SEO: An Inconvenient Truth

If you expect to get noticed in this global connected world, you are going to have to embrace something called Search Engine Optimization or SEO. It seems every year someone declares SEO is dead. Yes, SEO is very difficult and it does require a serious commitment of time and money. But take a hard look at your competition and see how effective they are over the internet. They haven’t updated their website in over six months, they still have fixed tables for presenting content and they continue to ignore the mobile world. Also think about the fact that there are over a half a trillion web sites online. So even if you do just basic SEO, you are bound to realize some big benefits that can help your company in the long run.

In Pursuit of the Micro Moment

For the last few years Google has been spending a lot of time trying to understand something called the micro-moment. The micro-moment is the time between researching a product or service and the time a person makes the buy decision. It is during this slice of time that the brain tells the person; yes you should (or should not) buy this product or service. Understanding the brain and a person’s emotional response during these micro-moments has become very important for marketers. This behavioral approach to marketing is often referred to as Neuro-Marketing.   

Lessons from the Shared Economy

The shared economy has become very real and can no longer be ignored by all businesses. According to PriceWaterhouse Coopers, the shared economy is likely to grow from $15 billion in 2013 to $335 billion by 2025. Part of this growth is out of necessity. Cities are becoming very urban and this is where everyone is migrating to; thriving in a world that increasingly is getting very crowded. You can’t continue to add more cars, hotels, and other infrastructure. Instead, people are adjusting and accepting the fact that a better way is to share the infrastructure in highly concentrated environments. Businesses will need to adjust to this new reality and recognize several lessons from the shared economy. 

The New Math for Pricing

It represents one of the most difficult decisions you will make: What price do I charge for my products? Many people, including myself, have always held that pricing should be based on covering all of your costs with some allowance for profits. However, thanks to Robert Dolan of Harvard Business School, there is a new math for calculating price that goes beyond the financial numbers.  

Understanding Your Value Proposition

Getting your value proposition right and knowing when and how to tweak it is extremely important. Intense competition and change are forcing many companies to re-visit their original value propositions. The best value propositions are those that solve major pain points for lots of people. Start by looking at how your customers spend their time – what frustrations do they encounter?