The Cart Blog » Marketing

Developing your value proposition

thatsoftwareguy — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 11:32:38 +0000

Elastic Path’s Linda Bustos (@Roxyyo) asks, “How Strong is your Value Proposition?“ If the answer is, “not very” or “huh?” then you should read the article and start working on it.

As an extra added bonus, marketing guru Bryan Eisenberg commented on Linda’s post and gave a link to a related article he wrote.

Mixed messages?

thatsoftwareguy — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 10:27:32 +0000

A wise man once advised t-shirt vendors to use attractive female models, not the hoagie-loving dudes who actually wear the shirts. This was a funny line, but is it truly good advice? GrokDotCom’s Anthony Garcia says that seeing female models when he selected Men’s 2XL as his size led to a confusing user experience.

“I would be interested to see what the bounce/exit rate would be on this page. I would bet a lot more than $50 that Threadless.com is bleeding guys on this listing page. I wonder how many guys are thinking they are in the wrong place.”

Perhaps a single size and gender appropriate model (even if CGI) followed by the usual community contributed photographs would be a better compromise.

Decoy Marketing

thatsoftwareguy — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 09:55:27 +0000

I thought this was fascinating:

When creating their product offerings, most companies try to come up with the best and most attractive offers they can – a practice I wholly endorse. But, sometimes adding a less attractive offer to the mix will close more deals on the better offers without disadvantaging the customer in any way. So, next time you are coming up with your “good, better, and best” packages, consider tossing in a “not so good” package that’s similar to (but not as good as) the one you’d like to drive the most traffic to. If that boosts sales of that item, you’ll know your decoy is working!

Examples from the real estate space were given. I don’t think this means the tactic is more effective with larger more expensive purchases; I think it works across price points. Read the whole post here.

Join the Tribe

thatsoftwareguy — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 06:47:08 +0000

Seth Godin’s latest venture is a members only website he’s calling “the tribe.”

A tribe for marketers, for leaders, for those focused on building communities or creating products or spreading ideas.

He’s asking people to buy his latest book (Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us) as an admission ticket to create a small barrier to entry. Seems like an excellent deal to me.

What if stop signs were designed by marketers?

thatsoftwareguy — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 12:13:10 +0000

Here’s how it would look.

Gitomer talks Word-of-Mouth

thatsoftwareguy — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:55:07 +0000

See the interview. As I talked about earlier this week, That Software Guy using RatePoint for Word of Mouth management, which is an excellent and reasonably priced solution.

OK, so I was wrong about RatePoint

thatsoftwareguy — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:18:18 +0000

Well, the RatePoint boys really came out of the woodwork and did a remarkable job converting me into a customer and a fan. You can see That Software Guy’s RatePoint reviews page to see how I’ve got my clients to write some testimonials.

Seth’s definition of Great Marketing

thatsoftwareguy — Sun, 04 May 2008 13:29:26 +0000

Seth Godin says,

Make big promises; overdeliver.

If you can define great marketing in fewer words than that, you win.

My response: “Underpromise, overdeliver.” I win!!

The facts of life for new marketers

thatsoftwareguy — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 11:12:00 +0000

Take a look at what Ian Lure is saying in Conversation Marketing. Although it was written for people in the ad game, most of these points apply to a wide range of small e-businesses. My personal favorite was

Yes, you are worth whatever you charge! Probably more.

The links in the article were fun too. My favorite was his retrospective on David Ogilvy.

How not to advertise your online store

thatsoftwareguy — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 10:50:47 +0000

Photo credit: New York Times.