Time has whooshed past us once again, but that’s okay because I’ve been having the time of my life keeping up with all the new gadgets that are supposed to help me manage my time and give me time to catch my breath.
It’s high time that we all take a little time to notice that every time we turn around there’s another time-saving device that’s designed to give us more spare time or help us make up for lost time.
My iPhone “clock” app is a good example. With just a touch, it gives me the time of day in every corner of the world. It also provides a timer to let me know when it’s time for my downtime. There’s a handy stopwatch for the race against time, and an alarm that wakes me in the nick of time with a melodic marimba chime.
As time goes by, however, I’ve concluded that many times these techno time savers actually just kill time because they take up all of my spare time. Turns out staying ahead of time actually takes time! And, as the saying goes, “time is money.” So, time’s up!
Is it already 2010? Which time-saving gadgets are your faves? How many uses of the word “time” have I taken time to include in this 221-word blog post?
Going through the car buying process recently, I realized that purchasing an automobile or a house is about as close to a B2B purchase as a consumer can get. This is because:
It’s a high-priced item that you will have to live with for at least a few years
You have to gather a tremendous amount of information to make an informed decision
There’s a longer sales cycle than most consumer purchases
But it doesn’t end there. The old and new ways of car buying are similar to changes in B2B too. A few years ago, you would stumble onto a car lot, drive a few vehicles, haggle with the sales rep, spend a bunch of time in the finance department and drive off in your new vehicle, hoping you got a good deal.
Now, you go online to research vehicle information and read reviews, visit a bunch of dealer Web sites and get several competitive quotes, do all of your negotiations via e-mail and simply show up to the lot to pick up the car.
This mirrors the B2B selling process where a lot of the research, information gathering and negotiations are being done electronically, which makes it critical for your B2B company to have a proliferation of information on the Web that is optimized for search engines.
Have you changed your online B2B marketing strategies to match the way your customers are searching for information online? Do you have meaty content online that enable your customers to find you? Do you have a car buying horror story to share?
Webinars provide a convenient, fast and cost-effective way for B2B marketers to reach prospective customers. So you might be wondering, what is the best way to coordinate and execute your own webinar series?
It may seem daunting at first, but it’s not! We’re currently working on a series of webinars for Loop Demand Gen, and we have found GoToWebinar® to be the most user-friendly site for our web events.
With GoToWebinar, you can set up your presentations online, send e-mail communications to drive attendance, handle registration, and present and engage with the audience live—all under one roof. The only thing you need to do is put together the presentation, the rest is automated. GoToWebinar does a great job of simplifying the process. It ensures that your audience receives e-mail reminders so no attendees slip through the cracks.
So what happens after the webinar? Archive your webinars online so that others can download and view the presentations. This will increase the power of your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) once web crawlers locate content.
Go ahead and take a stab at it, I think you will be pleasantly surprised!
In this day and age, the new waves of next generation user interfaces (UI) are popping up left and right. From a graphic designer’s perspective, I’m always intrigued by the possibility of something that will make my work flow easier and more efficient.
This video goes over some new ideas to solve UI issues that have come up in recent years.
Usually, the systems that this new type of UI could work great for would be similar to ordering drinks at a restaurant. The problem from a graphic design perspective is; “how would this work in Photoshop for 8 hours?”
The main problem with envisioning the potential success of a new interface like this is that the current software we all use was created for the mouse. If the applications I use were rewritten with an interface like this in mind, who knows how powerful it might be. With thinking like this, I can see B2B marketing reaching new levels. This video is definitely worth the watch, perhaps a glimpse of what’s to come.
What do you think? Will we ever see these new interfaces worked into our everyday lives?
I rely on e-mail everyday. For me, sending and receiving information is critical and e-mail is often the fastest and most convenient way to do it. But e-mailing, like any other form of communication, requires thought and you need to make sure your message is clear before pressing send.
Here are some e-mailing tips that I live by to help increase the chance that my message gets read and the recipient captures the information they need.
Keep it short and to the point.
Nobody wants to read through paragraphs of unnecessary text to discover the purpose of an e-mail. Keep your e-mail short and put the most important information toward the top.
Always have a subject line.
Without a subject line your e-mail can get lost in an inbox of hundreds of items. This is especially important in PR where a well thought-out subject line can mean the difference in a reporter reading your e-mail or deleting it.
Don’t forget the phone.
Although convenient, e-mailing isn’t always the most effective way to communicate. Don’t send e-mails back and forth all afternoon if a quick phone call (or walk down the hall to your co-workers office) will do the trick.
