Great quote.  Email is not an acquisition tool!  It is a relationship tool.  Something you use to develop a conversation with a prospect or customer. In fact, as Jim Nail, Former Senior Analyst with Forrester, said in a recent report: “One of the real strengths of email is its ability to finish the customer acquisition job started by media advertising.  Once the customer has been attracted to the web site, email can move a prospect through the consideration and preference phases all the way to purchase.” Source: AIMS Canada: From Acquisition to Developing Customer Relationships: Measure What Works   Technorati … Continue reading Email is not an acquisition tool – it is a relationship tool

An interesting viewpoint from Barclaycard on the missed potential from merchants not selling their wares online.  The research by Barclaycard Business has found that 69 per cent of retailers questioned do not currently trade online and are missing out on lucrative Christmas sales as millions of shoppers shun the high street to shop online. Source: The Retail Bulletin – The complete retail news resource Barclaycard have a vested interest from potentially lost transaction revenue, but hidden in here is the stat that older companies are less online than newer ones. “Our research shows that many retailers perceive setting up online as a … Continue reading The Retail Bulletin – missed opportunities by not selling online

Eric, I love these debates.  This quote from your post goes to the core of the business model discussion. However, I keep asking questions on how these companies, bands, etc make money in the long term  …. One thing is clear that going after the end-user who posts the content is wrong because at the end of the day, they make nothing off of it and after all this is about money right? Source: PardonMyFrench: How To Make Money Embracing YouTube Yes its the American way to say its all abut money.  But then from “The Starfish and the Spider” … Continue reading PardonMyFrench: How To Make Money Embracing YouTube (- or not!)

 Great advice from the experts when building something new from scratch.  Hat tip to Tara. The takeaway here is to distill the essential element (singular) and focus there first, then build out the remaining parts later. Beware of the “everything but the kitchen sink” approach to web app development. Throw in every decent idea that comes along and you’ll just wind up with a half-assed version of your product. What you really want to do is build half a product that kicks ass. Stick to what’s truly essential. Good ideas can be tabled. Take whatever you think your product should … Continue reading Getting Real: Half, Not Half-Assed (by 37signals)

 You have to like this quote. Before long, “user-generated content” won’t refer only to media, but to just about anything: user-generated jeans, user-generated sports cars, user-generated breakfast meats. Source: Business Processes – Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Looks to the Future An we thought Amazon sold books. Amazon Web services Amazon Search Amazon Search 2 Amazon Search 3 Amazon Storage services Amazon technology review But my point is less to do with Amazon, than it is to do with the Bezos vision.  Amazon as a company that lets users generate whatever content they have in mind. This is because setting up a … Continue reading Business Processes – Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Looks to the Future

Alenka Grealish, and Madhavi Mantha of Celent produce a clear picture (for Celent clients:  Direct Bankings Third Act: Brick-n-Click Wins the Day) of the state of the nation in Direct Banking.  I have come across articles from Alenka before and they are clear depictions of the latest issues. This one is close to home for me, having been involved in direct banking since the beginning, and learning from this article, I was instrumental in Act 2.  That’s ok, but i would rather be in Act 3 given the title, however we will get there 🙂 As is my policy with proprietary information, … Continue reading Direct Banking: Act 3