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Important Lessons from Steve Jobs
By now, you should know how much of a fan I am of Steve Jobs. He left us so many lessons for life and for business.
A recent article by Fast Company included newly released audio of one of the interviews with Jobs throughout the years. In recounting his time at Pixar and the lessons learned there, Jobs says this:
“Pixar has been a marathon, not a sprint. And I think there are times when you run a marathon and you wonder, ‘Why am I doing this?’ But… you take a drink of water, go around the next bend, and remember the finish line… I’m a long-term kind of person.”
We can learn many lessons from this single snippet; the most important is to remember that it’s not a sprint. While Jobs’ biography details his philosophy of working at the speed of light, the quote above acts as an interesting foil to that. You should work quickly and always push forward, but remember the finish line you’re working toward. Setting your perspective from a zoomed-out view will allow you to remember what all of the late nights and missed sleep are for.
The audio can be found here.
- Adam Witty
More Than a Website
How does your website look on a Smartphone? What about on an iPad? If you’re thinking that you have no idea and that it doesn’t matter, well, think again, my friend. Smartphone and tablet use has been steadily adopted and is increasing daily.
A study by eMarketer showed that more than 60% of North American consumers researched products or services multiple times a month via a mobile device. Multiple times per month–not just occasionally!
The study showed that 80% of all tablet owners surveyed used their tablet to research and buy products. Even more, 23% of respondents did so in conjunction with their desktop or laptop PCs, and 19% of respondents also turn to their mobile phones to research and make purchases.
So what do all of these percentages and numbers mean? It means that if you want to get your website, content, and business seen online, you can’t just create your website for PC users and call it a day. If you want to look innovative and professional, you need to have a presence on other devices, like tablets and smartphones. Have you checked out your website on your phone or tablet lately to see how it looks? You should.
We recently just re-launched our website, and mobile-readiness was one of those reasons why. Not only is our site responsive (meaning we built one website and it adjusts its content appropriately when scaled down to smaller sizes), but it’s also retina-compatible. That means that for devices with high-definition screens like the iPhone and iPad, the majority of graphics are crisp and sharp.
The bottom line: Plan for your website to stand out when viewed on multiple devices. It will put you in a higher position in your prospect’s mind.
Marketing in the Wild, Wild West
If you’ve been keeping up with our newsletters, you know that we recently attended the GKIC Superconference in Dallas, Texas. Advantage was fortunate to hold 3 informative sessions about book publishing, all with great turnout. Between all of the meetings with clients, vendors, and future clients, we also had a chance to attend many great sessions held by others.
It’s a digital world, where fewer and fewer transactions are made on paper. The one type of paper that is not obsolete is that of direct mail. Dan Kennedy gave a very educational session on the direct mail gold rush and how one can use it to his or her advantage. Direct mail can be used for many purposes, explained Dan, and you’ll find below the top uses of direct mail:
- Use direct mail to create interest ahead of and outside of search. Your prospect may not even know that they are in the market for your product, so you can spark that need with direct mail.
- Use direct mail to make a complex or difficult sale at premium prices. Your consumer is less likely to play the price comparison game if you’re the sole company presenting your product to them at that moment.
- Use direct mail to create a tangible, emotional connection with your product. Direct mail is tactile and is consumed on a one-on-one basis, in near isolation. The prospect is consuming your message by permission and with more attention because of the reading required. You have a one-on-one conversation with him just like a salesman would.
Publishing: The Game of Monopoly
If you haven’t heard, there’s quite an uproar going on in the publishing industry right now. In fact, it could completely change the e-book market and how much YOU pay for e-books (and as an author, it affects you as much as it does publishers).
Here’s a little backstory so you can see where I’m coming from:
When e-books and e-book readers became popular 5-6 years ago, Jeff Bezos, CEO and founder of Amazon.com wanted to corner and OWN the market. In the traditional wholesale pricing model, a publisher sells a book to a retailer for a wholesale price (typically 50% off retail) and then the retailer can sell the book at whatever price they like. In order to OWN the market, Amazon deliberately started selling many of the top eBooks at a $9.99 price point to own market share. They alone decided that e-books should cost $9.99. Says who?!
With the current agency model, publishers can set the prices they desire for their e-books and then Apple takes a 30% commission or fee on the sale price.
In 2009, before the new pricing, Amazon was estimated to have around 90% of the e-book market. Its share has now slipped to around 60%, according to Mike Shatzkin, chief executive of the Idea Logical Co., a New York-based publishing consultancy. He estimated that Barnes & Noble had between 25% and 30%, and Apple has much of the remainder. How can consumers benefit when ONE company has 90% of the market? That is a monopoly.
So here’s the rub: The U.S. Department of Justice is suing major publishers, saying it is an injustice that consumers have to pay $2 or $3 more for an e-book when they could have paid $9.99 on Amazon. No one is forcing consumers to buy the book. Amazon threatened to stop selling publishers’ e-books if they didn’t subscribe to the $9.99 price point. In the past, the only way that publishers could force Amazon to change was to band together. What’s wrong with that? For the livelihood of the publishing industry, publishers and authors must band together to protect their interests.
The U.S. Department of Justice THINKS they are helping. In actuality, if they are successful, they will allow Amazon to once again OWN the market for e-books. When one company has a monopoly, consumers don’t win. There is only one winner, and that’s Amazon.
- Adam Witty
Jump on the Pinterest Wagon – It’s Easier Than You Think!
So, what’s Pinterest, you ask? If you haven’t checked it out yet, I highly recommend it. It’s a virtual pin board where you can create boards and pin any image from the internet to it. You can follow users, find inspiration, and collaborate on visual projects. Now, it’s been around for a few years, but it has recently gained a lot of traction and visibility. It is moving from just individuals creating boards, to brand participation.
All images that are pinned hold within them a source url. So, I can click an image and go back to the website where it originated. Pinterest has quickly become a huge traffic driver back to websites; it is rivaling, if not beating Twitter in traffic drivers.
One popular type of board that people often create is based on books to read. Now, think about it: You’re an author – you want people to read your books. If you get people to pin you, your book gets viral recommendations.
An easy way to start getting these recommendations is to give your website the ability to be pinned. Flash sites may be pretty, but they’re poor for SEO and also block the ability to be pinned. Any IMAGE can be pinned – think jpeg. If your site has jpeg images of your cover, people can pin them. You can also get really savvy and install the “Pin It” button to your web page with book images.
You can stimulate this pinning in a few ways: 1. You can ask your friends who are using Pinterest to pin your book cover. If it’s one image that they’re pinning (the book cover), it gets ranked higher in popularity and will rank higher when people search on Pinterest. 2. You can join! Set up an account on Pinterest, create a books board, and pin your own book. Now, you don’t want it to be empty, so think about what other types of images/ items you can pin that relate.
Pinterest has gotten so big that they’re already in the next phases of design. Remember when Facebook rolled out brand pages and opened the flood gates for marketing? Pinterest is starting on that path, in a more authentic, welcomed way. Frontrunners on Pinterest seem innovative and hold high value perceptions. I suggest you jump on board sooner rather than later.
Happy Pinning!