Who Do You Trust on the Web?

It seems pornographers have the same problems as any other businesses once they gain a bad reputation. Pretty much everyone is wary of porn websites because of the bad practices of some. The U.S. industry generally, anxious to hold on to the 40 million Americans who view pages with adult content regularly, have made great efforts to ensure their sites are free from scams and malware. So successful have they been that a Web Of Trust blog  tells us that while 'adult entertainment websites' account for 12% of the total number of web pages (1 in 6) a study has found that there are 99 infected mainstream web pages for every one infected adult web page, making the safety ratio 99:1. It seems those of us who avoid adult websites and think we're safe shouldn't be so complacent.
Web Of Trust or WOT is a great way to use the wisdom of crowds as a guide to websites. You can download it as an app for various browsers and better still join WOT and register your own scores and comments on the websites you visit.

The Big Society: Free Or Fee?

In a world where pay, pensions and bonuses dominate the headlines, it encourages me that people are still prepared to offer so much of their time for free. Even though we expect to get paid by our employers, we don't put a monetary value on time spent on our personal relationships: we don't bill the ironing or the cooking; we do jobs for family and friends for which we would charge strangers; we do charitable work.

Somewhere along the line, we decide that some of our activities must be paid for. In a way this makes of what previously must have been bartering. You might argue that these paid-for activities are the things we don't really want to do but that isn't always true as clearly many people enjoy their paid work (and say they would do it for nothing). Some people even turn their hobbies into paid work. It's not even that simple because the other side of the coin is that some people do things for free for family but really resent it.

All of which leads me to the interesting way in which a whole worldwide web community is happy to share their experiences of products and services with strangers for no monetary gain. Many send reviews to sites like Internet Movie Database or Whatsonstage. I myself am a member of the Web Of Trust which is an add-on for the Firefox browser. Members rate sites as trustworthy or otherwise and I find this very useful when I'm thinking of buying from an unknown supplier. What it shows is that most of us are social beings with an idea that we benefit from a system of indirect mutual support. The formal version of this might be paying taxes for, say, education.

In today's retail world, customer reviews, freely given, are very important. Even critical comments are good because they validate the praise. Customers are much more likely to buy if others have been impressed by the product. The Your Life Your Style website offers the opportunity for our customers to comment. They need to be encouraged with a follow up email and a click link but the investment is worth it.

Diesel Ad Campaign Far From Stupid

Congratulations to Diesel on a great advertising campaign culminating with the perfect result- a ban by the Advertising Standards Authority. Ban aside, Diesel's poster/print ad campaign is well worth a look for its humorous concept (who cares about those clever types, it's good to be stupid), perfect targeting (people who think of themselves as young and individualistic) and immaculate execution (beautifully set up and shot tableaux). And it shows off the product.

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit At Jeanette Winterson's Small Shop

Previously my only awareness of Jeanette Winterson was as the author of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit. Now I know she's a fellow retailer and a passionate defender of the small local shop. Her article in The Observer last Sunday told how her house has a shop below called Verde which she has made into a cafe and greengrocer in keeping with its location in Spitalfields, which was once the home of London's wholesale fruit and veg market. Ms Winterson makes some interesting points about why it is difficult for small local shops to thrive. Here are a a few extracts.
On the economics of small shops: 'In Britain, running a small food shop is really hard work. We do not do as other countries in Europe and implement a sliding business rate, so Verde has to pay the same money as an estate agent or mobile phone agent.'
On the blandness of the big chains: 'I don't like the chilly world of corporate retail... I prefer individuality and eccentricity and self-determination- all the things the free market is supposed to deliver and never does, because markets soon become homogenous and anti-competitive.'
Tellingly she describes the 'new austerity Britain' as 'a country where the Post Office can't be subsidised but banks can, and where we all have to pay more, except the big businesses which are going to be allowed tax breaks to "revitalise the economy".'
Well said.

Sales Are In The Detail

A blog I always look at is Retail Details. It's a treasure trove of ideas and inspiration on how to improve your window displays, with lots of great photos of imaginative displays. Displays at the Your Life Your Style shop in Winchester are done by Lyn Knott who has a brilliant eye for colour and form.

England's Role Model Manager

England goalkeeper David James talking about the manager Fabio Capello in The Guardian: "He keeps everything clear for the team, you don't have any ambiguous situations. He gives the players the environment to work in, he arms us with the knowledge of the opposition and he trusts that the ability we have is good enough to beat that opposition." It seems to me that's a pretty good definiton of the role of the manager.
I've always found that the best managers have a clear vision and provide their people with the tools, knowledge and support to succeed. That's what I've always tried to do but it's not as easy as it sounds.
Your clear vision can easily get clouded with day-to-day distractions and compromises; tools can be expensive and it's not always easy to be sure which will really work; in order to provide knowledge, you need to have it yourself and to be sure which is relevant; supporting people should be easy but it's even easier to criticise.

Get In Touch With Your Feminine Side

80% of purchasing decisions are made by women (according to research by Iris). That means those of us working in marketing who are not women need to think like them. That could apply to some female marketers as well.

What I do is research what women are saying in magazines, social media and TV to get a handle of what is of interest and way they express themselves. The thing is though, you can't fake it. You have to immerse yourself, be the part, or you just sound like someone speaking a foreign language who doesn't quite understand the idioms.

If in doubt, play it straight. Don't use language which is going to sound false- like the dad in Modern Family trying to ingratiate himself with his kids. Better to use neutral phrases. The main thing is understanding what is important to the people who are your customers.

How To Manage Your Privacy On Facebook

As a retailer, I know there are many legal requirements to protect and not misuse personal data. Not so the social networks like Facebook because people voluntarily give up their information. This article in the New York Times shows how managing your privacy on Facebook involves 50 settings and 170 options and a privacy policy longer than the US constituion.
You can argue that the Facebook guys just want us to have the maximum number of options when it comes to sharing our personal information. Then again, given that the company has come in for a lot of criticism after stalkers, paedophiles and others have used Facebook for nasty purposes, you'd think it might be better advised to assume that everybody wants maximum privacy and to let people opt in to the various levels of sharing.

Did Voters Find 'Posh Boys' Too Lightweight?

I have my own theory as to why neither David Cameron nor Nick Clegg did as well as expected. In my experience as a the owner of a shop Your Life Your Style, the recession has caused people to become more cautious in their buying, preferring nostalgia, simplicity and lasting quality.
If you apply this to the party leaders you can see why voters might have been worried that Cameron and Clegg were too young and inexperienced to handle the current grave situation. Brown, despite his many failings, is stolid and experienced. The 'posh boys' might have been the right choice when the living was easy but to take on the worst crisis in most of our lifetimes, the Tories and Lib Dems might have been better with old warhorses like Ken Clarke and Vince Cable.

Too Much Of A Good Marketing Thing

One of the world’s leading internet retailers is bombarding me with emails. A weekly update on their latest offers and new products would be OK. But daily? This is spam, no matter how good the targeting is. It’s a classic marketing mistake and is bound to lead to people blocking their emails. That includes me, much as I like buying from this company.
At Your Life Your Style, we email about once a month, which may not be enough to keep us constantly on our customers' radar, but I'd rather that than become unwelcome in the inbox.

Barcelona- More Than A Club

I love Barcelona Football Club. As they say themselves it's Mes Que Un Club. It's owned by the fans and has long been associated with the free spirit of the Catalonia region of Spain. Despite being in effect a co-operative, they are also one of the richest, most successful football clubs in the world.
As John Lewis and numerous other employee or customer owned companies show, there is an viable alternative to running a business in order to please the short term interests of shareholders. If only some British clubs, currently up to their ears in debt, had adopted the Barca model.

You'll Either Love Or Hate This Advertising

I myself don't love or hate Marmite- I can take it or leave it. Nevertheless I congratulate DDB, the marketing people, for their Marmite campaign. I can't remember a concept that has so entered the national consciousness. I'm not talking about memorable slogans, of which there have been quite a few. I mean the way the brand name has become shorthand for an idea. I've lost count of the number of times I've heard or read someone say, 'It's like Marmite', often without even the 'love it or hate it' explanation.
It's the Holy Grail for marketeers to create something that so gets into people' brains. 'Gifts As Unique As You' is my best effort so far for our shop Your Life Your Style. Regarding our best selling products, Steiff offer 'For children, only the best is good enough', Ashleigh & Burwood fragrance lamps go for 'Parfum. Inspiration. Emotion' and Dora Designs go for 'Uniquely Different Gifts'.

All Dora Designs Animal Door Stops Are Equal But...

Returning to the theme of my last blog, Dora Designs animal door stops are a case in point. They are definitely among our 20% of products that are responsible for 80% of Your Life Your Style's sales. But once you analyse them, you find that 20% of the animals are responsible for 80% of the door stop sales.

Small Businesses Pick Up The Crumbs

The well known 80/20 rule says that 80% of your business comes from 20% of your products and if you cut out the 80% and concentrate on the 20%, 80% of the sales of remaining products will come from 20% and so on.
This is one reason why the internet is wonderful for small businesses. While the big companies are chasing the 20%, you can go 'under the radar' and make a business out of the other 80% by targeting niche markets.
There are two problems which I find when trying this approach with our own website Your Life Your Style. Firstly, it can be a lot of administration for a small number of sales. You spend the same amount of time loading up text and imgaes whetehr a product sells in the ones or the thousands. Secondly, to reach these niche markets with key words, links, social networking and Google AdWords is very expensive in time and money for the return. But, as we have found, if you get it right there are enough crumbs to make a decent loaf.
By the way, the 80/20 rule applies to all sorts of aspects of life. For example, iIt seems most of us only use 20% of the clothes in our wardrobe 80% of the time.

4 in 10 Customers Are Wrong

"4 in 10 people use the wrong postal service" shouts The Post Office's website and display posters. Meaning you sent your parcel second class when you could have used standard parcels, or standard letter when you should have used large letter or Special Delivery when Recorded would have been all right. Meaning you need to check with an assistant before dispatching your package.
It's a strange business that blames the customer for getting it wrong. Most of us would say the blame lies with the Post Office making their charges too complicated. Can you imagine a commercial business finding it acceptable that 40% of their customers find their ordering process too difficult? At Your Life Your Style, it's a flat rate for delivery of orders worth less than £40 and free carriage on anything else.

Help The High Street, Mr Darling

By any standards, my shop is a small business, yet because the rateable value is very high (the new level being £27,000), there's no business rate relief for us, even after the Budget increase in the qualification level. I find it hard to imagine the kind of high street shop that would have a rateable value of under £6000 and therefore gain business rates relief- a tiny newsagent in a deprived part of Liverpool perhaps.
Ironically, if we were to concentrate only on our online business, we could rent a smaller unit on an out-of-town industrial estate and would very likely be able to qualify for rates relief. Yet it's the high street that needs help. Perhaps square footage or turnover would provide better criteria for defining a small business.

Post Online Or In The Letter Box?

Just when we got our email lists building up, we found we needed a blog. Just as we managed to get in the habit of writing one of those a week, we found we had to have a Facebook page. Panting to keep up with that, we're now told we need to Tweet as well. Your Life Your Style has started a Facebook page and begun to Tweet @yourlifeyour (damn these characetr limitations!).

It's right to embrace new channels of communication but we all have limited resources and it's important to decide what is going to give you the best return on your time. A few hundred devoted Facebook fans or Twitter followers will be worth a great deal as they will be the leaders that spread the word.

That's the good news. However they will expect it to be worth their while signing up and they will also tell you and everybody else when your business has done something wrong. Consequently you have to be reasonably confident that not only are there enough people out there wanting to sign up (how big is your email list?) but you or someone has the time to write regularly and respond to criticism and queries. All the time without neglecting those tools that are already working for you, like the email list or, dare I say it, your blog. Best to do one thing well than many badly.

Each medium has its own demands so you will need to research carefully what, for example, Twitter followers or Facebook fans are expecting from your communications. A Facebook page may be a forum for debate and tips whereas Twitter may be best for the latest news. Neither may be right for a constant barrage of hard selling. 

All businesses must develop or die. So you have to try new things. However some experiments will fail. Most of us can afford to wait for the trailblazers to do the groundwork and then jump on the bandwagon of the proven successes. 

The converse is that just because something has been around a while, it doesn't mean it's dead. We're not footballers who dirch their wives for the latest model.  Even though a customer could get an email and order online, some people still prefer the size, feel and portability of a letter in the post or to buy in person so they can see who and what they're dealing with. Don't ignore them just because a bright, shiny, new plaything comes along.

Why Competition Can Be Anti-Competitive

The private sector is often praised because it is about choice. This is because capitalism encourages enterprise and competition. The problem is, it's in the nature of competition to want to wipe out your competitors. Hence the need to control the free market through mechanisms like the Monopolies Commission.

I sympathise with media companies who cannot gain traction because of Sky and BBC's dominance. Businesses like our shop find Google's virtual monopoly of search presents a problem because if we want our website to be found, we have to play by Google rules or not play at all. State monopolies are even worse as we saw in the moribund communist economies of cold war period. Even cuddly John Lewis with their third way model of employee ownership make life difficult for smaller retailers (and which shops aren't smaller than them?) because of the way they stamp on any competition by always matching prices.

The difficulty of dealing with a monopoly reminds me of the time my wife and I stayed in the Everglades. We were miles from any other habitation and there was one restaurant. Our lunch was close to inedible so we complained vociferously, "That meal was awful." Followed quickly by "Table for two for tonight please."

Does The Internet Kill Creativity?

Many of the novelists who contributed to The Guardian newspaper's Writing Tips recommended turning off internet access. I can understand why. The constant stream of emails, RSS feeds, Google Alerts, Facebook postings, Tweets and all the rest makes it difficult to concentrate. Of course many will claim they can still write their novels, essays, features, advertising copy or whatever while the world babbles on in the background but I am pretty sure brains work better if they don't have to keep picking up the, er, the... where was I?... oh yes, thread of a thought.
I've resolved to turn off my internet access for a couple of hours a day, starting now. OK, in 10 minutes. Well, maybe half an hour...

Bad People Can Write Good Copy

I always delete spam emails without a second thought but the Subjcet Line of one the other day did catch my eye. One of the abilities I most admire is being able to write good advertising copy- finding the right words presented in the best way to get a positive response from the targeted audience.  So let me deconstruct the Subject Line of this spam email: "I sexual Russian blond, want to see, come closer".

To start with, it has the authentic 'foreign' phrasing that someone not totally familiar with English might use. You can almost hear the sexy Russian accent. Then there's the choice of words. "Sexual", as opposed to the more predictable "sexy", implies the sender is actually wanting sex rather than simply offering it. "Russian" is the nationality currently most associated with women who are keen to offer sexual liaisons. And of course she couldn't be anything other than a "blond", it's a hair colour perennially associated with sexiness but it keeps the description at a fun level instead of going for more potentially offputting explicit sexual attributes. 

So, having got the target's attention, we move on to getting the interest- "Want to see". Not a question, more an assumption intended to get you nodding in agreement.

Finally the call to action- "Come closer". In practice, this means 'click on the email' (then open a virus infected attachment or go to a website where we'll extract money or identity data from you). But by using this metaphor, the writer has created something far more powerful, evoking the memory of past experiences and that frisson of excitement when an intimate friend has wanted to get to know you on a more physical level. No-one but an idiot would even consider opening the email but that clever copy might just be enough to persuade the aforesaid idiot to click.

I deleted it, being neither the target market nor an idiot. If only such copywriting skill was being used for the power of good.