Convert Customers into Evangelists

Michael Krauss:

Marketing is not a do-it-to-the-customer, one-way process. The highest aim of marketing is to create products and stories about them that empower customers to sell for you. Don’t simply create loyal customers. Create customers who are enraptured with your product and sell for you. Turn customers on so they will turn others into customers.

Think of eBay conclaves where loyal users tell eBay CEO Meg Whitman how to run the company and what acquisitions to make. Hark back to 1984 and the launch of Apple’s Macintosh computer. Think of all those Mac users who tried to convert you to their form of technology.

What is a Torrent?

Patrick Norton:

Developed by Bram Cohen as a solution to large-file download bottlenecks—not to mention the problem of “leeches,” people who download files but then don’t share them as uploads—BitTorrent is a very effective tool for distributing big files online. And with good reason: BitTorrent works amazingly well to spread out the burden of creating thousands of copies of a file across the clients, or peers, that are downloading the file. That means there’s no large central server to keep running, or massive bandwidth bills to pay for. It also means we can download, say, a 600MB Linux distro in a few short minutes.

Marketing Tips for New Entrepreneurs

Sara Needlemen:

Today you absolutely need a quality presence on the Internet, and that needs to be crisp, clean and informative. Consumers need answers to questions quickly, and, online, it’s just like the telephone. People have the same high expectations in dealing with your business. They need to get answers to their questions quickly. They need to know what products or services you offer, how to find them and what differentiates you from your competition.