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article ecommerce emarketing

OpenCandy.com .. Usual story of the small player policy, short-term and unflexible…

I was mentionning OpenCandy in a post a few hours ago about some providers to make money from your traffic

Actually I have register just after the blog post, because I know the company by reputation, and from other publishers feedback.

Actually, indeed, I don’t have the VSO-Software huge traffic which was letting me receive a lot of request for sponsor program. I had to decline them most of time because of the company policy and because VSO didn’t need the extra money – yet .
For the moment, I don’t have yet my own new popular software, only a cool context menu Photo Uploader For Facebook software, still in a beta stage ( but stable ) that I need to promote. In the same time, I have other software under development, and I work as a consultant for both software publishers ( and some have a very good traffic and ranking ) and some other software relative company ( download , reviews, paiment provider etc… )
It means, I m far to be a beginner in this industry even if today I don’t have my own product running.

After my appliance for a OpenCandy account, I got a personal email, and a few exchanges have been completed by email… final result, they refused to open an account , as they require 100k download a month. We are back to the “stupid” policy I could have experienced with big companies ( I don’t tell the name but look in the top 5 search engines, or top 5 worldwide download portal ), where the policy of a company doesn’t allow any flexibility.

Too bad, as I m feeling as a slut needing to beg to have access to the account I would be able to recommand to some other publishers… these publishers which have already enough money to not have to consider another sponsor program. really, I m not sure it is the best strategy to adopt. I understand their point of view, but I will keep a quite angry feeling about them, sure.. they said I could read the SDK… fuck…
I will eat real candies.. it will make me feel better :)

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article emarketing facebook

Why I hate my Birthday ? and some marketing thoughts about it

This year is special, thanks to Facebook and reminder of Skype, I had much more "happy birthday" than the previous years, which is always pretty cool, but only my very close friends know that I HATE CELEBRATING MY BIRTHDAY ! … actually not only my birthday, but also Xmas ( even if it is changing a little bit ), and the 1st of January. Why ? I will try to find some hidden reasons and share some thoughts about the birthday management and business on a professional point of view.

IMG_1901_copyLet’s start with the personal point of view

Family : I m a single son and from my own family I have only my mother left, it makes very few opportunities to receive the "happy birthday" or it doesn’t let the opportunity to make a real party

Friends : I m not that social, I have very few good friends, and at least they know they should make any surprise or party this day, it is too risky, as I could be deeply depressed and the even won’t be fun at all. Furthermore, I have especially geeks and maybe not the best organized one, if it wasn’t popped out by Facebook Calendar, Skype Birthday icons, they will probably not think about the date, exactly like me if I m not reminded by some electronic information system.

Me : and that’s the most important, except for 18 or 21, which is definitely the legal milestone, the day you can drive the car alone, drink alcohol, watch any movie in theater, I don’t see the point to remind yourself and everyone you are getting old… getting old for me, it is getting closer to the death day, not really a happy perspective. The second bad thing about the birthday / 1st of January, it is a fixed date to look at what you did the past year. The debrief day of what was good and bad. the 2009 to 2010 was especially difficult for me, the first medical depress of my all life due to the lost of control of my own company VSO-Software and the fight with my "future-ex-partner-in-business". If you look at the glass half-empty, I already lost a lot of money, and the control of my baby ( as I consider I have put more in this company than some other persons ). And I lost a good occasion to have an extra birthday cake for lunch with my co-workers. If you look at the glass half-fullhalf-full-glass, it is definitely a new milestone for me, Stanford was a great experience, but I still don’t know how the future will be for me, and if I should mount a new company, which products or service, or if I should take a longer break and accept to join a company as a regular employee for while. Hopefully I have the time and the luxury opportunity to not have to hurry to take the right decision. That’s definitely the part which makes me hating the birthday celebrations, the debrief of the past year, and the fear of failing in the projects defined for the next one.

Gift : I know some friends really excited by their birthday only for the gift part, the surprise, the gift they expect but they can’t afford it themself, the party. In this field I m blessed, as I have everything I need, or want already. Did you face the big question about what to offer to someone, just because you are not sure what she / he would like / appreciate, it is not fun for people who offer, but it is not fun either for the person who receive the gift. Sometimes you can be very uncomfortable, because the gift is too good and expensive, and you didn’t produce the same effort for your friend. but let’s face the truth too, you may receive a gift you don’t like, and it makes you very uncomfortable, that’s why the "no-gift" "no-party" can be a good strategy to avoid this situation. This year my gift will be a full parcel of ginger ale and root beer. It may not sound very exciting, but you need to know these products are not sold in France, and I had to give up a lot of cans in the airport because of the extra weight due to the Stanford reading list ( article to come ). My lovely girlfriend find the original idea to order some of these beverage online to make me the surprise, not very expensive gift, but the pleasure will be there ( so sorry guys…, I won’t drink champagne today, even if the look in the glass will be very similar )

the age : not all the birthday are the same, if you are turning to 36 like me today, ( I need to compute with my birth year as sometimes I m lost myself about how old I am ), it is not a strong number. Be sure the day I will turn 40 ! I will be very depressed to see how old I m … 36, 37, 38, it sounds all the same, and nothing very important to celebrate.

True opportunities for marketing with birthdays

Now, let’s back to serious discussion, how any company and marketers could use the birthday to create customers intimacy ? how to get the birthday information , how to manage it ? Facebook has been the most used in my personal case to get my birthday address,
Skype has a nice birthday notification, I m not sure MSN live messenger has one, and I have only a few of my contacts in Outlook with their respective birth date. Facebook announce the full next week calendar, which is good to be prepared, but if it is not very close friend, you can forget their birthday during the week.

Forums have been the most efficient to send me the "happy birthday" email, even at midnight + 1 minute.  It is quite positive, as it is a way to remember about some forums I don’t visit that often, so in their case, they just need to do the greetings and nothing more.

By snail mail, I receive a few offers, for the haircut, for clothes with a rebate coupon and that’s all.

By SMS , I receive only 1 offer, with a immediate discount for a haircut, I think it is too late, as if you want to use it for the birthday party I don’t do… I would prefer to use it a few days before.

By email, I got some emails from Air France, my ISP, but nothing specific to my birthday, nothing from Expedia or any luxury or leisure service which has probably my email…

Which companies have my Birthday information ? but first who is collecting the information anyway ? I don’t think any person would refuse to enter his birthday information, you guess how it can be used, but it is very disappointing to not see a lot of companies to use them. I remember I got a nice birthday cake waiting in my room in the Jumeirah Mina Al Salam in Dubai. Probably because they filled the information from my passport during checking. Nothing from Mercedes my car supplier…
I got also a free delivery voucher from Fnac.com, considering I am a VIP "One" customer, I would have probably bought something if they gave me a special discount for today.

Finally, I got an email from the account manager of one of my bank ( a very selective , high quality bank who surprised me when they used Viadeo to get information about me and my profile), but it wasn’t about my birthday, only a phone number update notification. Wait ! banks are one of the industry which have all the required information from their customer, their phone number, an dedicated account manager, and an email address… but none of my bank made a special mailing today. It could be a nice idea on my point of view. I don’t expect a discount or free "commission" for the day, but it could be a cheap marketing campaign, and I won’t think my bank is greedy ( hey, it’s a bank anyway !!!) if they just wish my birthday without any special offer.

Finally from a joke email about my humor of the day, it could be a very interesting topic to discuss about customer relationship strategy used by corporation, if you have any experience or comments, please share them with me, no need to say "happy birthday" as an introduction.

** UPDATE : I got a nice offer than I will use … a week of free premium access for Experteer.fr , a web site which claims to have the best job offer for high salary

Categories
article ecommerce emarketing

Reading list for marketers – Stanford SMM 2010 + mine

I was luckly to participate to the Strategic marketing management class in Stanford GSB in 2010. and from this program I discovered a lot of references from various books. Because a lot of participants were interesting in such reading information, a reading list has been compiled by Stanford faculties. In the same time, I m adding some books I have found potentially interesting or suggested by other participants of the program. Unfornutly I didn’t read all of them, and I can’t make a review of each book for the moment.

Books recommended by BABA SHIV

Digital Marketing

Flip the Funnel: How to Use Existing Customers to Gain New Ones

Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity

Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain

Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind

Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness.

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

The Age of the Unthinkable: Why the New World Disorder
Constantly Surprises Us And What We Can Do About It

Suggested by JENNIFER AAKER

The Dragonfly Effect: Quick, Effective, and Powerful Ways To Use Social Media to Drive Social Change

Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t

We Feel Fine: An Almanac of Human Emotion

Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust

Suggested by Christian Wheeler

Influence: Science and Practice

Suggested by Dan Thomas Author of

Business Sense: Exercising Management’s Five Freedoms

Books about Positioning and Influence

Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind

Influence: Science and Practice

You’ve Got to Be Believed to Be Heard: Reach the First Brain to Communicate in Business and in Life

Words That Change Minds: Mastering the Language of Influence 2nd edition

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

How to Get Your Point Across in 30 Seconds or Less

Books about Problem Solving

Schools That Learn: A Fifth Discipline Fieldbook for Educators, Parents and Everyone Who Cares About Education

The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures

Unfolding the Napkin

Books about Business Models

The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail

Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers (The Strategyzer series)

Seizing the White Space: Business Model Innovation for Growth and Renewal

Books about Design Thinking

The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage

Glimmer: How Design Can Transform Your Life, and Maybe Even the World

Books about Digital Marketing

The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly

Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs

Digital Marketing—Newsletters and Blogs – Written and compiled by Dan Thomas

There are literally hundreds of Electronic Newsletters and Blogs devoted to Digital Marketing. Here are just a few that may be useful to you, depending on your interests and type of business.

www.emarketer.com eMarketer provides a data rich update on developments in the use of emarketing tools. The company’s primary business is to sell an electronic database of marketing data on digital marketing to companies. If I remember correctly, it is about $30,000 per year.

www.mashable.com Mashable is the daily news feed about developments in the Digital Marketing world. It covers a wide range of topics and is a source that the people in the industry follow.

www.marketingsherpa.com Marketing Sherpa was one of the early entries in the field. They have a strong reputation and a broad set of resources on their web site. They do have a focus on B2B marketing.

www.marketo.com Marketo focuses on B2B applications for Digital Marketing. They have a marketing automation solution they sell. They also have a very good series of webinars that cover B2B topics.

www.marketingprofs.com Marketing profs started out as a group of marketing professors. It seems to have been going through a major transformation in the last year. The blog, however, is quite interesting, so you may want to take a look at it.

www.wdfm.com Larry Chase’s Web Digest for Marketers often has interesting articles and links to more complete data.

Categories
article emarketing SEO

QuadraCentifiable : a new SEO experience

If you don’t know what is Quadracentiable, let’s say you are not the only one.
After graphic battle, logo contest, photograph review, please take a look at that SEO contest experience ( SEO is Search Engine Optimization ).
You can find everything you need to know about Quadracentiable if you click on the link of http://www.nzseochallenge.co.nz/articles/
Actually it is a great demonstration about how efficient SEO works, this web site has been built by Michael Brandon a NZ SEO Guru. I worked with him while I was in VSO-Software, and he brilliantly succeed to place the company in the first sport of Google for competitive keyword sentences such as “avi to dvd”

QuadraCentifiable is not only a cool word but a ridiculous good sample of what any web marketer should to optimize their visibility on internet.

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article facebook photography software review

Easy photo uploader for Facebook

Lazy guys, Easy Photo Uploader for Facebook is a software which allows you to send directly pictures to your albums from the shell menu. Select one or several pictures from the Windows file explorer, then right-click to display the popup menu, and select the option “send photo(s) to Facebook”

The program will resize and upload to your Facebook photo Albums. it is much easier and faster than using the integrated dialog of Facebook to select pictures.

The program also convert to jpeg if the source file is a RAW ( .CR2 , .NEF, .MRW etc.. ) you just need to have the codec installed, or you can also consider to download FastPictureViewer WIC Codec pack or the genuine codec from your digital camera manufacturor

Download Easy Photo Uploader for Facebook

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article ecommerce emarketing

Avangate E-commerce reseller and Affiliate platform for software publishers

Avangate is a e-commerce platform based in Europe and with Offices in USA and Asia. They provide solution for software publishers to register the products, so basically it is like a bank service but specialized in the software market. This way you can focus on the product and no waste any time to build a shopping cart, customer back office and database.
You will be able to support a lot of different paiment methods :

Visa , Mastercard, American Express, Paypal , Wire Transfer, Alipay ( Chinese method ), Solo , Trialpay .. all in one.

You can open a publisher account easily and it’s free, but you need to have a web site already done

Open Avangate publisher account

If you have any question please feel free to ask any question about it, I have worked with them as a publisher for VSO and as a consultant for other companies.