Five on Friday: Events, Watches and Craft Subscriptions

Five on Friday: July 10, 2015

As the INSIDER Guide to New Product Development (NPD), Diane Pierson is constantly keeping and eye out for information. Here is her abridged “Five

As the curator of the INSIDER Guide to New Product Development (NPD), I’m constantly keeping an eye out for bite-size information that will help you develop and scale better subscription products.   Here’s my “Five on Friday” list for July 10th, featuring the five best trends, tips, quotes or stats from my reading this week.

1. Startups Regret Not Asking for Feedback, Connecting With a Mentor

Entrepreneur.com, is an excellent source of information for small business owners in general.  This list-icle, “What 9 Successful Entrepreneurs Wish They Had Done Differently,” is a light read with good insights.  One of the best is #5, from Andrew Warner of Mixergy:

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Regret: Not asking for feedback. “When I got my first customers at Mixergy, I was embarrassed to ask them why they bought and what I could do to improve Mixergy for them. I thought they were going to tell me that there were too many things to improve because my site sucked. When I finally started calling them, I heard about a lot of things that needed improving, but my customers really liked me and my work, and many of them offered to help improve what wasn’t working the way they wanted.”

– Andrew Warner

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2. Holiday-Specific Marketing: Plan Ahead to Succeed

As email-services provider Yesmail said in a recent article, “July 4th means fireworks, BBQs, and celebrations [but], it is also an opportunity to create innovative campaigns that celebrate the holiday while engaging subscribers.” While the article is a good read, with basic tips (“use the colors of the holiday in your campaign” and “illustrate the connection between your brand and the holiday”) here are some additional holiday-marketing tips:

Match Message and Audience Thoughtfully. The recent 4th of July celebration is a great example. Make sure you send holiday-themed messages only to those involved in its celebration.

Find a Niche Holiday.  Subscriptions often speak to smaller audiences on topics of shared interest.  Leverage the unusual – but pertinent – holiday to emphasize your brand and relate to your prospective subscribers.  According to DaysOfTheYear.com, today is Don’t Step on a Bee Day, Pina Colada Day and Teddy Bear Picnic Day. What unusual holiday works for you?

Use Classic Marketing Principles.  If your holiday message is tied to your brand, or otherwise figures large in your prospect and subscriber communications, begin early and leverage the theme in multiple venues.  Teddy Bear of the Month subscription?  Start communicating a month in advance of Teddy Bear Picnic Day next year, and reflect the offers and theme on your web and social sites, in your emails and advertising.

3. In-Depth With Subscription-Box Startup Entrepreneur Dana Severson

Mixergy turns out to be a great site for small business owners.  If you’re heading to the gym, listen to or watch minutes 29-74 of this free (with registration) web interview, “How Dana Severson Built a $100K Business in Six Months for Less Than $100” It’s a great investment of time for those of you just starting up your subscription box business (Severson’s business is Stickinabox, a beef jerky subscription). Severson talks turkey – er, jerky – about starting a business, closing it and starting another; providing detailed, emotional insight on not only the mechanics of building a subscription business but it’s impact on his family and the evolution of his own goals.  Take a look at his home page and new customer popup offer:

 

4. Tips on Trademarking

With my webinar “Buyer Beware: How to Rebrand After An Acquisition coming up on July 28th, brand and trademark curation are on my mind.  Worth a read on this topic is a Small Business Trends article, “10 Small Business Trademark Mistakes that Cost You Money.” Here’s the “best” mistake to avoid:

Mistake #2: You never trademarked your business name.

Just because you registered your business name so you could start operating in your state doesn’t mean that you own the trademark. You still need to register your business name as a brand name with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)! Learn the difference between a trade name and a trademark, so you don’t make this mistake.

One piece of advice from me – have a list of great name options you’ll be happy with and don’t get hung up on just one.

5. Micro-services and Subscription Product Strategy

Thank you to our CEO and Publisher Kathy Greenler-Sexton for passing this one along, a Business Insider article, “Big companies and startups alike are jumping all over a trendy new tech called ‘microservices’ – here’s why”

Micro-services are nothing new – just a smarter and more thoughtful way of talking about what smart development and products teams have been doing all along. How could the concept manifest itself in your new product development?

Here’s an example: instead of one team being in charge of the front-end website and another of mobile apps, a team is responsible for the entire user experience of a product or service.  That product may have hooks into a website, a commerce app, back-end systems, with partners, etc. The product team builds for the entire customer experience from product sign-up to relationship exit.  These “micro-teams” therefore need to be very customer centric as well as holistic in their approach to new product development (and can’t pass the buck to another team because some element of the experience broke or didn’t happen).

Food for thought until next time – how could your product development process realign to focus on the end-to-end experience for each of your customer segments?

Have a great weekend,

Diane


Diane Pierson, our INSIDER Guide to New Product Development, is a leader in product management and marketing, having delivered results to companies including Dun & Bradstreet, LexisNexis, American Lawyer Media and Copyright Clearance Center. She has built products & services that have delivered over $100 million in revenue and knows what works, and what doesn’t, when executing product plans and strategies. (Read Diane’s full Bio)

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