Central Perk

joi, 9 septembrie 2010

Seth's Blog : Loyalty

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Loyalty

Loyalty is what we call it when someone refuses a momentarily better option.

If your offering is always better, you don't have loyal customers, you have smart ones. Don't brag about how loyal your customers are when you're the cheapest or you have clearly dominated some key element of what the market demands. That's not loyalty. That's something else.

Loyal customers understand that there's almost always something better out there, but they're not so interested in looking.

Loyalty can be rewarded, but loyalty usually comes from within, from a story we like to tell ourselves. We're loyal to sports teams and products (and yes, to people) because being loyal makes us happy. Why else be a fan of the Cubs? Some customers like being loyal. Those are good customers to have.

Loyalty isn't forever. Sometimes, the world changes significantly and even though the loyal partner/customer likes that label, it gets so difficult to stick that he switches.

I think there's no doubt that some brands and teams and politicians and yes, people, attract a greater percentage of loyal fans than others. Not because they're bigger or better, but because they reinforce the good feeling some people get when they're being loyal. Hint: low price or supermodel good looks are not the tools of choice for attracting people who enjoy being loyal.

Rewarding loyalty for loyalty's sake--not by paying people for sticking it out so the offering ends up being more attractive--is not an obvious path, but it's a worthwhile one. Tell a story that appeals to loyalists. Treat different customers differently, and reserve your highest level of respect for those that stand by you.

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miercuri, 8 septembrie 2010

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Olympic Disaster in Vancouver, Taxpayers on Hook for $1 Billion "Ghost Town"

Posted: 08 Sep 2010 03:40 PM PDT

It boggles the mind to think that anyone can possibly think of Olympics as doing anything more than throwing taxpayer money straight down the toilet. Of course vendors and real estate agents do not give a damn about the long-term consequences as long as a quick buck can be made.

Now it's payback time as Vancouver taxpayers on hook for $1-billion as most Olympic Village units unsold

Sixty-six per cent of Vancouver's pricey Olympic Village condos remain unsold — a total of 483 units at the massive False Creek development that served as athletes' housing during the two-week 2010 Games.

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, whose city remains on the hook for more than $1.03 billion of the cost of the project, predicts it will take a "full two-year term" to sell the remaining units.

The suites, which are priced anywhere from $400,000 to $5 million each, have been subject to the HST since July.

The city's investment in the project includes a $750-million loan plus undisclosed interest payments, $120 million still owed to the city for the land and a $110-million outlay for 252 affordable housing units.

Today, six months after the 2010 Olympic Games, the village resembles a ghost town.

Walking down the empty streets last Saturday afternoon, it was hard to find anyone actually living in the $1.2-billion former Olympic Village.

Even the security guards conceded there's not much to do at the "showcase" Millennium Water development, where only 254 condos have been sold.

Fortunately Chicago dodged a bullet as it was foolishly attempting to "win" the upcoming 2016 Olympics. In this game, winning the bid is a guaranteed loss for taxpayers.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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Consumers Shun Credit Cards - Credit Card Usage Drops, Debit Card Usage Rises

Posted: 08 Sep 2010 11:25 AM PDT

Consumers have had enough of high interest rates on credit cards but its a case of one plastic for another. Bloomberg reports Cardholders Prefer Debit as Credit-Card Use Falls

Americans are shunning their credit cards and using debit to avoid incurring more debt, said Javelin Strategy & Research.

Total payment volume for debit cards surpassed credit-card volume for the first time in 2009 and will continue to eclipse it in 2010, according to a report released today by the Pleasanton, California-based market-research firm that specializes in financial services.

At San Francisco-based Visa Inc., the world's biggest payments network, the total payment volume for debit cards increased by 7.9 percent in 2009 to $883 billion as credit-card volume declined by 7.3 percent to $764 billion. Volume for debit cards at No. 2 MasterCard Inc. in Purchase, New York, rose by 5.8 percent and 2.8 percent at No. 4 Riverwoods, Illinois-based Discover Financial Services.

Fifty-six percent of consumers said they had used a credit card in the past month compared with 87 percent who said they had in 2007, according to the study, which surveyed 3,294 people in November 2009 for that question. Other findings were based on data collected online from 5,211 respondents in March 2010 and 5,000 consumers in November 2009. If the rate of decline continues, 45 percent of consumers will reach for a credit card in 2010, the study said.

Long-Term Shift

Another cause for reduced credit-card use is financial reform aimed at protecting consumers, which has decreased the number of new cards given and cut available spending limits, the Javelin report said. Federal legislation that limits overdraft fees, caps on fees banks charge merchants for debit-card transactions and credit-card legislation mean banks have to recoup losses and are only giving cards to the most creditworthy borrowers, the study said.

Younger people also favor debit over credit because of the immediate nature of making a payment, which means the shift to debit will be long-term, said Van Dyke. And since younger cardholders favor the convenience of debit cards, they won't turn to cash or checks, he said.

Purchase transactions generated by credit and debit cards in the U.S. totaled more than 27 billion from Jan. 1 through June 30, according to the Nilson Report, an industry newsletter in Carpinteria, California. Debit-card purchases accounted for 65 percent of all sales, up from 62.3 percent, the Nilson Report said.

Total Revolving Credit

Revolving Credit Percent Change From Year Ago

Reasons For Decline In Credit Usage

Bankruptcies
Other Loan Writeoffs
Consumers Paying Down Debt
Increasing Favoritism Towards Debit Cards
Gift Cards
Bank Lending Standards Increase

Unprecedented Drop in Revolving Credit

This is all part of an overall secular shift in consumer attitudes towards credit and debt, and bank attitudes towards lending. It's a good thing but Bernanke will not see it that way.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

An Interview on SEOBook

Posted: 07 Sep 2010 04:32 PM PDT

Posted by randfish

Just a short post tonight.

First, off, I'm honored to be interviewed by Aaron Wall. We've had our differences and maintain some divergent opinions on a few topics, but we both have an insane passion for helping make SEO professionals better at their job and work hard to grow the credibility of SEO as a whole.

Second - we've got a lot of reason to be thankful. SEOmoz was recently named the 334th fastest growing company in the US by Inc Magazine. I was named to Seattle's 40 Under 40 List (I'm guessing it's a typo) and we've recently passed 6,000 PRO subscribers (actually, we're up over 6,300 as of today).

SEOmoz's Jen Lopez as Wonder Woman

As amazing as all that is, nearly everyone at SEOmoz is thinking not about these milestones, but about one of our own - Jen Lopez - who noted on her Twitter feed that she's out battling cancer. We are all with you Jen - every last one of us, with all our hearts. And we agree: #fuckcancer

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Seth's Blog : Three uses for a free Kindle book

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Three uses for a free Kindle book

Charlie Huston used one of his books (no longer free) to get me hooked on the rest of the series. Get one free, buy three. Backwards but effective.

Another: To spread an idea you believe in (where money is not the object).

And: To create hoopla for a new book launch. Josh Bernoff is doing a freebie with his new book, just this week. (Sorry, US only--publishing rights are largely a pre-digital artifact).

When the marginal cost of the interaction is zero, the marketing opportunities of spreading an idea increase dramatically.

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Answering Your Questions About the Economy

We wanted to be sure you saw this email from Austan Goolsbee earlier today. Immediately following the President's remarks on the economy in Cleveland, Austan Goolsbee will be hosting a live chat on WhiteHouse.gov/live. Be sure to tune in to the President's speech at 2:10 PM EDT and join the chat immediately after. You can submit your questions now on Facebook.


	Good morning, Millions of our friends and neighbors around the country are looking for work, wondering how they will pay this month’s rent or put food on the table for their families. At a speech in Wisconsin on Monday, the President made clear that turning our economy around is his top priority: I am going to keep fighting every single day, every single hour, every single minute, to turn this economy around and put people back to work and renew the American Dream, not just for your family, not just for all our families, but for future generations. At 2:10 p.m. EDT today, President Obama will announce a set of targeted proposals to help our economy continue on a path to recovery during a speech in Cleveland, Ohio. I know many of you have questions about what this Administration is doing to support working families and small businesses who are struggling to get by. So immediately following the President’s remarks, I’ll be hosting a live chat to answer your questions about what we’re doing to help Americans find jobs and to rebuild our economy for the long term. I’m looking forward to talking with you later today. Sincerely, Austan Goolsbee Council of Economic Advisers P.S. In case you missed it, you can check out the video of the President’s speech in Wisconsin on Monday where he laid out his plan to put Americans back to work renewing and rebuilding America’s roads, rails and runways: http://www.whitehouse.gov/labor-day

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Michael Gray - Graywolf's SEO Blog

How To Silo Your Website: The Footer

Posted: 07 Sep 2010 08:18 AM PDT

This post is part of a series on How to Silo Your Website. The other parts in the series are: How to Silo Your Website: The Masthead, How to Silo Your Website, The Breadcrumb , How to Silo Your Website: The Content, and How to Silo Your Website: The Sidebar. For this last part, we’ll be looking at the footer.

Another strategy I’ve seen used that often has good results is the dynamic footer …

Ah…the website footer. Aside from meta keywords and descriptions, it’s hard to think of an area that’s been more abused. A common spot for selling run of site links, turning into a link brothel (looks in the direction of you Lendingtree), or for stuffing content below the copyright information that you can’t even argue is for bots not humans (looks at you Match.com).

It’s hard to resist the temptation to abuse the footer, which IMHO is why links in the footer possess so little value compared to links in the sidebar, masthead, and content sections. So how can a site owner use the footer to their advantage?

First, let’s look at usability. All of those service links that I said you should remove from the masthead and sidebar: this is where they should go. Over the years, people have learned to look here if they need information. However, sometimes the amount of links can make the area look … well … excessively linky. If that’s a problem, I suggest checking out this post on beautiful footers to get some ideas about how to keep it looking good and easy to use.

Another strategy I’ve seen used that often has good results is the dynamic footer, first popularized by Weblogs Inc (the company Jason Calacanis sold to AOL for 25 million). The basic concept is to keep the links in the footer changing and pointing to new or updated content (for Weblogs Inc it was used to show links to new posts all from multiple sites across the network. See divester for an example). While this tactic isn’t as effective as it once was, keeping the footer dynamic is still a good idea worth trying (see How to Make Your Homepage More Dynamic for tips on how and what to include).

So what are the takeaways from this post:

Put all of the service links you removed from other sections here.
Look for ways to keep it usable and visually appealing.
Try to include as much dynamic content as possible.

While there are still some subtleties to siloing a website, hopefully this series has pointed you in the right direction. If you have any questions or followup posts you would like to see, drop me a tweet and let me know @Graywolf.
photo credit: twicepix

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis WordPress Theme review.

How To Silo Your Website: The Footer

How To Silo Your Website:The Sidebar The following post is part of a series on How...
How To Silo Your Website: The Masthead One of the more powerful tools an SEO can use...
How To Silo Your Website: The Breadcrumb Trail In Part 1 we looked at How To Silo Your...
How to Silo Your Website: The Content The following is part of the series How To Silo...
Tip for the Keyword & Link Footer Stuffers If you’re going to stuff your footer with #EEFFFF (very...

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