Marketing :: Thinking Home Business

Everything Old is New Again

As the New Year gets underway, here at our Webarts company we are getting into serious rollout time for a couple of new business services.

One of those, which we have been developing over the past couple of months, is Webarts Online Marketing.

Webarts Online Marketing is basically about helping “offline” businesses engage effectively online with their customers and prospective customers, to gain new business and more repeat business from their existing clientele.

But it’s really just struck me today that when I say Webarts Online Marketing is a new service, it’s also very much in line with what we’ve been doing for years.

To make sure I was not kidding myself about that, I refreshed my memory this morning about what we had said when we first launched on the Web back in 1996. I was aided in this endeavour by the wonderful – and wonderfully named – “Wayback Machine”, on the excellent Archive.org site. (For those unfamiliar with the Wayback Machine, you can search for older websites, or older versions which might not be findable any more by just entering the web address.)

What I found was that the services we are offering now are essentially what we offered then, although after fourteen years there is inevitably some change of language and change of emphasis.

In December 1996 we offered “multimedia and Internet consulting and contracting services” (some will remember when “multimedia” was as much a buzzword as “social media” is now!). And about the kind of service and resources we would bring to bear we said:

To help our clients turn their dreams into effective communication, we draw on our skills in communication, coordination and project management, and the diverse talents and resources of an extensive network of associates.

So what’s the same and what has changed?

Our focus now, as then, is on helping mainly or wholely “offline” businesses get increased business and more repeat business through smart engagement in the online environment, so that hasn’t really changed. We use our skills in “pulling everything together”. And we have a network of very skilled service providers to call on.

One of the main areas of change is that we now include a specialized capability to help clients engage with their market through effective use of social media (which we hadn’t, to the best of my knowledge, heard about five years ago, let alone fourteen).

We hope the fact that we have been operating in the Web space for a long time will help us win business. We are also fully aware that there are plenty of very capable, very skilled competitors who are much newer on the scene.

No resting on laurels here!

But if you know of a business that would like some help in the online environment from people who are both experienced and up with the game, we’d be happy to have a complimentary consultation with them, to see if we can help them or at least give them some useful pointers for their search. Our contact details are here.

A very tasty lesson in how to be remarkable

Last night, as a panelist at the Networx Marketing Meeting in Brisbane, Australia, I received a delightful – and tasty – gift.

At the end of the discussion session each of the panelists was presented with a bouquet. When I saw the bouquets being brought up my first thought was that this was unusual, especially as three out of the four panelists were male.

I’m more used to getting a bottle of good wine at that stage.

Then I realised that the “flowers” under the cellophane wrapping were actually chocolates.

This was fun. And even more so when I got to taste the gift after I’d removed the cellophane and taken the picture here.

It was an example of being remarkable.

It was a purple cow.

Earlier in the evening, my fellow panelist Richard Slatter of wotnews and wearehunted fame, had talked about being remarkable – with a hat tip to Seth Godin and his famous purple cow.

I thought I had a fair idea of the precise meaning of “remarkable”, but looked it up anyway.

remarkable adj. 1. worthy of note or attention a remarkable achievement 2. unusual, striking, or extraordinary a remarkable sight

Clearly Richard (and Seth) were talking about the second meaning - unusual, striking, or extraordinary.

The chocolate bouquet qualified. It was made by the appropriately named Edible Blooms – whose tag line is “We make indulgent gift giving an easy and memorable experience!”

Worked for me.

So now I’m thinking, what am I doing or could I do with my business to be remarkable?

“Competent”, “capable”, “interesting” won’t cut it.”Unusual, striking or extraordinary will.

Please share, in the comments, what you do to be remarkable in your market.