Author Archives: Jodi Kaplan

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What the New York Times Could Learn from a Lingerie Blog About Tribe Building

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Bridal Trousseaux; Some Dainty Lingerie

Image via Wikipedia

The New York Times recently announced that they would start charging for access to their online paper.

Beginning March 28, if you want to read more than 10 articles monthly, you have to pay at least $15 for the privilege.

I like reading The Times, but not enough to subscribe to the paper version (the delivery is terrible and then I have to worry about getting rid of the old papers).

Online marketing and paywalls

Charging for something that used to be free is always tricky.  The best way to approach it is to offer additional goodies or some sort of extras for subscribing, such as a free book, or no ads or special access to extra features.

Sadly, for all their smarts, the paper isn’t doing any of those things. They’re not adding any value either.  You pay and still get ads.  There’s no extra goodies (insider access or points or recognition of any kind).

Is there added value?

Unfortunately for The Times, internet users have been “trained” that online is free.  That you pay when  you get something extra, or special (ad-free viewing, or badges, or priority service).  The few news paywalls that have worked are for specialized information, or instances where a company is paying for the subscription and the consumer doesn’t “feel” it.

The story about the fees got over 2,000 comments (before they closed it!).  2,000 comments.  That’s one heck of a tribe – if they only wanted to embrace it.

I’ve been reading The Times for years, but I think I’ll start reading CNN, NPR, and the BBC instead. They’re not giving me anything special or unique.  I can get news elsewhere.

Young lingerie addict v. “the old gray lady”

On the other hand, I know a woman in her twenties who runs a growing lingerie blog.  She’s young, but she’s figured out something the “old gray lady” has completely missed.

She’s got a facebook fan page/wall.  She posts pictures and videos.  She interacts, she guest posts.  She responds to comments, she tweets, and has a tumblr.  She’s building a brand and a crowd of loyal fans.  Do they like her?  Yes they do.  Her blog is free, but she offers other services that aren’t.  General information is free.  Personal attention or merchandise costs money.

Would they miss her if she disappeared?  They would. Unlike the Times, she’s giving them something they can’t get elsewhere.

If you wanted to build your tribe (loyal buyers), what would you do?  Start a recognition program (client of the month)?  Offer badges to top commenters on your blog?  Welcome new readers? Extra access/higher priority service for those who pay more?

What do you think the Times should have done?

Revealed: What’s This Object Worth? How to Value Your Freelance Work

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Picasso Guitar at MOMA

Image by Nika via Flickr

Reading the comments on Friday’s post was very interesting. It’s amazing what happens when you take things out of context!

For the record, the object in question is a sculpture by Pablo Picasso. It hangs in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Because society (and art lovers) have decided that Picasso works are rare, remarkable, and valuable, the object is worth millions.  If I recreated the artwork, it would be worth much less.

How to charge for your freelance work?

I asked this question not to make a point about art, but to make one about value.  There was a discussion in a forum I belong to about what to charge.  Someone was hired to fix a problem, estimated at three days worth of work.  He solved it in half an hour.  The question was what was that worth.

Now, obviously, payment terms should have been decided in advance, but the responses were interesting.

“If you work half an hour, charge for half an hour”

“Contract work is hourly”

“Maybe if you charge less, they will like you and hire you again.”

My argument?  If you’re charging by the hour, you’re short-changing yourself.

Knowledge for money, not time

Here’s another example.  Picasso took “a shovel, a piece of twisted wicker, two forks, a gas spigot, screw nuts and a spike.” He put the pieces together and then cast them in bronze to make a bird. Maybe a few hours work? It sold at Sotheby’s for $19,193,000!! Imagine if he’d charged $50 an hour for that bird sculpture. Or the guitar.

Time isn’t the point.  Expertise, knowledge, and value of the work is. You’ve got to charge for value – what they’ve saved by getting you to fix the problem, or what they’ve earned by getting you to change something.

Picasso’s own take on time and talent

Am I right?  Do you agree?  Anyone want to join me at the museum to see for yourself?

Five Books I Can’t Live Without

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Forget those newfangled e-books.  These are real, honest paper books (with spines – have you noticed ebooks are spineless?).  Anyway, I find myself referring to them over and over.  The first few make sense, the last one may surprise you.

Roget’s International Thesaurus

I write (a lot), and have been known to spend half an hour searching for just the right word.  I like this version because it has a quick reference in the back (with a few synonyms for each word), and then a page reference to more extensive suggestions.  Arranging the words by meaning (rather than alphabetically) saves a lot of time.  You can see all the meanings for “delight” in one place, instead of having to page back and forth – and you can find just the right kind of delight (charm, thrill, gladden). It’s, well, delightful.

The Copywriter’s Handbook

Write copy that sells. Period. Bob Bly’s book is old (no reference to blogs or twitter), but the advice is still solid. People haven’t really changed (the tools have). My copy is adorned with about a hundred yellow sticky notes.

Confessions of an Advertising Man

Bet you didn’t know David Ogilvy was a spy. He was. He was also the original “Mad Man.” Full of tips on how to write powerful copy, finding the hidden benefits in your client’s products, how to illustrate ads (and design them). It’s even fun to read.

Tested Advertising Methods

Don’t just guess, test! See if headline A is really better than headline B. That’s the beauty (in my opinion) of direct marketing (or internet marketing – same thing – just faster) – you can tell exactly why something worked. Compare the results, see which got more responses, more clicks, or more sales. Yes, it was written a while ago, but the principles are still valid.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard: The Missing Manual

My new best friend. After the new year’s eve computer meltdown, I jumped ahead two operating systems (from Tiger to Snow Leopard). Things are moved around, there are new functions (oooh… garage band guitar… pretty….), new applications (time machine – gotta have time machine!) and a whole new learning curve. Thank goodness David Pogue’s writing is easy to understand, without a lot of techno mumbo-jumbo.

These are mine. What are yours? *

*Buy one, and I get a milkshake.

Why Your Web Site Visits Don’t Equal Sales

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Robot

Image by à voir etc… via Flickr

Are you having this problem?  You get lots of visits to your site, but no sales (not even clicks). Nobody seems to click on anything, or buy anything?

Someone mentioned recently that he was getting a lot of visits to every page of his site (!), but nobody was clicking, or buying anything.

He proudly showed off his AWStats (those are the stats that your web host will often include in your hosting package), showing over 1,000 monthly visits to his brand-new site, from all over the world. Great, huh?

Not so fast.

I’m getting visits, why no buyers? Why no clicks?

The problem?

The visits were robots. AWStats counts every time a robot, a spider, or other automatic web indexing tool browses your site as a visit. It’s, of course, important to have Google notice you. However, robots, and spiders don’t click (or buy anything either).

Get a truer picture of your stats

If you want a more accurate picture of your stats, there are better tools. Head over to Google and set up analytics for your site. It’s free. It will show you visits, sources, time on page, and much more.  You can even set up goals and conversions (for particular actions or pages you want people to visit (like sales page).  You’ll get a much more accurate picture of what real people are doing.

Once you’ve got stats set up, you can get a better idea of what’s going on. Look at which pages are getting traffic, then where it’s coming from, how long people stay on each page, and the bounce rate.

Is the bounce rate too high?

This could be because the information isn’t what your visitors really wanted.  I had a blog post that referenced Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone to illustrate a point about voice mail.  I kept getting visits for people looking for recordings to use for their answering machines. The traffic was high, but so was the bounce rate. My post didn’t answer my visitor’s question or fit their needs.

Traffic to the right pages

Are there specific pages you want people to read?  Products you offer, or an article about an important industry topic?  Monitor which pages draw traffic, and from where.  If all the traffic you’re getting is going to a silly post about mustaches, rather than your serious take on choosing the right app developer, you may need to adjust your marketing strategy.

Traffic from the right sources

Do search engines see your site?  Are they sending traffic?  Are your social media efforts paying off with traffic to your site? Are you visible in the right places/blogs/groups/sites with comments and articles?

Sales funnel failure

There are a number of reasons that your sales funnel can fail.  It could be that your “buy” button is hard to see. Or, maybe your sales page is difficult to read and your page design needs an overhaul.  Another possibility is that your sales page is leaking (too many distractions).  Or, it could be as simple as a broken link somewhere. Try it yourself.  Go through your sign up process or your sales process.  Or, if you’re too close to it, ask a friend to try.

Not ready to buy

There’s another possibility. You can do everything right, but still not get high sales because you’re attracting people who aren’t ready to buy.  Either they’re still in the research phase of the purchasing process or the problem they have isn’t urgent.  If they don’t need to fix it right now, they won’t buy  immediately.  You can help them along by pointing out additional resources for their problem, offering a free quick consultation, or adding a chat option so they can ask questions. This can help nudge people along in the sales process without being pushy.