

We work a lot on Internet marketing projects so we meet a lot of people and hear – or work with – lots of companies dicing into Internet marketing. One of the most popular forms of Internet marketing in Kenya is Email marketing. Rightly so!

However, it disturbs me greatly that almost no Kenyan company gives two hoots about where they get the email addresses that they market to. It is very common to hear “hey, si you give me your list of emails I do email marketing for my business“?

Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems (including most broadcast media, digital delivery systems) to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately.

Just for your information, spamming:

  • is actually illegal in some places
  • is morally questionable
  • almost always gives a bad impression of your company/product
  • does not work as well as you think it does
  • wastes millions of man-hours each year

Furthermore, the alternative to spamming is, in my opinion, infinitely better (in that it makes more business sense). If you market to an email list that you rightfully own, you will find that your goals are much much much easier to achieve.

Spamming is wrong. Don’t do it.

Filed Under: Internet Culture

Tastefully Use Social Media at Your Wedding

November 10, 2010 by 2 Comments

A few weeks back, we wrote about Event Management 2.0 whereby we suggested that it may be of great benefit for an event management company to integrate modern technology, and social media into managing their events.

Today, Mashable shares on how to tastefully integrate social media into your wedding. Here’s a snippet of what they say:

  1. Pre-wedding preparations – Introducing wedding attendees online before the big day can help you avoid any day-of awkwardness. This will give people the chance to break the ice and virtually get to know a little about everyone else.
  2. Stay offline during the ceremony – “Be polite. Don’t tweet when you should be participating and listening, specifically during the liturgy or the ceremony.”
  3. Appoint a chief Tweeter – If you want your wedding to be recorded for posterity in 140-character posts, then let people know and even encourage them to get involved by creating a hashtag. “Tell your bridal party it’s OK to tweet!” says Howard. “Create a hashtag for sharing your event. This will make all tweets from your day easy to find later on and helps to create a feeling of celebration for your guests.
  4. Set up a social media station – There’s a way to keep a traditional look and feel to a wedding celebration and still make room for social media. A “social media station” is a place where those who want to connect or comment online can do so, without forcing the issue onto the uninterested.
  5. Live stream for those who cant make it – Thanks to the wonders of modern tech, nowadays you can share your special moments with people who can’t make it in person. Ustream is one such site that can help you share your ceremony with those well-wishing from afar.
  6. Enjoy your day

So is there any event manager out there who thinks that there’s even a small chance of these methods succeeding?

Filed Under: Internet Culture, Lazyweb

The 9 Worst Ways to Use Facebook for Business

November 9, 2010 by Leave a Comment

HubSpot has a really interesting take on the 9 worst ways to use Facebook for business:

  1. Duplicate your Twitter Strategy on Facebook
  2. Post Only Plain-Text Status Updates
  3. Don’t Allow Fans to Share Content
  4. Don’t Comment on Your Fans’ Content
  5. Don’t Share Your Fans’ Content
  6. Don’t use Facebook Questions to Find More Fans
  7. Use a Profile Image That has a Poor Thumbnail
  8. Don’t Share Your Facebook Page on Your Website
  9. Don’t Develop a Personality

Do you like this list or find it interesting? Then click here to read the whole article (and get a free ebook on Facebook marketing).

Filed Under: Internet Culture