Sunday, February 28, 2010

#069 - Next_Gen eMarketing Program *****

 
Creating Your Next-Generation Online Marketing Program
 e-com2can provide everything you need to greatly improve your e-business program.  We'll discuss what you need and why, and then manage the implementation process with you. 
Our phased approach proposal follows: 
Next-Generation Website: Phase I 
  1. Meet with youto determine your business objectives and how online marketing can play a larger role in your plans.The e-com2 team can meet with you in person or via web conference to discuss exactly what you want and expect. We jointly develop concrete and measurable goals you want to achieve with a website redesign, including new online services and lead generation features.
  2. Review your current sitetohelp you determinewhat features should be included oreliminated from the new site.
  3. Investigate what works and what falls short of expectations with your current siteso we canprioritize and develop your new site accordingly.
  4. Assess performance of your current server platform includingviability of your current programming choice.  We'll explain the server platform and languages we can provide for you.  If you decide you want a new platform, we'll recommend which to choose for your new web site and what tools and resources will be needed.
  5. Guide you through development of your new presentation format, helping you determine what will  best communicate your business advantagesto your current and prospective customers.
  6. e-com2consultants who will be involved in developing yournext generation online marketing program:
    1. Tim Cronin - Founder of e-com2.net with  lifelong experience in component sales and distribution
    2. Gorden Mack - Our online technology wizard with strong engineering and technical background
    3. Fred DeCockExtensive experience as e-Business/Marketing executive at AMP Incorporated and Tyco Electronics
    4. Mike Torbik -  Industry Marketing Executive with extensive Passive, electroMechanical Experience



Next-Generation Website: Phase II

  1. Create mock-ups of severalpresentation choices (“look and feel”) that address requirements defined in Phase I. Online review, suggested changes and approval keeps the process moving quickly. We will reach agreement on the exact presentation you want before we begin production of the website.
  2. Final approval of design, including homepage, inner pages and navigation scheme.  Up to 4 iterations are included in our quote, with additional iterations charged by hourly rate.
  3. Freeze design, obtain mutual agreement and begin final production.
  4. Build your new web site with effective e-Marketing in mind. The e-com2 team will provide a list of applications that will be includedin your web site, developing an electronic component e-Marketing platform second to none. Applications available today are listed below.

e-com2e-Marketing Applications for your consideration 
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)for Catalog Database- To increase your visibility in major search engines for critical product keywords, bringing the engineers and buyers to your Web site.

  • Choose which e-Catalog to Introduce at your Web Site
    • e-Library - Present Products by specific category
    • e-Catalog - Include features to present even more product information

  • Build a “sticky” web site - Once an engineer visits your Web site, you want them to have good reasons to return over and over, increasing the likelihood that their parts requirements in the future can be met, without need to visit a manufacturer or competitor siteBuilding an e-Library of parts is critical to this requirement.

  • Product Interest Database identify what each customer’s interests are, enabling you to present associated parts for up-sell and cross-sellopportunities (Similar to MacInnis Program)Integrate sales order database will enable P.O.S. reporting.

  • Business-To-Business (B2B) Self-Serve Purchasing Capabilities – place orders, track shipments, [review and pay invoices (??)]

  • e-Marketing Environment: eMail Marketing, Blog Program - for customers to receive information on new products, and send comments and questions to your marketing team

  • Increased Sales and Profits using theInternet to provide existing customers in yourtraditional sales channel with new tools and capabilities; and expand your market to new customers that already prefer online sales and support.
    • Online sales can save you up to 39% on expenses per transaction. Additional staff not required. You leverage product, pricing and inventory information you already have, with your web platform managing the transactions directly.

  • Data Sheets reside on your Web site including parts, recommended applications and  pricing you can control. You can easily alter prices to align with your marketing program objectives – maximize profits on hard-to-find products, turn slow-moving inventory, drive special sales promotions, etc.

  • Develop a global brand to attract customers who want access 24/7/365

  • Social Media Leverage the exploding use of social media to keep in touch with your customers



#068 - e-Marketing Program



e-Marketing Program

e-Marketing is the lifeblood of any online business.  Just because you have a great site (clear,crisp, and clean) doesn't mean that people will automatically visit.  The old saying "Build it and they will come" isn't true on the Web.  Copanies that leverage the Web will have the edge.  Utilizing your Web site to market your proucts or services is ofter cheeper, faster, and more trackable than traditional marketing.  A Website can be a company's best medium for marketing.  View e-com2.net for some examples of our e-marketing program.

It is vitally important to implement the rich and abundant existing e-Marketing techniques for your business.  We utilize all available strategies and can create and implement a unique and integrated e-Marketing campaign for you.  Look below for some Web marketing services we offer.

The e-Marketing Services we offer

 e-com2.net Application Software "Work-in-Process"


  1. e-com2.net Robust Configurator - Used my component manufacturer's that have Complex Products requiremants

  2. Social Media Application Software Program - 3.0 social Media may replace e-Mail over the next 5 years

All the e-com2 Team is looking to set up a time and a date to review the different applications on the Internet

Best,

Tim Cronin
781-591-0563

#058 - e-com2 Data Sheets Tool **** it is this one that ends up being the key

READ ARTICLE

#065 - e-Marketing Program Mfg Reps & ERA ****



e-Marketing Program

e-Marketing is the lifeblood of any online business.  Just because you have a great site (clear,crisp, and clean) doesn't mean that people will automatically visit.  The old saying "Build it and they will come" isn't true on the Web.  Copanies that leverage the Web will have the edge.  Utilizing your Web site to market your proucts or services is ofter cheeper, faster, and more trackable than traditional marketing.  A Website can be a company's best medium for marketing.  View e-com2.net for some examples of our e-marketing program.

It is vitally important to implement the rich and abundant existing e-Marketing techniques for your business.  We utilize all available strategies and can create and implement a unique and integrated e-Marketing campaign for you.  Look below for some Web marketing services we offer.

The e-Marketing Services we offer

 e-com2.net Application Software "Work-in-Process"



  1. e-com2.net Robust Configurator - Used my component manufacturer's that have Complex Products requiremants


  2. Social Media Application Software Program - 3.0 social Media may replace e-Mail over the next 5 years

All the e-com2 Team is looking to set up a time and a date to review the different applications on the Internet

Best,
Tim Cronin
781-23

#064 - Sticky Website Mfg Rep & ERA ****





How to Make Your Website "Sticky"?

Getting people to visit your Website the first time is less than half the battle.  You'll needthem to remain on the site long enough to take an action that benefits your business for the sight to be effective.  A site that gets people to stay there once they've arrived is called "sticky."

There are a myriad of ways a Website can fail at stickyness.  Ifthe site fails to establish trust, people will probably leave.  If the site seems shoddy, messy or unorganized, people will also leave. If the site asks too much of the user, like asking them to fill out a long form without offering a free teaser content before they can view valuable conteent, people are going to go elsewhere.  If a site is confusing, people will leave.  If a site has mny broken links or "Page not Found errors, people are going to leave.  This lisk can go on and on.

O the other hand, if a Website offers quality conteent that is original, you greatly increase your chances that you will snag that visitor.  If your copywriting is compelling, succinct and easy to consume, people will want to continue reading.  You want people to stay so you can capitalize on their presence.  For example, if yourr call o ation is to get visitors to sign up for your newsletter, they will need to be there long enough to accompish the following:


1. Learn that there is a newsletter to sign up for in the first place
2. Let the person know that the newsletter is for the electronic component Industry specificly.
3. Begin to trust the e-com2 team members are all from the components industry
4. Get their interest piqued enough to want to learn more from you
    Have the site be compelling enough to sign up for your newsletter
5. Learn to trust you enough to feel comfortable with giving you heir e-mail address


This woeks for selling on-line as wel.  As a matter of fact, it is even more important to establish interest, trust and authority to make a sale online because you are lacking the power of one-on-one in-person communicaton.

Another factor that makes a site sticky is its ease of use.  People like to get maximum benefit for minimum effort.  Have you ever considered the design of Google's website?  It is one of the simplit and cleanest home pages in existance.  We can all learn from this.  You and your Web vendor ought to be chanting this mantra through the entire planning and building phase of a new website: Clean, Simple,Easy, Clean Simple Easy, Clean  Simple Easy.  Say it over and over again.

People hate complicated Websites that make them think too much.  They hate feeling confused.  They hate feeling stoopid.  They hate waisting their time.  Many competing Websites are a literal click away, and people have itchy back button fingers.

So to make your Website as sticky as possible, create oiginal and compelling content on a regular basis, establish trust and above allelse, be sure to design it in a way that appears clean, and is simple and easy to use and to find information

The e-com2 team is looking for you to outsource your e-Marketing program for a fraction of the cost of doing this in-house.  We are electronic components Internet experts! 

Best Wishes,
Tim Cronin
781-591-0563

e-Marketing "Suite-of-Tools" A Little Nostalgia of the Old Days! - Howard Sams Next Gen


Hi Ron-  


I was looking at my arsenal of marketing articles tonight.  I thought that you might want to read an article that I wrote in 1998 to inform the industry the "transformation" that is going on in the components industry ....including the e-Catalog. 



 Ron, you were the one that identified Cramer as being the e-Catalog expert when you and Norm started your MacInnis Company Mfg. Rep!  I was the person that was responsible for the Cramer Catalog! Norm would horass me about Howard Sams!  Your point last week is well taken, Fetch ( name before renaming the process to e-com2.net) e-com2 is now the Howard Sams of yesteryear.....We are developing catalogs on the Internet space!



Talk to you tomorrow!



Tim  



Please click on the Fetch Blog immediately below. 

Fetch Blog   


Saturday, February 27, 2010

#059 - The New Marketing Buzz is All About Social Media!


"I'm shocked!"
While not a common response to an educational program, this is exactly what one attendee said after a presentation on social media and Web 2.0 (i.e., the next generation of Web development and design) at ERA's 44th Management and Marketing Conference. Judging by other attendees' comments, both on-site and in their evaluation surveys, the "shocked" speaker's reaction was shared by many.
The fact that social media - encompassing everything from Twitter to Facebook, YouTube to LinkedIn, and countless other Web-based communications - are growing in popularity was no surprise. But the lightning-speed rise of social media as viable business and marketing tools did seem to be news to most of the reps and manufacturers who gathered outside Chicago in October for ERA's 2009 national event.

#060 - Virtual Manufacturer's Representative Newsletter

READ ARTICLES

e-com2.net "Manufacturer's Representative Newsletter"

READ ARTICLE

e-com2 "Zoom Mailer" for the Mfg Rep community

READ ARTICLE

Newsletter Publishing System


TREAD he Virtual Representative adds an easily managed e-mail based newsletter system to yoRur business.
With VR, you will deliver controlled communication, to your network of contacts, simply and easily. It was originated by a frustrated sales rep who needed to be more time efficient and more effective getting the right sales messages to the right dealers and salespeople. Virtual Representative adds an easily managed e-mail based newsletter system to your business.
With VR, you will deliver controlled communication, to your network of contacts, simply and easily. It was originated by a frustrated sales rep who needed to be more time efficient and more effective getting the right sales messages to the right dealers and salespeople. Virtual Representative adds an easily managed e-mail based newsletter system to your business.
With VR, you will deliver controlled communication, to your network of contacts, simply and easily. It was originated by a frustrated sales rep who needed to be more time efficient and more effective getting the right sales messages to the right dealers and salespeople.

e-com2 Web-Based "Virtual Sales-Channel System"


The Virtual Representative adds an easily managed e-mail based newsletter system to your 
http://www.virtual-representative.com/


Newsletter Publishing System

Welcome to the Virtual Representative Web Site.
This straightforward system enables you to simply add the three C’s to your business:
  • Communications – Get your messages out
  • Control – Easily manage who gets what message
  • Consistency – Simple enough to do regularly
The Virtual Representative adds an easily managed e-mail based newsletter system to your business.
With VR, you will deliver controlled communication, to your network of contacts, simply and easily. It was originated by a frustrated sales rep who needed to be more time efficient and more effective getting the right sales messages to the right dealers and salespeople.
The Virtual Newsletter was created to simplify and professionalize this process for thousands of businesses like yours. We've learned from our own experiences and solved our communications needs with this easy-to-administer newsletter format.
Here is our version's look and feel. Please scroll over the example and see how each element is fully controlled by you. Yours can look however you wish. The Virtual Newsletter engine gives you the simple tools to get your message out, to your audience, whenever you want.
RR
With VR, you will deliver controlled communication, to your network of contacts, simply and easily. It was originated by a frustrated sales rep who needed to be more time efficient and more effective getting the right sales messages to the right dealers and salespeople.

Surviving Supply Chain Integration: Strategies for small Manufacturers

Manufacturing can be defined as an activity which, utilizing a variety of capabilities, adds value to a material, thereby making possible different uses of that material. Each step in the manufacturing process adds value. The first manufacturers were probably artisans who worked by themselves to design and create products. They served as both supplier and manufacturer, gathering and managing the resources, and applying various processes to add value to the materials. Over time, manufacturing progressed to a series of specialists, each of whom supplied or added specific amounts and types of value. The benefits of this division of labor were that (1) more resources could be brought to bear on the task of adding value and (2) specialization tended to reduce costs and increase the efficiency, consistency, and quality of each operation.


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CUSTOMER PARTNERSHIP (Your first-ever Business e-Coach)

CUSTOMER PARTNERSHIP (Your first-ever Business e-Coach)

mkting doc - A note to Tim from Mike Torbik - Google Docs ****

A note to Tim from Mike Torbik - Google Docs

#059 - B2B - 2009 Lead Generation Guide


In putting together the stories for this year's Lead Generation Guide, we found that the emphasis on lead generation we saw last year has continued and, in fact, accelerated. Given the sour economy and mandates to find “sales-ready” prospects, that's not surprising.
May 26, 2009

#057 - A Corporate Guide for Social Media


How do you guide employees in the social Web? Start here.

SEBASTOPOL, Calif. -- A PC in every home and workplace, a smart phone in every hand, all connected 24/7 to the hundreds of millions (and growing rapidly) of other people actively participating online via blogs, social networks, Twitter and multiplayer games.


#056 - Open Source Software -Software as a Service

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Friday, February 26, 2010

#055 - Could this be the end of your printed components catalog?


Mouser Electronics has introduced a virtual catalogue for selecting and buying electronic components over the internet.

Could this be the start of the end for the traditional print on paper distribution catalogue?

#054 - Online business key to recovery of distribution

The component distribution market is emerging from the dark days of the 2008/2009 downturn with important lessons learn


READ ARTICLE

#053 - Increasing Supplier-Driven Innovation

When customers collaborate with suppliers they can build trust, reduce relational stress, and increase innovation-related activities.

#052 - 2010 Economic Outlook For Wholesale Distributors

Adam J. Fein, Ph.D.
Pembroke Consulting
www.pembrookconsulting


When customers collaborate with suppliers they can build trust, reduce relational stress, and increase innovation-related activities.


READ ARTICLE

#051 - The New, Faster Face of Innovation

Thanks to technology, change has never been so easy—or so cheap



CALL IT INNOVATION on steroids. Or innovation at warp speed. Or just the innovation of rapid innovation.
But the essential point remains: Technology is transforming innovation at its core, allowing companies to test new ideas at speeds—and prices—that were unimaginable even a decade ago. They can stick features on Web sites and tell within hours how customers respond. They can see results from in-store promotions, or efforts to boost process productivity, almost as quickly.
The result? Innovation initiatives that used to take months and megabucks to coordinate and launch can often be started in seconds for cents.

#050 - Surviving the Downturn: Lessons From Emerging Markets

For some companies, a volatile economy is business as usual. What have they learned? No. 1: Take the offensive.



AS WESTERN COMPANIES STRUGGLE to navigate the worst economy in generations, here’s one piece of advice: Look at places where volatility is business as usual—emerging markets.
In these countries, companies have learned they can’t just hunker down when bad times strike. They have to go on the offensive. In Eastern Europe, South Africa and Latin America, managers look at tumultuous times as a chance to implement bold, creative ideas, outflank rivals and boost their business.
That means coming up with new ways to price their products. Or scrapping old marketing approaches. Or focusing on figuring out where the economy is heading next—and how to use that information to grab market share.
Here’s a closer look at the lessons companies might do well to follow, if they want to survive—and even thrive—in this crippling recession


#049 - Outsourcing Innovation

With budgets tight, more companies are hiring third parties to come up with new ideasWHEN should companies try to come up with new ideas themselves—and when should they give the job to outside experts?

It’s a question many companies are facing these days. As budgets tighten, businesses are outsourcing research and development and the creation of new products as a way to slash costs, speed development time and tap into top talent outside the company.
But it can be tough to strike the right balance between internal and external efforts at innovation. How much outsourcing is too much, or too little? What amount produces the best results?
BUSINESS INSIGHT
See the complete Business Insight report.
To find an answer, we studied the sourcing habits and innovative performance of 359 companies based in the U.S. and reviewed 




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#048 - e-com2.net Generic Video Presentation ****

This is a 5 part video which describes the Features/Benefits of the e-com2 Program.

e-com2.net Generic Presentation   #001

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