ImaginativePRO Blog

STARTUPS, HERE'S HOW TO CUT THROUGH THE CRAP WHEN YOU'RE LOOKING FOR A CRM TOOL

There are too many Customer Relationship Management or CRM applications. Heck, there are too many CRM add-ons. Sales is our livelihood, and part of the job has become navigating the labyrinth of choices (and customizations) to make something that actually makes your job easier. Marc Andreessen says that software is eating the world, but for salespeople, software is eating us alive.

For the new SaaS company or sales organization, you have to hire the right people, find the right strategy, and define the right market. Now you also have to find the right Customer Relationship Management software. The thing that was meant to make your life easier — little software hacks and tweaks — has now become annoying on the same level as office management and HR issues.

Choosing and implementing the right CRM is a necessary evil, just like finding the right chairs and a reliable Internet provider. And, as you’d expect, All CRMs suck if implemented in the wrong way for the wrong type of company, just as they are all beautiful if they’re implemented correctly.

While building my startup — the proposal software Quote Roller — I’ve tried (and dumped) many CRMs for organizing sales, hiring, and fundraising. I’ve explored many CRM systems to consider integrating with our app, and I’ve whittled down a list of hundreds to only 12.

It’s been an awful rollercoaster, and I’m happy to share the ups and downs as a way of helping you find out what you do and don’t need to get.

You don’t need a CRM when …

… you don’t have a business (or a product-market fit) yet

It’s day 1. You have a chair and a desk and a computer. Don’t buy eight different pieces of software because you think you need to. When you need them, buy them. If you don’t know you need them, don’t. As a founder, you should start contacting potential clients before you even start the company. There’s no need to over-engineer at this point. Finding the product-market fit is hard enough already. Keep it simple (and free) using spreadsheets.

… when there is no sales process to organize

CRMs are made to organize repeatable sales processes and to organize processes that, at first, might not even be there. If you are just going after your first few clients, don’t mess it up with unnecessary data entry.

… you don’t know who you’re selling to

Once all the necessary tests are done, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1.   Who are your clients? Be specific.
2.   How do you find, contact, and persuade them to close?
3.   What is the approximate amount of money you can make on average from each client?
4.   How long is it going to take to close a sale?

… when there’s no use for the data

If you have a few people, and they’re still in the very early sales stages, there’s no process to break down for them. Making someone log a call isn’t useful unless you have a great deal of things to monitor and need organization.

Before you’re established, CRM can be a curse. Don’t buy it or use it unless it’s going to make your life — or your salespeople’s lives — easier.

PipeDrive vs Intercom: choosing a CRM based on your CLV

Your customer’s lifetime value (CLV) is the amount of money your company can make during a single customer’s lifetime. A higher CLV usually requires more time and effort to sell to. A six-figure sale may take months (if you’re lucky) or even years (if you’re realistic).

If your CLV is high, your CRM pipeline (the sales process’ steps) should have many stages and fewer deals in each stage. Creating a visual of your sales process makes it easy for you and your reps to see where things are with any prospective client and keep them from wanting to drown themselves mid-sale.

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PipeDrive CRM is a great pipeline visualization app for companies with a high-deal size and a low-deal volume, where a company is focused on high-value customers. By sectioning out each part of the deal, PipeDrive lets you break down the thoughts, feelings, and processes of a sale in a way that’s far more human.

We managed our seed round via PipeDrive, where investors were “contacts” and investments were “deals.”

Pipedrive is a great software. However, if you’re making a lot of low-value deals, it’s overwhelming and unnecessary. The process is probably as simple as “make call, send email, close deal,” and thus entering in the data becomes useless.

In many high-volume, low-value deals, the sales are likely inbound, low-touch, and automated, which is exactly what Intercom focuses on.

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Intercom is plugged into your website or app with a JavaScript snippet. It imports the client data and allows easy flagging, searching, and filtering in your client database.

Intercom also aggregates additional data about your clients from around the web — like location, social networks, and avatars — as well as from your own system – like the number of purchases, dates of first sign, and your last visit. The system maintains a history of messages sent to a client.

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Another neat thing about Intercom is that you can send custom and automated messages to clients in real time, enabling you to save money on email marketing apps like MailChimp.

Your goal with any CRM is to support your salespeople and their process and have an idea where your next meal is coming from. If your CRM makes this process worse, you don’t want that CRM.

Nimble vs Base: choosing a CRM based on how you interact with customers

What makes for the best CRM for a team often depends on the way you build leads and interact with customers. Some companies are prospecting via LinkedIn, some are cold calling, and some buy email lists to reach out to potential clients.

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If you sell using social networks, take a look at Nimble. Nimble’s integration with social networks is one of the best. Nimble imports your LinkedIn connections as CRM contacts and allows you to message them from the interface. Your message history attaches to your contact dashboards and deals. The same applies to your reps, so you can manage the sales process even if most of it happens in LinkedIn. Nimble also imports all contacts’ social streams, posts, and shares. That allows you to send relevant messages, much more personalized than cold, salesy emails. Similarly to LinkedIn, Nimble integrates, allows messaging via, and imports social streams from Twitter and Facebook. Plus you can take steps that show immediate customer loyalty, like following prospects on Twitter even before making a call.

Nimble also helps to set up “social signals,” or the notifications, for a contact’s birthday, new connections, career change, and more. For instance, you can automatically assign sales reps to prospect anyone who liked your Facebook page or mentioned services you provide in a tweet.

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Essentially, it cuts down on research time and supports a great sale. However, if most of the conversations are taking place over the phone, it’s a bunch of information that’s nowhere near as useful. For companies who are planning to interact with clients via the phone, Base CRM is a better option. Base has built-in voice over IP (VOIP) functionality with very cheap international calling rates, saving time on both call-logging and the physical act of calling (and money, I suppose). The calls are recorded and automatically attached to contacts and deals, removing the awful call-logging data entry of classic salespeople.

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Base is also great if you want your reps in the field. Imagine you have a team of five sales reps running around the city, talking to customers and closing deals. They need a tool with real-time access to contacts and deals in progress, and your sales manager needs real-time access to the deals they’re closing, places they’re visiting, and calls they’re making. The data’s already there without the reps having to struggle to log it.

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Base’s mobile apps (as well as helping you make calls) provide access to the CRM’s data and display an interactive map with all the nearby contacts. You get to know where they are geographically at any point. All this makes Base a perfect solution for companies that practice “outside” or “field” sales and close deals in person.

CRMs can’t save your business, but they can make it better

Many believe that productivity tools and CRMs are the golden goose — the way to make an organization ‘great.’ The truth is, if someone is a bad sales rep, they’ll only be more obviously awful in a CRM-based solution. Furthermore, adding a useless CRM to your business will make your employees hate you and slow down those that don’t.

A CRM is a force multiplier. Success in sales is made by people who deal with your clients, the relationships they build, the needs they identify, the support they offer, and, of course, the product or service they’re selling. A great CRM will support them and catapult them to success, but a bad implementation will steer them to drinking (or to your competitors).

About The Writer

Mikita Mikado is a software engineer and entrepreneur from Belarus, now based in San Francisco. He is the co­founder and CEO of a company behind Quote Roller andPandaDoc. He is passionate about building meaningful SAAS applications that help to save time and be more productive.  (Click Image To Enlarge)

ACCORDING TO A REPORT FROM OLAPIC, BRANDS SHOULD EMBRACE INSTAGRAM (IF THEY HAVEN'T DONE SO ALREADY)

A NEWLY RELEASED REPORT CONSIDERS THE PHOTO APP THE BEST MEDIA ACQUISITION OF THE LAST FIVE YEARS.

Instagram still has no way of embedding external links, but that hasn't stopped brands and retailers from embracing the photo-sharing platform. In fact, it's the social network that has seen the fastest growth, most engagement, and highest conversion from browser to shopper, according a report released Thursday from startup Olapic and research firm L2.

Despite Instagram's billion-dollar price tag, the report considers the photo app the best media acquisition of the last five years. (The worst? Tumblr, which is a sentiment starkly different from Adobe's Digital Index released two weeks ago.) As a case in point, the study touts the following statistics:

• Engagement on Instagram is 15 times that of Facebook's, with users spending an average of 257 minutes per month.
• Instagram receives 1,000 comments and 8,500 likes per second. That comes to 1.2 billion likes per day.
• More than 16 billion photos have been shared to date, with an average of 55 million uploaded each day.
• The number of users has increased 66% to 32 million users, the fastest growing of the top 10 mobile apps.
• Instagram ads have helped retailers increase ad recall by 32% and brand message lift by 10%.

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Olapic cofounder Pau Sabria told Fast Company.

"The main message is that we're very bullish about Instagram as a social network brands should be focusing on."  

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Olapic provides the technology that lets brands, including Pepsi, Coach, and Lancome, turn customers' Instagram photos into shoppable images. Sabria said the ability to embed links could help brands "capture part of the traffic Instagram has and driving that traffic to their sites," but could also lead to an increase in spam. Meanwhile, he said some brands have tried to make do by posting links that users manually copy and paste into a browser.

The report also noted characteristics of Instagram photos that work better for engagement versus e-commerce. For example, captions with question marks do a better job of engaging users whereas longer captions without question or exclamation marks perform better for retailers.

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The case studies of a few Olapic customers were also highlighted. For example, when Macy's decided to promote its Thanksgiving parade using Instagram, the retailer was able to increase engagement on its ads by 70 times compared with its non-sponsored posts in November and December, reaching up to 5.3 million people. In the two days following Thanksgiving, it gained 14,000 new followers, 75 times its average daily increase in the past month, and ended up with 42,000 new followers over two weeks.

COMMENTARY:   Twitter marketing. Facebook marketing. Regular old marketing. Content marketing. The list of types of marketing that is prescribed to every marketing professional as if everyone knows everything all this intuitively continue to grow day in and day out.

Not to be left out, Instagram is staking its claim to the advertiser world that it should be part of their overall plan.

Why you ask? Well, there are some rather large numbers associated with the service. Couple that with the fact that it’s owed by Facebook and the marketing mind begins to spin at high speed.

Courtesy of an article dated February 13, 2014 appearing in Fast Company

Technology has changed a lot in the last 30 years—even the last three! Today’s consumer is more connected than ever, thanks to the proliferation of digital devices and platforms. Content once available only via specific channels, such as print and broadcast television, can today be delivered to consumers through their multiple connected devices.

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These changes are driving a media revolution and blurring traditional media definitions. In fact, Americans now own four digital devices on average, and the average U.S. consumer spends 60 hours a week consuming content across devices. In Nielsen’s Digital Consumer Report, we explore this transformation and examine how the everyday lives of consumers are now intertwined with the digital world.

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At the heart of this shift is the proliferation of digital devices. A majority of U.S. households now own High-Definition Televisions (HDTVs), Internet-connected computers and smartphones, giving consumer more choices for how and when they access content. Two-thirds of Americans now use smartphones, allowing them to take media content wherever they want, and they also to use the devices throughout their purchase journey.

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The swift adoption of mobile devices has been bought home as well, where second-screen activities have transformed the TV viewing experience. Eighty-four percent of smartphone and tablet owners say they use their devices as second-screens while watching TV at the same time. Consumers use second screens to deepen their engagement with what they’re watching, including activities such as looking up information about the characters and plot lines, or researching and purchasing products and services advertised. One of the more popular second-screen activities is using social TV: roughly one million Americans turn to Twitter to discuss TV on an average day.

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Social media continues to play an important role in the lives of U.S. consumers. The report found that two-thirds (64%) of social media users say they log on to social sites at least once a day via their computers, and half (47%) of smartphone owners visit social networks on their devices daily. Mobile devices are certainly driving the growth in social media, as social media app usage increased 37 percent in 2013 compared to last year.

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Given the fast-moving evolution of digital media, it’s more important than ever to have a clear view of what consumers are doing today to understand the implications for the future. To learn more about how these trends in digital technology are propelling the new multiscreen, constantly connected lifestyles of consumers, download Nielsen’s 2014 Digital Consumer Report.

THE NEW SOCIAL NORM

Social media usage continues to grow as the need to stay connected with social networks becomes ingrained into the daily lives of consumers. Almost two-thirds (64%) of social media users say they use social media sites at least once a day via their computer.

But, increasingly, consumers are reaching for their smartphones over traditional computers to access social networks. Almost half (47%) of smartphone owners visited social networks every day and in the last year, and the unique audience for social media smartphone apps increased
37 percent.

As digital consumers find their own mix of devices and platforms to access and engage with social media, they are building profiles and connections on multiple social networks as well. While Facebook remains the largest social network in both the Web and mobile, consumers are
embracing other social platforms such as LinkedIn (up 37% among users), Pinterest (triple unique users on smartphone apps), and Instagram (nearly double the number of unique users in 2013).

WHERE WE GET SOCIAL

While the home remains the most prevalent location for logging onto social media sites, today’s constantly connected consumers are active on social media sites anywhere they go. Two in f ive (39%) Americans get digitally social while at work, and one in f ive (21%) have logged onto
social sites while in the bathroom in the past 30 days.

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Courtesy of an article February 10, 2014 appearing in Nielsen

ASIA: THE LEADING APP MARKET IN THE WORLD

Asia: The Leading App Market in the World

The Asian app store market is a train that can’t be stopped. This month’s publication takes a deep dive into trends we spotted in Asia and the countries in it. To get a deeper insight into the Chinese market, we have made this publication in partnership with Wandoujia, a leading mobile content search engine for Android users in China.

Major Findings

• Asia is the most lucrative app market in the world. 41 percent of the total revenue globally in December 2013 came from Asia, while North America generated 31 percent and Europe 23 percent. 
• Revenue in Asia increased by 162 percent year-over-year (December 2012 to December 2013), while North
• America’s revenue grew by 46 percent. 
• Japan was undoubtedly the most lucrative country in Asia, followed by South Korea and China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. 
• Freemium is the leading business model in Asia. 
• South Korea witnessed the steepest growth in revenue. Money generated in the country grew by 271 percent, with Google Play driving most of that growth. 
• Angry Birds Go! was the most downloaded game in Asia in December 2013, followed by 保卫萝卜2：极地冒险 (CarrotFantasy 2: Polar Adventure), and 史上最坑爹的游戏 (The Hardest Game in History).  
• On the Android platform Wandoujia, the most downloaded app was 12306官方, a railway ticket reservation app.

Asia Leads the World

How does Asia stack up against other continents? Globally, 41 percent of the total revenue in December 2013 came from Asia, while North America generated 31 percent and Europe 23 percent.

For Asia the divide in revenue between the Apple App Store and Google Play is almost half-and-half, while for North America, three-quarters of the revenue comes from the Apple App Store and one-quarter from Google Play. The revenue divide in North America also applies to Europe. Clearly, Asia is a different landscape than what’s seen in North America and Europe. Revenue in Asia is more evenly distributed between the Apple App Store and Google Play, while the Apple App Store generates the lion’s share of revenue in North America and Europe.

Below is a representation of the relative growth of each continent in the last year. In the below table, we’re comparing December 2013 to December 2012. All continents show revenue growth in the past year, but there are big differences among the continents. Revenue growth in Asia annihilated all other continents, seeing revenue increase 162 percent year-over-year (December 2012 to December 2013). Revenue swelled in Europe and North America by 45 percent and 46 percent, respectively. Australia saw the least growth, advancing revenue by 23 percent.

In conclusion, we can say that Asia is the leading continent in terms of revenue and had the greatest increase in revenue in the last year.

Aggregated Apple App Store and Google Play Revenue Growth - Comparing December 2013 to December 2012.  (Click Image To Enlarge)

Explosive Revenue Growth in Asia

We already illustrated that Asia is the No. 1 continent in terms of revenue and had the highest growth throughout last year. Below, we separate total revenue in Asia by app store — iPad, Phone, and Google Play. As we stated earlier, revenue in Asia expanded by 162 percent across the last year.  The chart below demonstrates that the spike in revenue is due to Google Play. Revenue from Google Play more than quadrupled throughout the last 12 months.  On the Apple App Store, revenue for iPhone nearly doubled (94 percent) and revenue for iPad grew by 64% (which is still more than the total growth in Europe or North America).

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Top Countries in Asia

When we separated revenue by country in Asia for December 2013, we dug up the following breakdown: Japan was undoubtedly the most lucrative country, followed by South Korea and China. Below the top three were: Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey, Indonesia, and Malaysia. To put into perspective the enormous difference in revenue between the top Asian country Japan and Malaysia, Japan’s revenue is 77 times that of Malaysia’s. The extremely disproportionate revenue share among Asian countries led us to believe that the market isn’t evenly divided.

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We already presented the huge revenue escalation in Asia; after we calculated the revenue growth for the top Asian countries, the numbers looked even more impressive. South Korea witnessed the steepest growth in revenue. Money generated in the country grew by 271 percent, with Google Play driving most of that growth, but also the revenue of the Apple App Store for iPhone grew more than for example the revenue in the United States.

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Now that we’ve analyzed the continent of Asia and its corresponding countries, it’s time to take a look at the business models apps have deployed in the Apple App Store. Compared to the U.S. all the top Asian countries make more revenue from in-app purchases (IAP) than from one-off revenues.

China led the way, with apps generating 96 percent of revenue from IAP. Japan and South Korea were closely behind China with 94 percent and 91 percent of total revenue from IAP, respectively. The freemium model is across the board the dominant business model in Asia.

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The Size of Locally Popular Apps

We took a look at the top 300 apps in Asia, checking to see the number of countries each app ranked in. If an app was only ranked in one Asian country, we defined it as locally popular. In the table below, we display the percentage of locally popular apps. In just a glance, we can see that the percentage of locally popular apps differs greatly among Asian countries.

In the United States, between 25 to 32 percent of apps were locally popular. In Asia, Singapore had the lowest proportion of locally popular apps (between 10 and 13 percent), while Japan had the highest proportion (60 percent 72 percent). The proportion of locally popular apps is directly correlated with specific languages and alphabets for some Asian countries, as well as developers investing in the localization of their apps on the leading platforms. In South Korea, the popular platform Kakao has a lot of Kakao-dedicated apps, while in Japan, the LINE platform is
extremely popular.

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Top Apps in Asia

The top performing apps in Asia on the Apple App Store in terms of downloads are presented below. In the rightmost column the top three country breakdown is included.

Angry Birds Go! Was the most downloaded game in Asia in December 2013, followed by 保卫萝卜2：极地冒险 (CarrotFantasy 2: Polar Adventure), and 史上最坑爹的游戏 (The Hardest Game in History). Most downloads came from China. Apple’s 12 Days of Gifts app was the only exception — it was downloaded the most in Japan (47%), Taiwan (10%), and Turkey (9%).

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Courtesy of Distimo's "Asia: The Leading App Market in the World" for January 2014

 

HOW PILLPACK REINVENTED THE PILLBOX WITH AN IDIOT-PROOF WAY FOR USERS TO REMEMBER WHEN TO TAKE YOUR MEDS

A startup originally accelerated within Ideo, PillPack is an end-to-end pharmacy and delivery service for pharmaceuticals that is using design to vastly simplify the process of swallowing pills each day. (Click Image To Enlarge)

Take all of the pills in your medicine cabinet that you have to track--the prescription drugs you need to remember to take two or three times a day, the multivitamins and fish liver pills you're not sure make a difference--and imagine that instead of all coming in separate bottles, they came packaged together in a pre-assorted, chronological ticker tape of medicine. Instead of keeping track of which medicines you need to take at which time, you just tear off a square packet from the roll and swallow all the pills inside.

You don't have to worry about pillboxes, reminders, or refills; PillPack takes care of all that for you. (Click Images To Enlarge)

This is the idea behind PillPack, a new service out of Somerville, Massachusetts, that aims to be the Amazon Prime of prescription medication.   PillPack is using design to vastly simplify the process of swallowing pills each day.  You don't have to worry about pillboxes, reminders, or refills; PillPack takes care of all that for you.  All you need to do is tear off the latest M&M Fun Size packet and swallow what's inside when it tells you to.

 

The system PillPack uses isn't new. Long-term care facilities have been getting medicine for their patients in easy-to-distribute, presorted rolls for years to make life easier for nurses who have to juggle the confusing motley of medications taken by dozens of patients multiple times per day.

All you need to do is tear off the latest M&M Fun Size packet and swallow what's inside when it tells you to.  (Click Image To Enlarge)

A long-term care pharmacy in Concord, New Hampshire--got swarmed with requests by friends and neighbors, who caught wind of the rolls of medication he was making for local medical facilities and started clamoring for him to put together pill packs for them, too.

Once you've signed up, PillPack will assemble your medication, presorting the medicines into individually sealed packets lined up chronologically; any interim medication you need while your first PillPack is being assembled is mailed overnight. You get new PillPacks every two weeks. (Click Image To Enlarge)

What makes the PillPack system so well designed is how idiot-proof it is. Getting started on PillPack is as easy as transferring your existing subscriptions from your local pharmacy: according to PillPack, the process takes less than five minutes. Once you've signed up, PillPack will assemble your medication, presorting the medicines into individually sealed packets lined up chronologically; any interim medication you need while your first PillPack is being assembled is mailed overnight. You get new PillPacks every two weeks. When you get your first shipment, all you do is tear off the first packet and swallow the pills inside at the date and time printed on the front. New PillPacks are automatically sent to you when you need them; four weeks before your last scheduled refill of a prescription, PillPack's pharmacists will follow up with your doctor for a renewal.

When you get your first shipment, all you do is tear off the first packet and swallow the pills inside at the date and time printed on the front. New PillPacks are automatically sent to you when you need them; four weeks before your last scheduled refill of a prescription, PillPack's pharmacists will follow up with your doctor for a renewal.  (Click Image To Enlarge)

Patienta should not have to worry about taking their meds as the date and time are printed on each packet.  Each packet is clearly printed with the medications inside. A label on the dispenser has images of the pill, with the name and instructions, so it's easy to know exactly what you're taking.

For now, PillPack is focusing on getting medicine to as many people's doors as possible--they still need pharmacy licensing in 19 states--but there's a lot of possibility for leveraging the data they have on patients to improve the PillPack experience. A dedicated app, says Parker, is the obvious next step, but there's also lot of excitement at PillPack about how they could integrate their service with future wearables such as the iWatch or Google Glass, such as by alerting customers when they haven't taken their pills.

PillPack works with most major insurance plans, and costs $20 per month on top of existing co-pays. At that price, says Parker, the service makes most sense for patients who take more than five pills a month, but even if you just need help remembering the aspirin a day, PillPack can help you keep the doctor away.

COMMENTARY:   I can definitely see how PillPack could become very popular among seniors.  It is very difficult for them to track their medications, and often miss their medications because they have to take so many of them, and often several times a day.  The ability to pack all medications into one pack and tell the patient the day and time to take those medications eliminates a lot of the worry.  PillPack also takes care of refills, scheduling them 8 weeks ahead of time, so that they are authorized by the doctor and can be filled promptly so that the patient never runs out.  PillPack claims that they work with all the major healthcare insurance companies and drugs covered by Medicate Plan D.  It costs the patient a flat $20.00 per month plus the co-pay from their insurance company.  This is a much better way to manage refills, and I can definitely see the day when PillPack becomes the Netflix of prescription drugs.  A one-stop place to refill all prescriptions, and know with absolute confidence that you will not miss your medications when you need to take them.  It's all good, and I see big things for this company. 

Courtesy of an article dated February 6, 2014 appearing in Fast Company Design

WHAT A CRACKED MIRROR TAUGHT DRYBAR EXECS ABOUT MANAGING METEORIC GROWTH

Drybar Upper East Side, (Opened in December 2012) at 209 East 76th Street, New York, NY 10021 (Click Image To Enlarge)

A BROKEN MIRROR AT ONE OF DRYBAR'S MANHATTAN LOCATIONS SENT FOUNDER ALLI WEBB OVER THE EDGE. BUT THE FALLOUT PROVIDED IMPORTANT LESSONS IN LETTING WORLD-CLASS TEAMS DO WHAT YOU HIRED THEM TO DO.

A few months ago, Alli Webb stepped into a Drybar on the Upper East Side of Manhattan--one of the few dozen blowout-only hair salons that Webb and her brother, Michael Landau, have rapidly built into a small empire. Webb had reason to be happy. Her business, which she’d begun on a lark in 2007, was raking in $22 million in annual sales; her private equity partners in the business were seeing so much growth that they were beginning to recommend that Webb and Landau be realistic about relinquishing some control in their organization, leaving more of the micromanaging to the various teams they had hired. But then, Webb saw the crack.

The brother and sister team of Michael Landau and Alli Webb, co-founders of Drybar. (Click Image To Enlarge)

At the rear of the Upper East Side Drybar, a crack ran through a large, customer-facing mirror. What was infinitely frustrating to Webb was that the last time she had been in this store, the same mirror had been cracked in the same place. How had months elapsed without the mirror being repaired? Was this the image .Drybar was projecting to Manhattan’s Upper East Side? Webb recalls. 

“I had a fit.  It just kind of goes to the perfectionist in me.  I walk in a shop, and I want everything to be perfect.”

She sent out a bunch of emails--to the assistant manager, to the manager, to anyone remotely related to operations at the Upper East Side store. And Webb being the boss, people sprung into action immediately. The maintenance department hastily replaced the mirror, at a cost of approximately $4,000.

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This might seem like a happy ending to the story. But soon Webb’s COO called her to explain something. The crack Webb had just seen in the mirror in fact wasn’t the same crack that she had seen months prior.  That original mirror had already been replaced--again, at the cost of thousands of dollars--but the second mirror cracked in the same place. Realizing that there must be some underlying structural reason for an identical crack to spring up a second time, people Webb had hired were already investigating what was going on. As the COO told Landau,

“I know Alli wants it fixed immediately, but we can’t keep spending $4,000 to fix a mirror.”

Instead, the COO said, he'd put a team of people on it to investigate the deeper cause.

What they discovered was a New York problem. A subway train ran directly underneath, sending vibrations up in such a way as to make the mirror particularly vulnerable. The current installation was insufficient--it would require different insulation or bracing to prevent the problem from happening again.

For Webb and Landau, it was a lesson in learning when to let go. Two people can’t possibly run a 2,000-person organization themselves.   Landau, almost apologetic for the lingering micromanagerial tendencies of himself and his sister, explains.   

“We never meant this to be the big business it is today.  One thing Alli and I have had to grapple with as we grow is, ‘How do you manage to scale an organization? How do Alli and I evolve now that we can’t touch every detail and get to know every employee, and have to delegate responsibility?’” (Landau himself recently stepped down as CEO, acknowledging that the company has grown so large that his own entrepreneurial skill set is less relevant.)

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Webb and Landau have had to slowly, painfully train both themselves and their employees on following the new chains of command that fit an increasingly massive business (Drybar opens its 35th location this week).  Landau says.  

“People still want to come to us [from various departments], and we still want to give advice.  But you realize that you’re such a bottleneck if everything has to go through you.”

And bottlenecks are the enemy of scaling.

“You want to give that input because you care so much, it’s your baby--but you have to force yourself to say, ‘Go talk to Dana...’”

Chimes in Webb.  

“That’s tough for me.  If somebody comes to me with a problem, if I say, ‘Just do this, this, and that,’ then they do it. But it messes up the whole system, so I have to learn to filter my feedback through regional managers to keep the chain of command. It’s a major learning adjustment for me.”

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And yet she’s adjusted--or is beginning to.   She says.  

“I’ve gotten better about sending out those emails.  I find out what’s going on before I get upset. Usually people are already on top of things, and it’s gratifying to know we’re building a small team.”

If confronted with a cracked mirror again, says Webb.

"I won’t send emails to 17 people in the company about it."

And what ever became of that Upper East Side mirror? Finally delegating to the proper chain of command led to an enduring fix--and should save the company money in the long run.  Webb says.

“It’s fixed now!  I was just there and it’s fixed--no more crack!"

[Images courtesy of Drybar]

COMMENTARY:   In a blog post dated November 11, 2012, I reviewed Drybar, an up and coming startup which at the time had 16 U.S. salons offering one primary service: washing and blow-drying hair into straight, wavy, "beachy" or other stylish hairdos. Its motto: "No cuts. No color. Just blowouts."   Drybar has more than doubled locations, and now has 35 salons throughout the U.S. with revenues of $22 million up from $20 million in 2012.  They also increased prices from $35 to $40 per blow dry.

 

Courtesy of an article dated December 17, 2013 appearing in Fast Company

DISTIMO ANNOUNCES THE TOP FREE, PAID AND GROSSING GLOBAL APPS FOR JANUARY 2014

We are one month into 2014, meaning it is time for the first month review on the global app markets. In this blog post we highlight the leading free, paid, and grossing apps for the Apple App Store, Google Play, and the Amazon Appstore. The charts in this blog post are based on Distimo AppIQ data, covering the full month of January 2014 on a globally aggregated level.

Top Free Apps

YouTube, Flipagram, and Facebook led the top free global charts in the Apple App Store in the first month of the new year. All three top apps share the common factors of version updates and features in the Apple App Store in categories such as: “New to the App Store?” or “Great Free Apps” among others during January.

The usually paid app PAC-MAN by NAMCO BANDAI Games made a presence in the January free charts, based on a price change strategy. Within one week, while the app was offered for free, the download volumes reached a similar level as Facebook, resulting in rank four of the global free charts. Also on rank five a new app entered the top free positions in the Apple App Store, King’s new title: Farm Heroes Saga. After the game was soft-launched in Canada and a few other countries, the arcade puzzle came to the United States in January, where then over 30 percent of all downloads were generated. Globally, around 60 percent of the new January users downloaded the game on their iPhone.

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Also in the beginning of 2014, the Google Play charts remained mainly consistent, in line with the last months. One change occurred in the free charts, where Clean Master (Cleaner) – FREE, entered the top five at the expense of Skype – free IM & video calls, which moved down to rank seven. Clean Master (Cleaner) – FREE‘s performance seems to indicate the urge to clean up as part of one’s new year’s resolution. After the United States, the cache cleaner app wasmostly installed in India, Russia, and Mexico.

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After the great rise in download volumes during December, the total January downloads were a little lower, but Candy Crush Saga stayed nevertheless on the number one position of the free charts, showing another success for King.com in January. Following the previous success in the Apple App Store and Google Play, Rovio’s Angry Birds Go! now entered the top five free charts on Amazon. Even though the racing game was already available in the Amazon Appstore in September, it was never downloaded as much as in January 2014 before, scoring rank number two. This performance overtook Despicable Me: Minion Rush,Netflix, and Facebook, which completed the January Top 5 in this order.

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Top Paid Apps

In the paid section of Apple’s charts Minecraft – Pocket Edition took the lead once again in January 2014. Continuing a strong performance since its release in December 2013, Cut the Rope 2 followed likewise again on rank two with almost 45 percent of the paid download volume coming from the United States. Heads Up! headed further up to rank three in January. Rank four showed a newly released game from December: Survival Games – Mine Mini Game. The game, published in the adventure and simulation category, admittedly reminds one with some nuances of Mojang’s Minecraft, while JoyDo Entertainment though states not being “associated or connected with Mojang AB.”

Ndemic Creations’ strategy game Plague Inc. concluded the top five paid charts in January 2014. For the Apple App Store, all top five paid apps were games in January and most downloads were generated in the United States and the United Kingdom.

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In line with the Apple App Store, Minecraft – Pocket Edition also took rank number one on Google Play, leaving the other known players in the paid top five behind. While the install volume and therefore the order among those remained mostly stable, Poweramp Full Version Unlocker showed, next to Minecraft – Pocket Edition, the only significant move from rank five in December 2013 up to rank three in January 2014.

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Minecraft – Pocket Edition was the most popular paid app in the Amazon Appstore for the complete year 2013, and continued to lead the paid charts also in January 2014 by far, proving once again Mojang’s cross store power.

With about half the amount of paid downloads, Scribblenauts Remix remained as well on its December position on rank number two, traced by Plants vs. Zombies (Kindle Tablet Edition) on rank three. With a significant increase in paid downloads, Disney’s Temple Run: Oz reached rank number four.

While the sequel Cut the Rope 2 already made a successful appearance in the Apple’s charts (as seen above), the original Cut the Rope edition re-entered the top five in January again in the Amazon paid charts.

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Top Grossing Apps

January 2014 is the third consecutive month, in which the top grossing apps for the Apple App Store remained unchanged. From December to January all top five titles stayed on the same positions, allowing Supercell’s Clash of Clans to continue the lead. After the reported Christmas spike in downloads and revenue, it was very interesting to see that the revenue volume did not drop significantly in January. On the contrary, Game of War – Fire Age for example, even increased its revenue in the first month of 2014, compared to December 2013.

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The known battle from the Apple App Store between Clash of Clans and Candy Crush Saga truly continues on Google Play. In January 2014, Clash of Clans re-conquered once again the top of the grossing charts, resulting in Candy Crush Saga moving down to rank two.
With continuing success in Japan パズル＆ドラゴンズ(Puzzle & Dragons) remained on global rank three, followed by a fellow Japanese top title LINE Pokopang, which moved one position up to rank four.

In addition to Clash of Clans’ number one position, the Finish company had another reason to celebrate in January 2014: Supercell’s other top title: Hay Day also entered the top five grossing charts on Google Play. The app was released in mid-November on Google Play and has since then consistently increased its revenue. After the United States, most revenue was generated in Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, and France. With this move, Supercell placed two top titles within the top five grossing charts on both major app stores.

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Taking a look at both grossing charts, the Apple App Store and Google Play have now, in the beginning of 2014, four out of five top titles in common. For the coming months of the year it will be interesting to see whether this similarity will continue.

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Also in 2014, we will continue our well received market analysis, showing the development of both, Google Play and the Apple App Store in terms of market share. The graph above displays the past six months, showing the development of the relative market shares between the Apple App Store and Google Play*.

After the reported December increase in revenues on both platforms, one could likely expect a drop in revenues after the rise in December 2013. The beginning of the new year, however, showed a different development. In January 2014, revenues even increased, though only a little: the combined revenue from both stores grew by 1 percent.

Instead of a drop, the graph above shows pretty leveled slopes between December 2013 and January 2014, with nearly unchanged market shares.

Looking back at August 2013, the Apple App Store increased its revenue by 27 percent. Google Play increased its revenue by 44 percent over the last six months. Despite this growth, Google Play’s relative market share was still at 38 percent, compared to 62 percent in favor of the Apple App Store in January 2014.

^* This analysis is based on comparing the revenue generated from the app stores of the following 34 countries:  Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, and Vietnam. These countries are chosen for this analysis, as revenue is generated for both stores in each country.

For those of you interested in data about the most popular free, paid and grossing applications on a daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis, Distimo’s recently updated leaderboards are a great resource for further research. These leaderboards list applications and publishers per country and per category for the Apple App Store for iPhone, the Apple App Store for iPad, Google Play and the Amazon Appstore.

Combining the data from the monthly leaderboards across all countries with enriched Distimo AppIQ data allows us to analyze the most successful apps worldwide as presented in this blog post.

 

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Top Global Apps – January 2014

We are one month into 2014, meaning it is time for the first month review on the global app markets. In this blog post we highlight the leading free, paid, and grossing apps for the Apple App Store, Google Play, and the Amazon Appstore. The charts in this blog post are based on Distimo AppIQ data, covering the full month of January 2014 on a globally aggregated level.

Top Free Apps

YouTube, Flipagram, and Facebook led the top free global charts in the Apple App Store in the first month of the new year. All three top apps share the common factors of version updates and features in the Apple App Store in categories such as: “New to the App Store?” or “Great Free Apps” among others during January.

The usually paid app PAC-MAN by NAMCO BANDAI Games made a presence in the January free charts, based on a price change strategy. Within one week, while the app was offered for free, the download volumes reached a similar level as Facebook, resulting in rank four of the global free charts. Also on rank five a new app entered the top free positions in the Apple App Store, King’s new title: Farm Heroes Saga. After the game was soft-launched in Canada and a few other countries, the arcade puzzle came to the United States in January, where then over 30 percent of all downloads were generated. Globally, around 60 percent of the new January users downloaded the game on their iPhone.

Also in the beginning of 2014, the Google Play charts remained mainly consistent, in line with the last months. One change occurred in the free charts, where Clean Master (Cleaner) – FREE, entered the top five at the expense of Skype – free IM & video calls, which moved down to rank seven. Clean Master (Cleaner) – FREE‘s performance seems to indicate the urge to clean up as part of one’s new year’s resolution. After the United States, the cache cleaner app was mostly installed in India, Russia, and Mexico.After the great rise in download volumes during December, the total January downloads were a little lower, but Candy Crush Saga stayed nevertheless on the number one position of the free charts, showing another success for King.com in January. Following the previous success in the Apple App Store and Google Play, Rovio’s Angry Birds Go! now entered the top five free charts on Amazon. Even though the racing game was already available in the Amazon Appstore in September, it was never downloaded as much as in January 2014 before, scoring rank number two. This performance overtook Despicable Me: Minion Rush,Netflix, and Facebook, which completed the January Top 5 in this order.Top Paid Apps

In the paid section of Apple’s charts Minecraft – Pocket Edition took the lead once again in January 2014. Continuing a strong performance since its release in December 2013, Cut the Rope 2 followed likewise again on rank two with almost 45 percent of the paid download volume coming from the United States. Heads Up! headed further up to rank three in January. Rank four showed a newly released game from December: Survival Games – Mine Mini Game. The game, published in the adventure and simulation category, admittedly reminds one with some nuances of Mojang’s Minecraft, while JoyDo Entertainment though states not being “associated or connected with Mojang AB.”

Ndemic Creations’ strategy game Plague Inc. concluded the top five paid charts in January 2014. For the Apple App Store, all top five paid apps were games in January and most downloads were generated in the United States and the United Kingdom.In line with the Apple App Store, Minecraft – Pocket Edition also took rank number one on Google Play, leaving the other known players in the paid top five behind. While the install volume and therefore the order among those remained mostly stable, Poweramp Full Version Unlocker showed, next to Minecraft – Pocket Edition, the only significant move from rank five in December 2013 up to rank three in January 2014.  Minecraft – Pocket Edition was the most popular paid app in the Amazon Appstore for the complete year 2013, and continued to lead the paid charts also in January 2014 by far, proving once again Mojang’s cross store power.

With about half the amount of paid downloads, Scribblenauts Remix remained as well on its December position on rank number two, traced by Plants vs. Zombies (Kindle Tablet Edition) on rank three. With a significant increase in paid downloads, Disney’s Temple Run: Oz reached rank number four.

While the sequel Cut the Rope 2 already made a successful appearance in the Apple’s charts (as seen above), the original Cut the Rope edition re-entered the top five in January again in the Amazon paid charts.

Courtesy of an blog post dated February 6, 2014 appearing in Distimo

http://www.distimo.com/blog/2014_02_top-global-apps-january-2014/

8THBRIDGE RESEARCH SHOWS SOCIAL COMMERCE ON THE RISE AS BRANDS TURN TO SOCIAL DISCOVERY TO GENERATE SALES

The size of a social network often determines its usefulness as a marketing tool.

The fact that Facebook is still used by more than 70 percent of US adult and that Pinterest became the fastest growing network after a few years of existence, it was only natural that marketers would use the platform for advertising and marketing.

However, social media is more than just a place for ads. More important than the size of a social network is how the users engage with the brands they follow on that network. Recent research has shown that social media excels in producing meaningful engagement and product discovery.

This post will examine some of the new studies that show the growing value of social commerce for retailers in 2014.

8thBridge recently released its third annual Social Commerce IQ report, which analyzed the social commerce strategies of 872 retailers for the second half of 2013.  The report followed the company’s engagement on seven social platforms including: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+ and Vine.

How Social Commerce Drives Incremental Sales For Online Retailers Through Shared Product Experiences and Product Recommendations. (Click Image To Enlarge)

Four areas were taken into account when calculating the SCIQ scores:

• Brand awareness on social networks
• Social upstream traffic
• Website social lift
• Social CRM.

The report noted that the most intelligent companies (the ones with the hights SCIQs) were combining social media and ecommerce in new ways.

Wade Gerten, CEO of 8thBridge Inc said. 

“Social Commerce has rapidly changed from ecommerce transactions on social networks to focus on empowering people to discover new product ideas from each other while they shop with the brands they love. The launching of social discovery and curation solutions this year by some of the world’s largest retailers, Toys R Us, eBay, Walmart, Target, and Amazon, is a strong indication that on-site social discovery has gone mainstream.”

Social sharing options on retail ecommerce sites are a key featuring driving product discovery. Adding a “Pin It” or “Like It” button to ecommerce sites greatly increases the web traffic to those pages. Pinterest’s popularity with marketers is growing because it allows consumers to discover new products from brands they like or they're from the people they follow.

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During the time period examined, more retailers used the Pinterest Pin (62 percent) than Facebook’s equivalent ‘Like’ (59 percent). However, according to the report, “even though the Facebook Like button is less prevalent on the product page than the Pinterest Pin It button and Tweet button, customers are sharing products more often on Facebook than on Pinterest or Twitter.”

It is likely that Pinterest will continue to grow in importance as more retailers decide to focus on the image-friendly Pinterest that can also brings in more money per customer on average. According to data from IBM, on Christmas Day 2013, shoppers referred to retailers by Pinterest spent $109.93 per customer on average compared to $60.48 from the average consumers following a trail from Facebook. On the other hand, in total, Facebook made produced more sales due to the volume of traffic and the fact that they converted visits into sales 3.5 times more often than Pinterest.

More than half of the companies in the 8thBridge study indicated that they planned to redesign their websites in the coming year to improve social commerce. Whenever they planned on doing it, 86 percent of the companies said they would include social sharing options in any future site redesigns. Similarly, by the end of 2014, more than half of the companies will be using social logins that make it easier for the consumer to log into the ecommerce site and to share content they find with their friends.

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The researchers concluded that, “the results show that the most effective social media marketers are not only present on the social networks and drive customer engagement, but they also have great website social experiences that incorporate customer curation (or collections), crowd-sourced discovery and social rewards.”

It’s important for business owners and marketers to move beyond old ways of thinking when deciding how to use social media for marketing. Businesses that simply use social networks as platforms to post marketing slogans are missing out the massive opportunity that a highly interactive and heavily connected social network present.

As the data from 8thBridge and the IBM Christmas Day analysis show, there is a lot of money out there for marketers and entrepreneurs that figure out how to make social commerce work for their business.

COMMENTARY:  The third annual Social Commerce IQ (SCIQ) report analyzes the social commerce strategies of 872 retailers.  The number of retailers analyzed this year was almost double the number analyzed in last year’s report, to include nearly all of the brands from companies in the Internet Retailer 2013 Top 500 Guide and additional brands Internet Retailer determined were up and coming.

Wade Gerten, CEO of 8thBridge, Inc. said.  

“Social Commerce has rapidly changed from ecommerce transactions on social networks to focus on empowering people to discover new product ideas from each other while they shop with the brands they love.  The launching of social discovery and curation solutions this year by some of the world’s largest retailers, Toys”R”Us, eBay, Walmart, Target, and Amazon, is a strong indication that on-site social discovery has gone mainstream.”

7 social platforms were analyzed for the 872 retailers including: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, and Vine. 4 areas were taken into account when calculating the SCIQ scores: brand awareness on social networks, social upstream traffic, website social lift, and Social CRM.

The top 25 companies identified in the SCIQ are:

1. Free People
2. Lancome
3. Smashbox
4. Lolly Wolly Doodle
5. Plndr
6. Target
7. Bourbon & Boots
8. Toys”R”Us
9. WWE
10. ModCloth
11. Fab.com
12. BodyBuilding.com
13. Sears Holdings
14. Diamond Candles
15. TheKnot.com
16. American Eagle Outfitters
17. Birchbox
18. Zappos.com
19. BucketFeet
20. Etsy
21. Vans
22. ShoeDazzle
23. CCS
24. JustFab
25. Vat19.com

Findings Included:

• Pinterest’s Pin It button overtook Facebook’s Like button on the product page
• 86% of retailers planning site redesigns for 2014 are planning to add social shopping features
• Engagement on Facebook brand pages was down 27%
• Eight of the companies in the Top 25 list are among the Top 50 in the Internet Retailer 2013 Top 500 Guide

Free digital download (133 page report).  CLICK HERE.

Buy a hard copy of the 2013 Social Commerce IQ: Retail for $49 (includes free shipping). Currently shipping within 2 business days.

Courtesy of an article dated February 3, 2014 appearing in Jacksonville Business Journal and an article dated May 16, 2011 appearing in Digital Buzz

INFOGRAPHIC: THE MOBILE LANDSCAPE FOR 2014, FOR EXECUTING YOUR MOBILE MARKETING INITIATIVES

The average American spends almost 2 hours per day on a mobile device that adds up to 57,293 hours over a lifetime. By 2015, mobile marketing in the U.S. will generate $400 billion compared to $139 billion in 2012. 

The following infographic presents 25 interesting statistics about current trends in mobile, the mobile market share, the growth of mobile usage and more.  Use these stats to optimize your strategy for mobile marketing and strengthen your brand’s reach.

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Courtesy of an infographic created by WebDAM for the year ending 2013

HOW TO CREATE THE PERFECT ONLINE DATING PROFILE IN 25 INFOGRAPHICS

Every day, millions of singles crawl dating sites and apps, flipping through photos and profiles of potential matches.

He’s got nice hair! She’s a skydiver! He’s a pastry chef! Users skim profiles looking for a reason to send a message or dismiss (hint: do not mention your mom or exes). Finding a date, let alone love, just isn’t easy—even though there are plenty of apps for that.

WIRED couldn’t help but think there might be a better way to optimize your chances, so they pulled massive amounts of data from OkCupid and Match.com, searching for tips that might help you master Internet dating and find someone awesome.

Call it the algorithm method: Working with data crunchers at the dating sites, WIRED put together 25 tips for writing the perfect profile, selecting the right photo, and really understanding your audience.  They analyzed the 1,000 most popular words on both men and women’s profiles, tabulated the most popular movies and TV shows, and crunched stats on what people consider their best feature vs. what features their potential dates are attracted to. They even scoured the top 400 most popular OkCupid profiles—the hottest people on the site in ten US cities—to see what their profile pics could tell the rest of us about attracting a date.

This chart shows 380 of the top 1000 most commonly used words in profiles on OkCupid. The color-coding shows the average attractiveness rating of the people using those words.Click here to enlarge.  INFOGRAPHICS BY JOSEF REYESClick Image To Enlarge

WIRED couldn’t have done any of this without the help of the data maestros at Match and OkCupid: Christian Rudder, cofounder and president of OkCupid, and Jim Talbott, director of consumer insights at Match.com. These guys and their data teams ran queries of all kinds and pulled spreadsheet after spreadsheet of information to try and answer our strange questions. WIRED also needed OkCupid to get permission from their users to enable us to publish those popular profile pics. In short, WIRED couldn’t have scraped all this data and derived this advice without the help of these talented data crunchers who are as dedicated to data analysis as we are.

Buried in all that data were some surprising facts about how to optimize your dating profile. If you’re a gay man, pose outdoors—48 percent of the profile pics of the most popular gay men on OkCupid were snapped outside. (It was 80 percent in Atlanta!) Selfies are acceptable for women (45 percent of top-ranking straight women used them, as did 4 percent of lesbians), but not so much for men. Enroll in a yoga class and learn to surf—they’re the most popular activities for men and women alike, so either desirable singles are super mellow or it’s aspirational, and everyone wants to be mellow. Mentioning cats is fine, but mention “my cats” and you’re a weirdo. The data shows that lesbians appreciate nice legs, gay men prize nice arms, and straight women and men are looking for flat stomachs above all else. The tips got pretty specific in some cases: It’s 28 percent better for a male to refer to females as women rather than girls, and men who use “whom” get 31 percent more contacts from the opposite sex.

Courtesy of an article dated February 3, 2014 appearing in WIRED