Doing More for Less Money…Without Going Broke

The Problem:
How do you reduce the cost of developing sales leads among upper-level decision makers without sacrificing communication quality?

The Company:
Softrax, an enterprise software company based in Canton, Massachusetts, sells its revenue cycle automation program to top-level corporate executives.

The Technology Solution:
By offering prospective customers access to free online seminars, businesses can simultaneously attract and educate highly targeted audiences. At one time, conducting a presentation via the Internet (also referred to as webcasting) was an extremely complicated and expensive proposition.  But all that has changed with the growing availability of broadband communications, faster computers, and the widespread use of such multimedia accessories as cameras, headphones, and microphones.

In fact, many industry experts have declared that webcasting is poised to utterly eliminate physical world conferences and seminars.  Besides the simple convenience of gaining access to the top decision-makers in multiple companies with a single presentation, webcasts also reduce travel, printing, and communication expenses.

The Outcome:
Instead of handling the webcasting task in-house, Softrax decided to rely on the expertise of ON24, a webcasting company that provides full video production and data capture capabilities. The collaboration allows Softrax to concentrate on providing cutting edge content, delivered by industry experts that the targeted executives want to hear. Meanwhile, ON24 ensures a seamless technical experience to enhance Softrax’s image as a sophisticated industry leader.

As a result, Softrax has found that the webinars it produces several times a month have become valuable generators for highly targeted and motivated sales leads.

Tune in tomorrow when DataDocsDailyDose.com will see how borrowing ideas from the past and updating them with today’s technology turned an ordinary retailer into a marketing powerhouse.

–J.D. Mosley-Matchett, Ph.D.
“The Data Doc“
You have questions? She has answers!

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The Gift that Keeps on Giving

The Problem:
Everyone knows that the fastest way to grow a new business is to generate positive word-of-mouth references.  But, what’s the most efficient way for a start-up online company to do that?

The Company:
YouTube allows people to share their videos online and became the fastest growing website in the history of the Internet.  Its growth was so impressive that it was acquired in 2006 by Google for $1.65 billion in stock.

The Technology Solution:
How does a startup come out of nowhere and in 18 months get purchased for more than any other online company?  It does it by generating more traffic than anyone else.  On an average day, YouTube serves more than 100 million video streams.

Although many success factors assisted the rise of YouTube’s traffic, researchers Deepak Thomas and Vineet Buch concluded in 2007 that the company owed much of its phenomenal growth to the use of widget marketing. On the Internet, a widget is a small software program that is designed to be easily inserted into a webpage to provide some added function. There are widgets that are self-contained games, widgets that display late-breaking news items, and widgets that are simply designed to attract attention. You can even create a widget to display the latest entry from your weblog on another website.

By making it easy (through the use of widgets) for visitors to embed YouTube hosted videos on their personal blogs and websites, the site also made it easy for its users to introduce new people to the joys of online video viewing.

The Outcome:

The buzz generated by the clever videos people hosted on YouTube created an escalating flow of traffic to the site. Even better, the resulting incoming links from widely dispersed YouTube widgets on a multitude of websites further boosted YouTube’s Google page ranking. In the end, that flow of traffic became worth more than a billion dollars in less than two years.

But what can you do if the customers who most need what you sell are stubbornly resisting your marketing efforts? Tomorrow, DataDocsDailyDose.com will show you how the world’s largest car manufacturer has learned to help customers who don’t want to admit they have a problem.

–J.D. Mosley-Matchett, Ph.D.
“The Data Doc“
You have questions? She has answers!

Writing the Next Great Novel

Everyone has a story that the world needs to know. But there has always been a prohibitive cost factor if you wished to share your story with people outside your circle of family members and acquaintances. Fortunately, current technology has not only simplified the process of publishing, but it has also reduced distribution costs to zero for aspiring authors.

Following Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in 1440, little changed over the centuries. Granted that the twentieth century provided automation and power improvements, but presses remained the tools of mass communication and the improvements more directly benefited commercial ventures rather than individual writers.

The first technological breakthrough in personal publishing came about with the rise of the personal computer, laser printer, and desktop publishing programs. Even so, these tools lent themselves more to the production of report and pamphlets rather than bound volumes and novels. There was also the remaining problem of distributing the resulting tome beyond one’s immediate sphere of contacts.

In July 2005, online bookseller Amazon purchased CreateSpace which produced “on demand” DVDs for aspiring videographers. CreateSpace later expanded its production capabilities to include book printing on demand (POD). In August 2007, CreateSpace announced an on demand, self-publishing service for printed books, audio CDs, and video DVDs. Authors can use readily available layout programs to submit their formatted texts to CreateSpace. Amazon.com then lists the book and collects orders from interested buyers.

The physical books aren’t printed until ordered online by paying customers. And the final product is available in either a hardback or paperback version, regardless of whether one copy is sold or a thousand.

Because this POD system requires no advance payment or set-up fees from the author, you no longer have any excuses for keeping your “inner novelist” under wraps. So, get busy and start writing! Meanwhile, DataDocsDailyDose.com will be investigating a new communication technology to share with you tomorrow.

–J.D. Mosley-Matchett, Ph.D.
“The Data Doc“
You have questions? She has answers!

Offshore Outsourcing for the Masses

As a university professor, I was fond of assigning group projects. Besides teaching leadership and delegation–not to mention the wisdom of contingency planning–group work is the central mechanism for getting things accomplished in a business setting. I often pointed out to my students that there are no sole proprietorships among the Fortune 500.

So, having recently read Timothy Ferris’ best seller The 4-Hour Workweek, I may have to reconsider that oh-so-20th-century assertion. Mr. Ferris takes the notion of organization and delegation to new extremes via the time-shifting, currency-altering, Web-based world of the 21st century entrepreneur. In light of the variety of outsourcing scenarios presented in his book, those Fortune 500 corporations may well find themselves being successfully challenged by techno-savvy sole proprietors backed by legions of virtual assistants.

Spotlighting firms such as Brickwork India and GetFriday.com, the author points out that it’s not merely the relatively modest pay-scale for highly educated, offshore knowledge workers that makes them perfect candidates for rounding out an understaffed Western business. An equally strategic element is that an assignment made at the end of an American or European work day can be accomplished overnight during normal working hours in India.

So what kind of tasks can a virtual assistant located halfway around the globe perform for your company? Well, virtually anything that doesn’t require a physical presence. They can perform information research, draft written documents, maintain the firm’s accounting books, and even sift through an overloaded e-mail backlog.

Of course, that does raise the question: How many virtual assistants does it take to screw in a light bulb? Well, some things continue to be best done in person. Still, all those outsourced tasks could provide you with enough time to write a best-selling book of your own! So next time, DataDocsDailyDose.com will examine how technology has transformed the modern world of publishing.

–J.D. Mosley-Matchett, Ph.D.
“The Data Doc“
You have questions? She has answers!