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 17th, featuring the five best trends, tips, quotes or stats from my reading this week.
1. How to Analyze a Competitor’s “Brand Voice”
Social Media Examiner’s article, “How to Easily Analyze the Social Activities of Your Competitors” offers a solid checklist to leverage when doing competitive analysis on digital marketing activities. While many of the suggestions are straightforward, I thought answering the question “what is your competitor’s brand voice” warranted some clarification. Here’s how to identify your competitor’s Brand Voice in three easy steps:
- What 5 adjectives would you use to describe your competitor, based on what you see online? Does it show a company that’s “Serious, Thoughtful, Educational” or “Funny, Snarky, and Hip?” Is the personality consistent across media? Do you think it fits well with the subscription’s audience?
- How Factual versus Emotional are the marketing elements? Are there lots of charts, or lots of pictures? Lots of stats, or lots of quotes? And, again – do you think the marketing is aligned with subscriber expectations and perceptions?
- Compare these findings to what your own marketing assets tell you. Ideally, get a reading from your customers or prospects to round out this information.
2. Contests = Engagement. Send Your Ideas and Get $10 at Amazon.
The 7 Steps to Create an Awesome Contest on Instagram is a great how-to blog post, and I’d recommend reading the whole post if you’re thinking about doing a contest on Instagram or any other media. What kind of contest could you run, that would reflect your “Brand Voice” as discussed elsewhere in this Five on Friday update? Let me know, and I’ll send you a $10 Amazon gift card. Yes – a contest in a how-to-run-a-contest post!
3. Email Still Has the Best Marketing ROI
According to Forbes|Tech in “8 Ways Small Businesses Can Build an Email List Faster,” out this week, small businesses rate email marketing Most Effective (54% agree) and Easiest to Implement (11% disagree). It outlines some solid, small-business-specific ways to grow your email database. Here’s one I liked, with a good “do this not that” graphic example:
4. Wanted: Freelancers and Outsourced Services Companies
The biggest challenge for any business in growth-mode is getting high-quality services without hiring full-time staff. This article from Small Business Trends collects and reviews several reliable freelance and outsourcing sites to fit a smaller-business budget. My favorite? 99designs, where designers compete for your business and you can get a great logo, newsletter template or other design element at a reasonable price. Need the most for the least? Try fiverr , where you can literally get a logo, translation or copy editing for $5.
5. FanDuel: The Micro-Subscription Site Valued at $1 Billion
This just in from Forbes:
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FanDuel-a New York-based daily fantasy sports site, reportedly just raised $275 million from KKR, Google Capital and Time Warner The Wall Street Journal and Re/Code quoted unnamed sources that said the round puts FanDuel’s valuation above $1 billion. ____________________________________________________________________________ |
What’s my take? First: It can happen. If you find the right model, and combine desire and drive (and yes, a lot of luck) in epic proportions, subscription businesses pay off. Second: Everything evolves. FanDuel, with its daily “subscription,” or contest, participants, is one of several such micro-subscription models around today. How could we expand our own models to attract short-term subscribers? Third: competition makes us better. Where would FanDuel be without DraftKings? The rivalry makes for good copy, and keeps both companies sharp. Don’t hide from competition – outsmart it.
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)
