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” compilation for November 27th, featuring the five best trends, tips, quotes or stats from my reading this week.
1. How to Find the Competition You Didn’t Even Know About
Whether you’re deciding whether to launch a new title, or checking out the competition your current product has, SimilarWeb is a great site to leverage. Type in your URL and SimilarWeb tells you not only your site ranking (which you can see on several different apps), but also the interested of your audience and other sites they’ve visited. Deeper information is for subscribers only, but the free data is very illuminating.
2. Reading During the Holidays? Here are Some Suggestions for Entrepreneurs:
This solid list from Entrepreneur is specifically geared toward the startup, but it’s also a good list for anyone looking to up their existing-business game or implement time-saving processes. The one I can personally recommend is, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown. Kindle Unlimited members can read it free here.
3. Adding Valuable Information to Sales Receipts a Great Way to Interact with Customers
I just received a receipt from L.L. Bean. At the bottom of that receipt was a listing for parks that are close to my home here in Austin, TX. What a terrific idea for subscription businesses to explore – even if the tips weren’t location-specific, it would still add something unique to include recipes, festivals, etc, that pertain to your offering. Such additions are a great way to keep the conversation with your customers going, past the sale.
4. Tips to Make Excel Easier
If you’re anything like me, working in Excel isn’t the most fun you have all day. I’m always looking for tips to improve my skills with this, my least-used Windows program. About a month ago Hubspot published a valuable blog, “12 Excel Formulas, Features & Keyboard Shortcuts Everyone Should Know.” These are always worth a scan – if there’s even one you didn’t already know, it’s five minutes well spent. My favorite from this list:
Quick way to change numbers in rows or columns into currency:
- Highlight the cells you wish to reformat
- Select Control + Shift + $.
The numbers will automatically translate into dollar amounts — complete with dollar signs, commas, and decimal points.
5. Keep Thanksgiving Close, Every Day
We’ve spent a great deal of time discussing the shopping days surrounding Thanksgiving and the various other holidays between now and 2016, without focusing much on the holidays themselves. So – I’d like to leave you with a less-venal quote to ponder as you head into the balance of this year:
“Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.” William Arthur Ward
Have a great weekend, everyone.
Diane
Diane Pierson has deep experience 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. She is also a contributor to Subscription Insider. (Read Diane’s full Bio)
