Top Internet Strategy, Marketing & Technology Links – Mar 3, 2010

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But the thing that bugged John the most was that nowhere in the e-mail was there a mention of what, precisely, the e-mail sender was selling. Just the usual ‘we’ll get results for you, and can increase your online sales by 15%.’ I suppose inquiring minds would be so captivated by this come-on that they’d truck on over to the website and find out just what was for sale. But why make a deep, dark secret about what you do? Go ahead, tell me that you can increase our online sales, but how about letting us know that you do so through your patent pending, magic-mesmerizer that, when embedded in your home page, works with that 15% of the buying populace with receptors that will cause them to spring into action.- Bad e-mail marketing. (What is it that you do again?) (Opinionated Marketers)

You’ve probably seen this kind of email before – long-winded and “markety.” You may have even wondered if this sort of things works because all the “get rich quick” schemes seem to send them. And those long-winded emails do tend to work – if done correctly (unfortunately) – in that they get a decent click-through rate. But email can be a powerful tool without all the smoke & mirrors (which usually don’t work in the B2B world) by being personal, specific and including a call to action and followup.

It’s a tough question to answer. One person’s “right way” is another person’s“wrong way.” An example I am fond of repeating is that of a company that is on Twitter but only using it to tweet out their corporate press releases. The knee-jerk reaction is, “this is a terrible use of Twitter!”, but what if said company engaged with their industry analysts and journalist and let them know that this Twitter feed was set-up specifically for them, so that they did not clutter email inboxes or inundate voice mailboxes with pleas for a return phone call? Seems like a very smart use of Twitter (if it works and catches on). – Are Brands Really “On” Twitter? (Mitch Joel)

Different brands and industries will probably use Twitter differently because each niche usually has a slightly different style of communicating. The beauty of Twitter is the power to have multi-sided conversations, but that’s not to say that it’s not also useful for providing information one-way. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to only have the one-way feeds, but if one is setup and clearly identified as a feed and people are following it, they’re probably finding it useful. One-way information is easy, but is missing out on the great information that’s available for the company by having conversations.

I’ve been in the software startup business for a long time. One thing I have found interesting is that amongst first-time software entrepreneurs, certain “patterns” of applications kept recurring. Time and time again, entrepreneurs are tempted by one of these application categories. Not that it’s always a bad thing — I just found it curious. – The 10 Most Tempting Software Startup Categories (OnStartups)

An important strategy for any company is to figure out what differentiates them from the competition. While it can be providing a niche or special feature in a category, those can be difficult positions to maintain. There’s nothing wrong with entering a category that already has companies, just figure out how you can create a sustainable competitive advantage.

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