Author Archives: Rishi Shah

Launch a Business, Not a Bunch of Social Media Accounts

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Launching a new product on the web can be an extremely daunting task. You have to create a new Twitter account, collect email addresses, write on a blog, start a Facebook page, go to conferences, and so on.

My question to you is will any of these things actually get you new customers? Chances are they won’t.

Don’t launch your company Twitter account until you are ready. It is a huge mental drain to get yourself to update it everyday.

Don’t start a blog until you are ready to post to it every few weeks with updates. No one is going to read your blog until you have a few customers or some publicity. It is major time-waster to have to update a blog after it has been launched. Instead focus on reaching out to existing industry specific blogs and writing on those.

Don’t start a Facebook page. In most cases all your Facebook likes will be the friends you spam. Wait to launch a Facebook page until you have customers and can leverage it to get more customers.

Don’t go to irrelevant conferences. Conferences are great and can be awesome to attend if your customers are actually there. Things like TechCrunch Disrupt and random tech events are fun (and possibly worth it if you can leverage it to get press). But in most cases it is a total waste of time and money if your customers are businesses owners outside of the tech scene. Instead go to conferences where your customers go to.

Stay focused on where your customers live and selling your product to them. That is what is going to make your business sustainable. Not being “social” right away.

Apple’s OS X Lion Pricing and Distribution Domination

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Apple just announced their new operating system, Lion. I believe this will be Apple’s most profitable OS ever, not just because it is loaded with hundreds of amazing features but for their pricing and distribution strategy. They made is so easy and affordable that it will be impossible not to get it. What is interesting is the price drop also shows some insight to Apple’s overall strategy.

Apple is no longer sending out CDs. They are having you download it through the Mac Apple store. The new operating system only costs $29 (compared to $129 for Cheetah – Mac OS 10)

Main Benefits:

  1. Apple makes most of its money on hardware. More people that say “Lion is amazing” will sell more laptops. If you look at Apple’s financials hardware dwarfs everything else.
  2. I got my copy of Leopard from a friend. It was easy, he just gave me the CD. But how do you share a 4GB file? It isn’t easy… and at $29 I don’t mind just buying it myself rather than having to look like a cheapo and beg my friend for it.
  3. They removed almost all obstacles to buy it. All you need to do is click on the mac app store icon and bam! you got it.
  4. Lion has a few network effect features. For example the “Air Drop” – allows you to easily share files with people near you. People will do the upgrade as soon as one of their co-workers asks them to… no need to wait for a CD in the mail.
  5. Quicker market adoption. (the result of benefit #1, #2, and #3)

What I learned from Apple today:

  1. Make it as easy as possible to give customers your products: 1 click and as little as waiting time as possible.
  2. Make it extremely affordable so people don’t even want to cheat your system. It’s just easier to buy it and not worth the hassle.
  3. Understand where you make most of your money.

Special thanks to Ish for helping me write up this post.

Who is doing FREE right?

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Photo by Brad Stabler

Giving something away for free is easy. Making money on free is hard. Here are a few companies that are doing it right.

On The Web

Mail Chimp's Pricing Page

Mail Chimp

MailChimp has a gazzilion competitors in the hosted email marketing space. They make their free plans (2,000 contacts) crazy huge. The switching costs of a hosted email provider are pretty high – attract people to your free plan, get them hooked, and make them pay when they are more successful.

Keep in mind that MailChimp is funded and I bet their spam monitoring team is quite big.

WordPress

WordPress.com/.org and other popular open source products – WordPress has done a great job creating the best blogging platform and the best part is that you can self host a copy of WordPress for free. A few years back they launched wordpress.com a hosted version of WordPress for $15/mo – perfect for non techies or people that don’t want to deal with the server headaches. Also a great way to leverage their extremely strong brand name, “WordPress”.

Free Credit Report

FreeCreditReport.com – They ask for your credit card info so they can check your credit score. They then auto-enroll you into a $14.95/mo plan so you can monitor your credit score. Is this super scammy? Yes. If you choose to do something like this – get ready for a ton of angry customers and chargeback fees. I decided to add them to this list because they just added a big banner at the top notifying people of this AND they are a good free service for checking your credit score.

DropBox

DropBox is one of my favorite companies that is doing Free right. They use their “Free” plan as a way to get new customers. First they offer a very generous 2GB storage “Free” plan and they let you earn more free space for every friend you successfully refer.

In Physical Retail Stores

Free Cone Day - Emphasis on the Store Locator

Ben & Jerry’s

Ben & Jerrys – Where is your local Ben & Jerry’s? I had no idea until Free Cone Day happened. I google map’ed it and went. Now I know exactly what route to take to remedy my sweet tooth.

Apple

Apple’s Free Engraving – When you engrave someones name on the back of an Ipod you can no longer sell it on eBay. The value decreases. I mean who is going to buy my IPod with the engraving “Stud Muffin”. “By offering free engraving, Apple makes these used devices less valuable to other consumers. Who wants a weird engraving chosen by the previous owner on his iP*d?” – Eli Douardo

On Television

Snuggie

Snuggies and All Infomercials – “But wait, there is more”. Technically they aren’t giving you anything for free but they act like it. If you buy the product today you get a bunch of extra free stuff which gets the customer thinking that they are getting something for free.

Conclusion: If you are going to give something away for free, make sure you know how to earn money from it.

Do you offer a free product or plan? Let me know if it is working for you and how.

Increase Survey Response Rate by Embedding it in an Email

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I have been noticing a new trend in my inbox lately. Every company wants to know more – how they can improve, what features I like, how I discovered their company, etc. I only give feedback on companies that make it super easy for me.

I never click on survey or feedback links in an email.

However, I always rate and review things when it is embedded in my email and it only takes one click.

Google Checkout does a great job with this. I’ve rated more things via Google Checkout than on Amazon:

Google Checkout Feedback Email

Followupthen does an amazing job with this as well:

Follow Up Then 1 Click

How important is this?

Pretty important. Think about the last time you bought something on Amazon. How many of the reviews did you read? Would you buy a product with 0 reviews? This is a great way for your users to generate content for you and gather feedback about your products.

Quick Survey Tip:

The longer the survey/feedback form is the more likely I’m going to stop reading the questions and start filling bubbles in randomly. Limit yourself to 1 question if possible.

Graph Comic: Number of Questions Vs. Likelyhood of Getting Real Answers

Super easy way to pull this off via Google Forms:

1. Go to Google Docs.
2. Click on “Create New” -> “Forms” (2 minute video of me setting up survey and embedding it in an email.

Post Facebook Status Updates at 11p EST

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Screen Shot of the Facebook Wall - Questions get more Engagement
Ask a question and you shall receive answers…. lots of answers

Today, I have a special treat for you. Karishma Shah teamed up with me to write this blog post about increasing engagement on your Facebook and Twitter account.

Karishma Shah is the Marketing Manager at Live Nation Entertainment and has helped grow the Ticketmaster’s Twitter account to 28k followers and their Ticketmaster Facebook page to 114k likes.

 

All data is based on engagement studies done through Mashable and Buddy Media.

How to increase engagement on brand pages:

  • Sunday is a good day to increase posting. Weekends in general are good posting days for entertainment, retail, and sports brands.
  • Fans like to see context about shortened URL links – want to know where the link will take them. A brand specific link might work better. (For example NYTimes uses http://nyti.ms) You can use Bit.ly Pro for custom branded short links.
  • Asking fans for engagement increases engagement (like asking questions)
  • Fans respond better to “softer sell” keywords with sweepstakes, contest, or promotions. (Use events, winning, win, offer – not contest or promotion)

Timing Matters:

  • Posting times are crucial to Facebook Page success
    • 3 time peaks: early morning (7am EST), after work (5pm EST), and late night (11pm EST)
      • You can use something like timely to update your status at the perfect time
      • Brands that posted outside of business hours had 20% higher engagement rates
  • Entertainment brands have most engagement on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday – take advantage of the weekend
  • Retail Brands have most engagement on Sundays – target shoppers on Sunday
  • Sports Brands have most engagement on Sundays – Increase post volume on Sunday
Skittles Facebook Wall showing how less text in status updates results in more likes
Shorter Updates Get More Likes

Be Concise:

  • Posts with 80 characters or less had 27% more engagement than posts with 80+. Practice brevity
  • Full-length URLs had 3x the engagement than shortened.
    • Readers like knowing where the post will take them – they want context. Brand specific URL shortener might work best here again.
  • Asking for engagement will incite engagement – “like this post”
  • Ask questions at the end of posts
    • Avoid how, who, what, did, and why questions – they receive lower engagement
    • Use where, when, would, should
Want more?
I created a PDF on 5 Ways to Dominate Facebook Pages that goes into detail what top brands are doing to drive more likes and how you can replicate their success. Sign up for my newsletter here to get access to it.

How to Start and Grow an Informational Product Business

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Photo by 10chPhoto by 10Ch

The easiest business to start is one where you don’t need any money and you already have all the knowledge required to build the product. Well… duh… but what kind of business is this? It is an informational product business! This is where you sell content in the form of e-books, blog posts, and webinars.

Darin Eich

My buddy Darin Eich is the one guy I turn to when I need some fresh ideas. Really any kind of ideas… anything from new product ideas to managing new people. He helps me innovate and ideate. So when he asked me to write him a step by step guide to launching an informational product business that will help others think outside the box I sprung to the challenge.

Luckily he was totally cool with me sharing the plan I wrote for him in a guest blog post on Up and Running. Check out this step by step guide to starting and running a profitable informational product business (this is a 3 year guide).

This blog post includes the following:

  1. List of places I like to publish my blog post to get more traction
  2. An easy way to find good blogs to guest post on
  3. Step by step guide to get to $5k in revenue

Check out the full blog post here.

Text Me A Link

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Screen Shot of Square giving you the ability to text me a link

As soon as I registered for Square they gave me the option to have the download link texted to me. It is actually really hard to find Android apps even when you know the name.

If you are selling a mobile app and you have a website chances are much higher that I’m going to download your app if you text it to me. Making things easier on the user always increases conversion. This is something you can easily pull off with Twilio.

3 Simple Steps to Increase Customer Retention

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Comic that shows keeping old customers is way easier

Comic by Ted Goff

The awesome guys at Blogtrepreneur let me do a guest blog post on their site about simple ways to increase customer retention.

I go into examples of things that have worked for me as well as examples of what other companies are doing really well. Here is a quick summary of what I talk about:

* How Walmart pays someone to say hello to you right when you walk in
* How PhotoJojo sends really great emails on fun things to do with your camera
* An email template you can use to make a customer feel special right when they sign up.
* And many more examples (DailyBooth, AirBnB, Reddit, Meetup.com, Twitter, SaaS Businesses). See the full post here.