Saving your business money and helping the environment

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) released a report that states that businesses in the UK could save over £6 billion by putting some easy money saving steps in place.

By managing resources efficiently small businesses could reportedly save themselves over £100,000 per year as well as help to bring down the levels of greenhouse gas emissions.

It’s also worth remembering that during a time of recession small businesses could use £100,000 in a much more useful way such as investing in sales, marketing and product development than throwing it away on utility bills.

Let’s take a brief look at how putting just a few simple steps in place can help optimise your company’s efficiency and save you money:

1. When not being used all office equipment should be switched-off. This includes overnight, weekends, bank holidays. Switching-off just one computer and monitor could save you up to £35.00 per year.

2. Switching off lights in empty rooms and using energy efficient light bulbs could save your company up to 15%.

3. Constantly dripping taps could cost your business a further £400.00 a year. So ensuring you turn taps off fully or spending a little to get a tap fixed could save you a lot of money.

4. Partnering with other businesses to recycle waste or selling it to be used as raw materials could save you 4% of your annual turnover with waste management techniques such as this.

5. Your company could save 8% on your company’s heating bill by simply turning down the thermostat by a single degree!

6. Save up to a month’s worth of fuel over a year with smarter driving techniques such as reducing load and good vehicle maintenance.

7. Invest in efficient equipment to help cut your energy, transport and water costs. It is also worth bearing in mind that the government are running an interest-free energy efficient loans through the Carbon Trust.

8. Refill inkjet cartridges instead of buying new ones. Refilling old cartridges in printers, fax machines and photocopiers is a fraction of the cost of buying them brand new. In addition to this use email where possible and if you do need to print out documents try setting your computer to print double-sided to reduce the amount of paper used.

9. Publicise your company’s commitment to reducing your environmental impact as more than a third of customers will usually favour recyclable products or those with minimal packaging.

10. Some suppliers offer “take-back” schemes for unused products. You may be able to get some money back for them.

Useful links:

Making your small business more energy efficient

Zero percent interest loans for energy efficient equipment

Carbon Trust

DEFRA

Photo by Danilo Rizzuti

Solar energy.

Perfect!

Eco-friendly. Cutting-Edge. Attractive. Modern.

By having my product utilise solar power it will feel even more unique, as well as increasing the battery ,ife of the product while it is in use!!! And now, solar panels do not have to be expensive. An example of this is the FreeLoader Pico, a very new product from British company SolarTechnology, the Pico costs (RRP) only £16.99, it is very small and very functional.

This is a perfect example of how i could integrate  solar technology into my product for small cost, still maintaining the product’s looks and enabling me to have a new ‘eco-friendly’ aspect to the D-Note

Something that has struck me quite a lot since researching into my target audience, is that students are more concerned with being environmentally friendly than the average consumer. Whether this is because they have more to look forward to or because they are more academic and realise the risk, is almost non a concern for me.

However, i feel that by making my product eco-friendly (or at least appearing eco friendly) it would appeal more to my target consumers.

With this in mind, there are certain elements i would want to include:

• Energy Efficiency – For two reasons, i feel this is very important. Obviously, as i have mentioned, the eco-friendly aspect should appeal to my target audience, but also because the device is portable and so running on rechargeable batteries, the more efficient the product is with energy, the better the product shall be.
• Solar panels – Once again, with the eco-friendly aspect, solar panels will be a very good selling point. And o top of this, it will allow the battery to last yet longer. A bit about solar tech will be in a later blog.
• Eco-happy materials. A possible design for the D-Note included it being made of wood. Wood is a renewable resource, looks very stylish and would fit the ‘feel’ of the product (as it’s a note pad = paper = wood). However, it was decided that in terms of maximising style, it would be better to have a brushed aluminium look, ala the macbook pro. This does not mean being un-eco though, as the Macbooks have shown. Apple have a reputation for being very good environmentally, so mirroring the look of their product will be a good thing

So the following is just a moodboard i whipped up. Trying to reflect the styles and looks that my targt audience (Students) would be looking at.

In terms of colour trends and general styles, from the top left we have a variety of bright colours, with a more playful, fun look to the products, while going towards the bottom right we tend to see more classical colours, more monotone, and while stylish certainly have a more ‘business’ feel to them

It should be noted at this point, that i see the D-Note leaning towards the bottom-right of the board, the purpose will generally be for work, and so a slight ‘business’ feel should be present.

Jeff Atwood, of “Coding Horror” fame, once something like “If our code didn’t use abstractions, it would be a convoluted mess“. As software projects get larger and larger, using more and more abstraction technologies is the key to creating robust and maintainable code.

Using C++ as an example language, the figure below shows the advances in abstraction technologies that have taken place over the years. Each step up the chain was designed to make large scale, domain-specific application development easier and more manageable.

The relentless advances in software technology designed to keep complexity in check is a double-edged sword. Unless one learns and practices using the new abstraction techniques in a sandbox, haphazardly incorporating them into the code can do more damage than good.

One issue is that when young developers are hired into a growing company to maintain legacy code that doesn’t incorporate the newer complexity-busting language features, they become accustomed to the old and unmaintainable style that is encrusted into the code. Because of schedule pressure and no company time allocated to experiment with and learn new language features, they shoe horn in changes without employing any of the features that would reduce the technical debt incurred over years of growing the software without any periodic refactoring. The problem is exacerbated by not having a set of regression tests in place to ensure that nothing gets broken by any major refactoring effort .

The company are a natural spin out of an established business in Birmingham known for it’s innovative design, manufacture and supply of highly specialised products in the personal safety, emergency services and defence markets.

Background and introduction

Their most recent innovation, a personal cooling system, was developed in response to an enquiry from one of their key clients, who tried and tested it’s functionality, also identified an alternative application and significant benefits, for users of chemical suits, particularly in hostile heat environments. It was quickly established that the opportunity presented by this spin off product, was considerable and a new company has been formed to commercialise this first, of a range of anticipated products. All associated IP has been transferred to the new company and a sector experienced management team is being recruited to exploit a pipeline of opportunities that can be evidenced.

Market, performance and funding

The key markets & routes are well known and access/contact already well established in the sectors that are associated with the use of CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear) protection suits and for staff working in high temperature areas. The product has shown not only durability but enables the user to maintain high performance levels for far longer periods in exacting environments.

The company has established strong relationships with a number of identified users and the largest supplier of CBRN suits are at advanced stages of negotiation to supply units within 3 months of manufacturing, leading to a sales profile of c2k units in year one rising to 12k in year 2, with sales into other sectors ramping up revenues to from £300k year one to £5m by year 3 and profits approaching £1.5m

A comprehensive business plan has been prepared indicating a funding requirement of £450k, of which £250k will be raised as equity immediately against a valuation of £1m. A regional VC is considering a match investment. The balance of £200k over the following 15 months may be debt or trade finance based.

The operation is scalable with controllable overheads in line with sales. The market for the product is sustainable and has all the attributes associated with long term potential that makes an exit via a trade sale to an existing supplier of industrial and military personal protective equipment a realistic probability.

Today more than ever, consumers are overwhelmed with choices, and distractions. The cost of attracting users to your website continues to increase and keeping them engaged is more important than ever.

Engagement doesn’t end with an individual browser reading content or clicking on an ad. Rather, engagement is an ongoing process that results in loyal customers who come back again and again, becoming more vested in your web site.

How can you make sure you’re engaging and keeping customers?

In order to create a loyal following, there are some basic principles you need to consider. From first impressions to life-long membership, put yourself in the shoes of your browsers and make their experience a valuable one.

• Reduce Clutter. How many times have you visited a website only to be overwhelmed and confused? What is this site about you may have asked yourself. Or perhaps you found yourself asking, ‘Where is the information I’m looking for?

Don’t ask your browsers or potential customers to figure this out. Make your site clutter free and create a                      visual priority that emphasizes the information, resources, or actions your browsers want. By reducing                        obstacles you build trust among new web site visitors and allow for simple decision making – which                            benefits everyone.

• Make Navigation Intuitive. There are many ways to navigate a web page but intuition rules the day. Don’t try to get fancy with your navigation or overuse java script. Basic navigation that follows current convention is the best way to lead individuals through your web site to the information they’re looking for.

• Make The Initial Site Interaction Relevant. When a browser reaches your web site, you have less than seven seconds to get them engaged. Making your initial site interaction relevant to what individuals are looking for is essential for keeping them interacting long term.

If you are promoting your web site with Google Adwords, or any pay per click advertising for that matter, be                sure to create customer landing pages that are truly relevant to the individual who clicks-through your ad.                  Once you’ve established relevancy, you can move them deeper into your content, tools, and resources.

• Ensure That Your Content Is Up-to-date. Web site content that isn’t up to date does not serve your audience and browsers are likely to move on. One way to ensure that information is timely is by providing a feed of relevant news or information. If including static text on your web pages, try not to include specific dates. However, if you must publish dates, be sure to update this information on a regular basis.

• Start An Interaction With Your Users. Each time a browser views your web page, you have an opportunity to interact with them. Don’t let this opportunity pass you by. One great way to interact is to offer something of value at no cost. This can be a white paper, access to an exclusive list, or simply a 30 day free trial. Be sure to capture an individual’s valid email address and include them on your mailing list. An auto-responder is best if you wish to engage these individuals on an ongoing basis.

• Provide Plenty Of Support. Don’t hesitate to offer support right from your home page. Prominently display your 800 number, support email address, and additional information for your prospects and customers such as mailing address. This information is viewed favorably by search engines and also creates a sense of legitimacy. Contact information builds trust among prospects and elicits interest in your company.

• Make Sharing Easy. Once you’ve made your web site easy to use, don’t hesitate to offer browsers the ability to share your web site with others. This can be in the form of a simple widget that allows users to bookmark your page, subscribe to an Rss feed, or submit your content to popular news sites like Digg.com.

Individuals are much more likely to visit a web site based on a friend’s recommendation versus some other type of marketing initiative. Leverage the power of viral marketing with easy sharing tools.

Your web site can be your greatest asset. Unfortunately, many marketers and website owners are so focused on increasing traffic that they lose site of the audience that’s already visiting their web pages but are simply not converting.

Don’t make the same mistake. Improve the quality of you site through relevant content that is up-to-date and easy to find. Once you’ve engaged users, encourage them to share. Doing so will make your site perform better, increase conversions, and deliver value for all involved.

www.RaziCommunications.com

info@razicommunications.com

Razi Communications is an Identity Company offering full-service public relations, advertising, marketing and Internet-based programs. We work with clients to help them discover their strengths and the things that make them unique and then help communicate those strengths into effective marketing campaigns. We bring your story to life in language that inspires and motivates utilizing traditional and new media.

Cambridge Industrial Design has set up a group on LinkedIn for those interested in Manufacturing Abroad.  The group is for everyone involved in product development and manufacture.

Maybe you have experience of manufacturing in China or elsewhere in Asia.  Are you are looking for a new sheet metal supplier in Europe and don’t know where to start?  How do you control quality and design changes?  If you have some great tips for manufacturing abroad join here and get involved.

I have spent the last 20 years of my professional career building web-based products and services and growing businesses on the web. During that time I have worked for early stage startups,  fortune 500 behemoths and everything in between. Most recently I worked as the  CTO of Napster, a late stage startup. I had a lot of fun there. We rebuilt all of the consumer facing applications, beat waterfall and a “business vs. technology” mindset out of the organization, and generally introduced elements of risk taking and excitement back into the culture.  But probably the most interesting and valuable part of my Napster experience was  the acquisition of Napster by BestBuy in October of 2008. As a result of that event, I learned a great deal about the differences in philosophy, attitude, and approach that inherently exist between a mature multi-billion dollar corporation and a smaller online startup.  Though many of the words and concepts we used to talk about markets, products, consumers, and projects were the same, our interpretations were very different.  At first we ignored or marginalized this, thinking that by working together we would ultimately end up “on the same page”. Eventually, it became obvious that we needed to spend a fair amount of time developing a common language and digging into the perspectives everyone was bringing to the table.  I am a strong proponent of both formal approaches to Customer Development (Steve Blank, Eric Ries) and lean/agile approaches to Product Development (Lean, Scrum, XP).  I bring this up because my thoughts and attitudes in these two areas color how I view  products, markets, businesses, and consumers and definitely influenced my experience with the BestBuy acquisition. As the transition progressed and we all began to acquire real working experience with one another, I identified a set of issues that I believe lay at the basis of many of the challenges we faced.

1. Empirical approaches to Product Development are easy to talk about but hard to do  (deterministic approaches die hard)
2. Flexibility is easy to champion and talk about but hard to build into any culture that has focused on efficiency for many years
3. Too many independent and separate  functional disciplines creates waste and opportunity cost
4. Thinking about technical risk is easier than thinking about market risk
5. “Complete” is not a meaningful concept and its pursuit causes problems (No Pareto)
6. Easier to focus on reducing internal risks than product/market fit risks
7. Hierarchical decision-making is more comfortable than demonstration based decision-making
8. Corporate IT organizational cultures are completely different from product development organizational cultures
9. Product Management is a poorly understood discipline
10. With large cash reserves can come a willingness to create complexity where it is not needed

I am going to spend the next couple of weeks detailing each of these observations and talking about how I am applying some of what I learned in my current situation

What do French pastry vegetarian pizza, Buffalo-style chicken meatballs, and orange citrus soufflés have in common? All of these products were on display at the recent Private Label Manufacturers Assoc. Trade Show in Rosemont, Ill. As private label foods continue to climb up the quality ladder, they are looking to restaurants and chefs for inspiration when developing new product concepts. This culinary trend was evident at the show, which was home to a multitude of food manufacturers offering value-added frozen and chilled appetizers, entrees, snacks, and desserts—many with an ethnic twist.

Olive Street Table, Santa Barbara, Calif., sampled several varieties of its French pastry pizza. The frozen vegetarian products feature a flaky crust and all-natural ingredients. The company has applied for a patent on the process for making the French pastry dough (pizza crust) in industrial-size batches. Celebrity Chef Bobby Flay named the Mediterranean-style pizza as one of his favorite products at the 2009 Fancy Food Show in New York. Gianni Foods, Linthicum, Md., showcased its Make & Bake Pizza Kit, which includes its own ovenable baking pan, crust, and individual pouches of cheese, sauce, and pepperoni. The 27-oz product may be refrigerated or frozen.

Rosina Food Products, Buffalo, N.Y., sampled Buffalo-style chicken meatballs. Made with all white meat chicken and Buffalo wing-style hot sauce, the products can be used as a standalone appetizer or as a pizza topping. Concord Premium Meats, Quebec, Canada, grilled chicken and pork kabobs. Product varieties include Chipotle Seasoned and Lemon & Herb Seasoned. The fresh, marinated product comes in a 16-oz package—four 4-oz skewers.

Cuisine Solutions, Alexandria, Va., a frozen food manufacturer specializing in sous vide cooking, displayed Bake & Serve Orange Citrus Soufflés. Double B Foods, DeSoto, Texas, showcased Mini Bagel Dogs—mini frankfurters enrobed in chewy pretzel dough. The chilled, 8-count product comes in a 16-oz bag. Preparation is fairly simple; just heat and serve.

The growth of restaurant-inspired foods is one direction for store brands, which may benefit from licensing or tie-ins with established or up-and-coming celebrity chefs.

What trends did you uncover at the Private Label Trade Show?
Bob Swientek
Director of Publications
Editor-in-Chief, Food Technology magazine

If you’ve ever Googled your name, you know how important managing your reputation online can be. Each day, thousands of individuals are searching online for information about others simply by searching on Google or other leading search engines. With information being so readily available, managing your reputation is more important than ever.

How to Manage Your Reputation Online

Fortunately, managing your reputation online isn’t all that difficult, but it does take work. Here are 7 basic steps you can take to ensure that your reputation doesn’t become negatively impacted by what’s being said about you online.

1. See where you stand. Start your reputation management initiative by Googling your name. Try it with quotes and with out (first and last name together). Look through each of your results on page one and page two of Google. Are there any there are are negative or you wish to remove?

2. Set up a Google alert. Visit Google and set up an alert for your name. After setting up the alert Google will send you and email to confirm that you wish to receive the updates. Accept the alert and each time your name is published to the Web, you’ll know about it.

3. Contact website owners for name removal. If there are sites that include your name and commentary that is less than desirable, contact the appropriate websites requesting that the information be removed. More often than not, website owners will agree to remove your name and/or inappropriate information.

4. Purchase a domain with your name. Add sites and webpages associated with your name and watch negative search results get pushed lower on Google rankings. Visit GoDaddy or another provider of website URLs and hosting, and purchase a domain that contains your name. Even if your name is rather common, experiment with variations until your name can be established in the form of a dot com. Once you own a domain, publish a webpage with your personal profile.

5. Start a blog under your name. Blogger is a great tool for setting up your own blog which can be used to publish information about yourself. Popular blog sites are often picked up by Google and you can control the content. Be sure to sign up for Technorati after your blog has been published. Submit your blog for review and its popularity will increase, improving search rankings and continuing to push down negative search results.

6. Free press release. Use free-press-release.com or a similar free press release site to publish favorable information about your and your reputation. This form of reputation management is easy and costs nothing. Be sure to use your name throughout the release and in the release title.

7. Author articles in your field. Publish article relative to a particular topic or area in which you’ve done some work or have experience. Use article distribution serivces to build online references to your content. Make sure your articles contain an about the author section that links back to your main website.

There are a variety of strategies you can use to manage online references about you, your family, or others that need to manage their reputation online. Other online sites like Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, YouTube, and Squidoo, offer ample opportunity to deliver favorable search results that can push unfavorable results down in search engine rankings. The key is to start today – proactively manage your reputation and put yourself in a favorable light.

www.RaziCommunications.com

info@razicommunications.com

Razi Communications is an Identity Company offering full-service public relations, advertising, marketing and Internet-based programs. We work with clients to help them discover their strengths and the things that make them unique and then help communicate those strengths into effective marketing campaigns. We bring your story to life in language that inspires and motivates utilizing traditional and new media.

Last week’s Global Forum for Health Research meeting in Havana featured many talks about technology innovation. Buzzwords such as “capacity building,” “technology transfer,” and “innovation networks” were bandied about. Surprisingly, however, true product innovators were dramatically underrepresented at the meeting. There were a few basic scientists and almost no representatives of the most innovative sectors of the biopharma and diagnostics industries—the small to medium-sized companies whose lifeblood is turning basic discoveries into products that meet pressing health care needs. Product development experts, meaning professionals who can understand and assess technology but also have the bruises that come from interacting with regulators and customers, could have added to the rich discussions that were already occurring.

One leitmotif of the Forum might be paraphrased as: “We’ve got so many people afflicted by easily treatable or preventable illnesses who are not being helped. Why should we be making any investments in long-term and expensive technological innovations when we aren’t taking advantage of the tools we have today?” And these critics, a minority but a vocal group at the Forum, have an important point: we need to make sure we are doing what we can to alleviate human pain and suffering if a good solution exists today. But in all too many cases—the treatment and diagnosis of tuberculosis, prevention of HIV transmission, vaccination against malaria, and treatment of Chagas disease, for example—the available tools are inadequate, have too many side effects, or simply don’t exist. Thus we need to commit to innovative research and development to solve these and many other medical problems.

And so another theme, expressed powerfully by Melinda Moree, Interim CEO of BIO Ventures for Global Health, and Maria Freire, President of the Lasker Foundation, was that the choice between delivering products now or developing products for the future is a false dichotomy. We need both. Sometimes a good solution is available now but it is ensnared in financing, delivery, or intellectual property issues. We should without hesitation support the use of resources to address health problems that are currently solvable. Sometimes, however, the development of new and imaginative technologies stimulates the global health community with the art of the possible. Sometimes, the ability to treat disease with a novel approach is so transformative — as in the innovations of antiretroviral therapy for HIV — that it leads to revolutionary changes in patient health while strengthening health delivery systems in the process. (On a hopeful note, the initiation of phase 3 testing of a malaria vaccine, developed by GSK Biologicals in collaboration with the Malaria Vaccine Initiative, promises to be such a transformative technology.)

In several instances, academic or policy speakers at the Forum gave vacuous descriptions of product development. Product development was reduced to the transfer of academic research discoveries to manufacturing partners who could then make and sell a product. This caricature of product development does injustice to the many disciplines required to develop products as well as the unpredictable nature of biomedical innovation. So one way to strengthen subsequent meetings would be to include a subset of policy-minded product developers and entrepreneurs who can discuss what it actually takes to finance, organize, and mobilize a product development organization. It is only by bringing together a broad range of disciplines that we will discover new and innovative approaches to finding solutions for pressing global health problems.

– David Cook is the Vice President of Business Development at BIO Ventures for Global Health.

If you’re gonna spend money on training your people, do it right or don’t do it at all.

Assume that a new project is about to start up and the corpo hierarchs decide to use it as a springboard to institutionalizing SysML into its dysfunctional system engineering process. The system engineering team is then sent to a 3 day SysML training course where they get sprayed by a fire hose of detailed SysML concepts, terminology, syntax, and semantics.

Armed with their new training, the system engineering team comes back, generates a bunch of crappy, incomplete, ambiguous, and unhelpful SysML artifacts, and then dumps them on the software, hardware, and test teams. The receiving teams, under the schedule gun and not having been trained to read SysML, ignore the artifacts (while pretending otherwise) and build an unmaintainable monstrosity that just barely works – at twice the cost they would would have spent if no SysML was used. The hierarchs, after comparing product development costs before and after SysML training, declare SysML as a failure and business returns to the same old, same old. Bummer.

So, my target audience is students, this was clear from the beginning.

With this in mind, i have lately been talking to fellow students about a potentiual product such as mine. Opinion has been positive. Three things have been immediate requirements

- Low Price

- Simple to use

- Good to look at

but another function was also hinted at. Many students now not only take notes, but also record the sound of a lecture. Could this product mix the two?!?!

Well, i dont see why not!

Built in dictaphone? check.

Okay, so buttons, i’ll agree, not the most interesting aspect. But important nonetheless. Not many buttons, once again, trying to maintain simplicity.

Does introduce the idea of the menu interface though, just a brief note on that. It’s to be controlled using the arrow and seect buttons, much like a tv menu is controlled by a remote control, for example. simple.

A flow chart this time, i’ll admit i went a little crazy with the pencil, hence these scanned images all coming at once. Still, progress is progress …

The below image charts what i would like to be the user’s interface with the product. Only a brief exploration, but is simple, and i want the product to be simple

So i must apologise for this post. It is my first attempt at a sketch of the product.

Also, during this process, i decided my product neeed a catchier name. Hence, the ‘D-Note’ was born. Catchy, standing for Digital Notepad, the D-Note is an audience friendly name, and is hopefully the final name, though that could change …

Below is just a little diagram of sorts showing my thought process regarding the product.  Click the pic to see the entire image! :0)

In his new book The Design of Business, Dr. Roger Martin explains that the vast majority of companies rely far too heavily on analytical thinking, which merely refines current knowledge, producing small improvements to the status quo. Analytical thinking looks to the past for proof of concept before moving forward. While most companies wish they could come up with the next breakthrough innovation or create an entirely new product category like Facebook, by only practicing analytical thinking they get disappointing results. The vast majority of businesses want “reliability” – clearly defined processes that are easily repeatable and produce the same results. According to Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, to innovate and win, companies need to practice design thinking.

To innovate, companies need to employ more of the characteristics of great design: a deep understanding of the customer or user, creative resolution of opposing goals and tensions, rapid and collaborative prototyping, and continuous modification of ideas and solutions. It means seeing possibility and exploring problems where solutions cannot be found in past experience or proven by data.

Dr. Martin claims businesses need more “validity” – creating the right and best outcomes through more exploration – and less reliance on reliability. Three powerful forces emphasize reliability over validity: the demand for proof of the correctness of a new idea, an aversion to bias, and time/resource constraints. These factors reinforce the bias toward reliability and repeatability over exploration and validity.

Intuitive thinking, or “the art of knowing without reasoning”, is the world of originality and invention. Explaining that neither analysis nor intuition is enough, Martin urges reconciling the two modes of thought, asserting that the most successful businesses will balance analytical mastery and intuitive originality “in a dynamic interplay [he calls] design thinking.”

In 2007 BusinessWeek named Martin one of the ten most influential business professors in the world. an interview with Dr. Martin can be read here.

In today’s web world, one thing is clear. Content is still king. Writing the right kind of content and disturbing that content, also known as article marketing, can help you establish yourself as an expert and improve your online marketing results.

Getting started with article marketing is easy to do and can pay huge dividends. Many individuals use article marketing to improve search engine rankings, to inform, or to pitch products and services they sell. Regardless of your purpose, consider using article marketing as a great way to build a loyal following.

The proliferation of information online has brought with it varying degrees of content. Some content is valid, other content is purely fictional. When you write, be sure to provide references, examples, or quote data from other sources. This helps to build credibility and informs your audience that your content can be trusted. For your article marketing to be effective, follow these guidelines:

Research your niche. Before you begin any writing whatsoever, start by finding a niche that is popular and that you feel you can write about. It should be something you enjoy. If you are not interested in a particular area, it will be difficult to enjoy the process of writing articles.

Create a plan. Are you going to write one article per week or one each day? Think about how much time and energy you want to put into your article writing and for what purpose. If you simply want to write and publish your work, you may only want to do a little bit each day. Once you have a complete work, then you would submit to websites or blogs. On the other hand, if you are looking for improved rankings or sales from your article marketing, your publishing schedule may need to be more aggressive.

Write your article. Write and article on your subject that includes the specific keywords you seek to optimize for. Your article should be between four to seven hundred words. It all depends on the intent and purpose of the article. After you write your article make sure you proof it for spelling and grammatical errors.

Submit your article to article directories. This is a great way to get your information published quickly and easily. Register with an article directory like Ezinearticles or GoArticles. By doing so, you will have a place to submit your articles and build an author profile. Webmasters use these article directories to find content for their website. Additionally, article directories give you added exposure in a given topic area.

Article marketing has many benefits. The most important aspect of article marketing, in my opinion is to clearly understand what you want to use it for, building a plan, and consistently creating and distributing content. This is essential for long term success.

www.RaziCommunications.com

info@razicommunications.com

Razi Communications is an Identity Company offering full-service public relations, advertising, marketing and Internet-based programs. We work with clients to help them discover their strengths and the things that make them unique and then help communicate those strengths into effective marketing campaigns. We bring your story to life in language that inspires and motivates utilizing traditional and new media.

You see them here, you see them there, you see them everywhere. Well, I ran out of them the other day so I had to make a trip to my local stationary store for a resupply.

“Them” is the ubiquitous “Post-it” note pads. As I looked over the vast selection of shapes, sizes, and variations in which this simple little product was now offered, I couldn’t help but admire what the 3M Corporation had done in developing a major product line out of a sticky little note pad.

To learn more about the continuing stream of product innovations, I called 3M and was fortunate enough to speak to Judy Boroski, a manager for 3M’s office products division.

I began the conversation by complimenting Judy on 3M’s success in building a successful product line out of such a simple little product. Mistake #1. Judy replied that 3M preferred to look at the product as a “sophisticated piece of technology that was easy for the customer to use, but difficult to develop and manufacture”.

Don’t laugh, it’s true. Judy was right. I had made a mistake I so often accuse others of making. Once accomplished, success always looks easy from the outside. It’s never as simple as it looks.

The unique adhesive that makes “Post-its” work was developed by Dr. Spencer Silver. After discovering the “adhesive that didn’t act like one”, the problem became one of what to do with it.

The first product applications were unsuccessful, but Dr. Silver kept it alive giving technical symposiums in the hope that the right application would eventually be found. Persistence is a virtue that can pay handsome dividends. If you believe in your idea, don’t abandon it when met with early resistance.

In 1974, Art Fry, another 3M manager, heard about Dr. Silver’s adhesive. Art, who sang in a church choir, was frustrated when the little slips of paper that he used to mark the places in his hymnal would fall out. An adhesive that would stick but wouldn’t stay, could be used as a page marker.

Art’s story as the “product champion” of the “Post-it” note has been well chronicled elsewhere, but I learned several interesting new insights in my conversation with Judy Boroski.

It took three years before 3M was ready to test market. The initial results were mixed. 3M recognized that normal advertising and promotion weren’t particularly effective with this new product.

If you have an innovative product, traditional promotional channels may not always be the most effective. Sometimes, the method you choose to reach the customer can be as important as the product or service that you are providing.

Understanding the “pass along” value of the “Post-it” product, the key to its promotion became sample distribution. While it was difficult to describe the product’s value, it was easy to see after you had used it.

The product was finally introduced nationally in 1980. That’s six years after Art Fry’s first application.

Simple product? In those same six years that “Post-its” were being prepared for market, a revolution took place in the computer industry. It wasn’t much more than six years from the time that John Kennedy announced our objective of placing a man on the moon to Neil Armstrong’s famous step.

The vast selection of “Post-it” products gives testimony to 3M’s ability to maintain a stream of innovative adaptations to the original product. They have obviously watched their customers carefully. When a need arose, 3M has been there with the product adaptation.

Could your business profit by introducing custom applications of existing products?. That’s the successful strategy behind the development of the “Post-it” business. Are your products being used for purposes that you hadn’t anticipated? Perhaps there’s a whole other market that you haven’t exploited as yet.

When the “Post-its” first came out, I began cutting them into smaller sizes for shorter notes and to use a page markers. I was gratified to see that within a year or two of their introduction, 3M began offering smaller sizes. They may be slow, but were responsive.

Among the stream of “Post-it” innovations, the special page marker “Post-it” is one of my favorites. Now knowing that Art Fry’s original application for the “Post-it” was as a page maker, I can’t believe that it took over ten years for a page marker “Post-it” to be introduced. That’s nearly as long as the spacecraft Voyager took on its mission to Neptune!

Because its your business, don’t overlook the possibilities for special applications of your existing products. Just don’t take forever to do it.

Economic changes have created a need for many small businesses to re-think their marketing. Often the focus is on the tactics – what methods you use to communicate and reach prospective customers.

But what about the products and services your offer? Products and services that sold well in the past may not be as effective today – because customer needs are always changing.

Here’s five ways to improve your offerings and increase your revenue:

Create a new product or service for your business. What do your customers need today that you could easily offer or integrate into your services – big or small? The key to success here is to insure it’s a natural fit for your other products or services. They should compliment your current offers – and be ‘logical’ to customers based on your company’s reputation, experience, etc.

Offer a simpler or smaller version of an existing product or service. Can you take something away or simplify it to make it more affordable to your target customers? This may be a way to create an ‘easy entry’ to your company – and you can up-sell or cross-sell them later.

Offer a bigger or more expensive version of an existing product or service. What can you add – value or technology – to make the product or service more appealing to your ideal target customers? Consider what your competition does, or does not provide? One of the keys is to do a little research by talking to your ideal target customers. What do they want, what are they willing to pay?

Package existing products or services. While bundled services may cost more as a package, they typically deliver more value in the long-term and ultimately save you money. The key with packaging services – do it for a niche. Do not try to create packages that serve everyone or you will ultimately serve no one.

Update your services. Most products or services have a shelf life based on changes in the market. Do the value adds you include still matter to customers? If not, remove them and save the money. Are there services that you need to add – that are now expected? If so, find a cost effective way to incorporate them. Feedback from customers makes this easier to do – so evaluate your services and modify them as needed.

As you plan your marketing, don’t overlook the product development side of your small business.

Share Your Story

How have you used these ‘product development’ strategies in your small business? Post a comment and tell us about it.

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