Elias Interactive

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Marketing

5 Lessons from a Viral Video

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Adam Sadowsky, the guy behind the machine in OK Go‘s latest viral video This Too Shall Pass shared the following insights about lessons learned during its creation:
  • small stuff stinks…but it’s essential
  • planning is important…so is flexibility
  • put reliable stuff last
  • life can be messy
  • this too shall pass

I think these lessons are applicable to software development.

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Critique of a Random Sales Email

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Someone sent a random sales email to our info@ address this morning. The person works for a smaller email marketing software company. Since my background is in sales from the same industry, I decided to critique the sales copy and send it back to him.

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Lastly I thought about talking with a marketing company to get 1000 tiktok followers in just few days just in time for the launch of my product on my website and it was amazing. I don’t know why I didn’t thought about using the best social media platforms to make my business famous.

The sales guy’s original email

Hello,

I came across your web site and thought I’d make an introduction. I see that one of your service offerings is providing email marketing to your clients. My company, Company’s Name, has a private-labeled email marketing solution geared specifically for agencies like yours. Please visit the link below to get an overview and then you can request a demo from their or email me directly if you’re interested in learning more.

link

Thanks!

Sender’s Name

Aside from the error of typing “their” instead of “there”, a weak call-to-action, and the irony of receiving spam from an email marketing software company, my biggest critique was So What? That goes through my mind each time I read or write sales copy. Why should this matter to me? Why is this important? What can this product or service possibly do to improve my life? [Note: Mark Magnacca has a helpful book on the topic of “So What?”]

Most people delete random sales emails. But not me. I edited the original and sent the dude an improved version.

Revised email copy

I came across your website on [reference where you found me so that I’m not weirded out] and noticed that you work with [insert whatever the prospect specializes in]. My company, Company Name, has been providing a private-labeled email marketing solution geared for agencies since 1999. This is significant because we have helped a number of firms like yours close more deals, deliver value to their clients, and generate additional revenue with less time investment.

I’d like to show you how our product compliments your [insert prospect’s product or service] by showing you a 30 minute personalized demo of our email software. Are you available on Friday at 3pm EST?

Thanks,

P.S. Here is an overview of our email marketing solution for agencies (link).

Magento + Scene7 Case Study: theClassWatch.com

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A combination of outstanding partner, client, and technology collide from time to time to form incredibly interesting projects. One such project for Elias has been theClassWatch.com, which involved integrating two popular web tools: Magento + Adobe Scene7. Our client, Josh Fendley, recently sat down with me to talk about his experience with Elias:

Background

Josh is a partner at an agency in Cincinnati, OH called Ample. His client, ClassWatch, wanted to create a shopping experience that personalizes high-end wrist watches with school logos, initials, and graduation year. Adobe Scene7 seemed like the perfect tool to manage images. And Magento is one of the most powerful ecommerce platforms on the market today. But there was just one problem: no one had integrated the two web services with each other yet.

Solution

Not one to back down from a challenge, Elias rolled up its proverbial sleeves and went to work setting up a store, installing a custom theme, and integrating the watch configurator with Scene7. It was a tight deadline, which required outstanding teamwork between Elias + Ample. Personally, I’m proud to have met and worked with the Ample guys. (disclaimer: I tend to think that way about all of our clients)

Lee is documenting the technical side of this story in a series of posts. Our current project load has stalled the remaining posts in the series so far, but I’ll update the following list as he adds the next two posts:

  1. Part 1 of 3: Scene7 Integration with Magento Ecommerce

Results

The final product is an impressive personalized shopping experience. Eric made a quick screencast to showcase the integration with Scene7 + Magento.

How to attract Magento developers for your project

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Most people who follow our blog either are looking for a developer or are a developer themselves. And quality Magento developers are in high demand right now. So how do you get a top-notch developer to work on your project, Check out more from Palo Alto executive search services.

Seth Godin wrote a blog post today about how to be a great client. Personally, I would jump at the chance to work with a client who follows Seth’s suggestions. In fact, we decided to work with our clients because they fit several of the characteristics. Here is a copy of the post. I took the liberty of replacing “innovator” with “developer”. My guess is that our Magento developer following will strongly agree with the list.

As a client, your job isn’t to be innovative. Your job is to foster innovation. Big difference.

Fostering innovation is a discipline, a profession in fact. It involves making difficult choices and causing important things to get shipped out the door. Here are a few thoughts to get you started.

  1. Before engaging with the [developer], foster discipline among yourself and your team. Be honest about what success looks like and what your resources actually are.
  2. If you can’t write down clear ground rules about which rules are firm and which can be broken on the path to a creative solution, how can you expect the [developer] to figure it out?
  3. Simplify the problem relentlessly, and be prepared to accept an elegant solution that satisfies the simplest problem you can describe.
  4. After you write down the ground rules, revise them to eliminate constraints that are only on the list because they’ve always been on the list.
  5. Hire the right person. Don’t ask a mason to paint your house. Part of your job is to find someone who is already in the sweet spot you’re looking for, or someone who is eager and able to get there.
  6. Demand thrashing early in the process. Force [developers] and decisions to be made near the beginning of the project, not in a crazy charrette at the end.
  7. Be honest about resources. While false resource constraints may help you once or twice, the people you’re working with demand your respect, which includes telling them the truth.
  8. Pay as much as you need to solve the problem, which might be more than you want to. If you pay less than that, you’ll end up wasting all your money. Why would a great [developer] work cheap?
  9. Cede all issues of irrelevant personal taste to the [designer]. I don’t care if you hate the curves on the new logo. Just because you write the check doesn’t mean your personal aesthetic sense is relevant.
  10. Run interference. While innovation sometimes never arrives, more often it’s there but someone in your office killed it.
  11. Raise the bar. Over and over again, raise the bar. Impossible a week ago is not good enough. You want stuff that is impossible today, because as they say at Yoyodyne, the future begins tomorrow.
  12. When you find a faux [developer], run. Don’t stick with someone who doesn’t deserve the hard work you’re doing to clear a path.
  13. Celebrate the [developer]. Sure, you deserve a ton of credit. But you’ll attract more [developers] and do even better work next time if [developers] understand how much they benefit from working with you.