General business stuff

How can Netflix fix this mess?

by Joe Sousa on September 19, 2011

in General business stuff,Uncategorized

Back in December of 1999 I made my first big purchase on the Internet. I spent many days researching, reading reviews, calling customer support services, and finally I decided on my purchase: I bought a DVD player! And one of the first things I did was sign up for this new company called Neflix.

I loved Netflix. I could just sit at home and movies would get delivered right to me! I would never have to go to the video rental store again. That made me really happy because for some reason when ever I went to look at movies and rent one I would have to go to the bathroom like you wouldn’t believe. Many times I came close to wetting my pants. Not sure why it would always happen when looking for movies to rent.

Anyway, Netflix was awesome and I have been a happy customer ever since. In many ways I am probably their best customer because I usually will get a DVD in the mail and it will just sit in my house for months before I get around to returning it. I do like their streaming service and do wish I could just drop the DVDs and go strictly streaming but there are too many movies and shows that aren’t available on streaming.

This past summer Netflix announced they would be splitting the DVD and streaming subscription fees and ultimately it would cost nearly everyone an extra couple bucks a month. I am guessing they weren’t expecting the outrage people would have over an extra dollar or two but since they have lost tons of subscribers and their stock has plummeted. Why did they do this? Not sure but you can see one explanation here.

Earlier today Netflix sent out an email and apology explaining that they would be renaming and rebranding their DVD service into Qwikster. Do they really think this will help? How is this an apology for hurting their subscriber base? Is this the damage control they needed?

In the past many companies have screwed up, done their damage control, and come out the other side stronger than they were before. There is still time for Netflix to do this. Here are a couple suggestions:

1. Say they were stupid and go back to the way things were. This probably won’t happen. I think they see the DVD side of things dying off and splitting the company like this makes it easier to totally kill it off in a few years.

2. Announce a major deal that will provide new streaming content. Every time my wife and I look on Netflix instant for a decent movie to watch we are usually disappointed. If they really want their streaming service to take over for the DVD side of things they need more and better conent. A big announcement with one of the major studios would go a long way in making customers happy again.

3. Some big PR move is necessary. One idea I had: Spend a few bucks and hire some celebrities to hand deliver DVDs to some customers. They have all their users watching history so it wouldn’t be too hard for them to figure out who are the favorite actors and actresses of their customers. My wife and I have been rewatching Friday Night Lights. How cool would it be if Coach Taylor delivered a disc to my door and gave me a pep talk? Maybe someone has been watching The Big Lebowski a dozen times. Wouldn’t Walter showing up to your door, delivering a movie, and then taking you bowling be awesome? Something like this would generate a TON of good press for Netflix when they need it.

Anyway, when companies like Netflix make some strategic errors like this they need to take the steps to make it right. They can’t just send out a meaningless apology letter and think everything will be OK. BTW, their stock dropped nearly 12 points today. I am sure that has a lot to do with this lame apology. Come on Netflix. You can do better than this!

And just for the record, I am not mad they decided to split everything up. Just a bit frustrated in how they are handling the fallout. They have had and still do provide a great service. Too many people are getting too riled up over this. In reality a month of Netflix costs much less than visiting the movie theater once.

{ 0 comments }

Cheap-Ass Guide to Online Content

by Joe Sousa on January 19, 2011

in Affiliate Stuff,General business stuff

A few days ago a friend of mine published an ebook “The Cheap-Ass Guide to Online Content“. As someone with many different sites I am always looking for some new ways to generate content and for the most part I hate paying for stuff so I figured this would be the perfect solution for me.

As Todd states it “we need a way to populate our sites with quality, unique content that is compelling and benefits our business — but we need low-cost solutions” and I couldn’t agree more. Whether it is my own hand written content, aggregated content, outsourced content, “borrowed” content or anything else I am always needing more content for my sites. I just can’t get enough! I even set a goal for myself this year of creating one new piece of content every day.

Anyway, on to the ebook:

Todd starts out explaining why we we need content, good reasons not to pay a lot for it, and some stuff that you really do need to spend some money on. Then he gets into the meat of the book which outlines about 20 different ways to get content for your site. And the best part about it is they are pretty much all free!

He covers each of these methods fairly in depth and gives some great links to some resources to help you out as you go about generating your own content. Topics like hiring outsourced writers, using guest posts and articles, and getting user generated content like comments and reviews are covered. But there are also some other less thought about forms of content like podcasts (BTW, if you want to learn more about podcasting check out http://www.qaqn.com/consulting/. Daniel does more podcasts than anyone I know and he will be sharing his knowledge with the rest of us), videos, images, even creating your own social network on your site.

Personally I think interactive content like videos, chats, social networks, and the like will become more and more valuable over the next few years. The more interaction you can get with your customers the more you will know them. The more you know them the easier it will be to sell them. Also I am pretty sure that Google is or will soon be taking things like podcasts and videos and automatically doing some sort of speech recognition on them and indexing the content as they would regular text.

All in all this is a great ebook if you are looking for new ways to add content to your site. So go visit My Content Pro and download your copy today. You will need to register for free on their site to get it but I would recommend that also. Todd Farmer and Lisa Picarille are both experts in their field and you will only get quality information from them.

Download the Cheap-Ass Guide to Online Content today

{ 6 comments }

Attention: This Book Will Make You Money Review

by Joe Sousa on August 6, 2010

in Affiliate Stuff,General business stuff

A while back (I can’t remember when) I preordered Jim Kukral’s new book Attention: This Book Will Make You Money.  And somewhere along the line I preordered another copy that I forgot about. So now I am the proud owner of TWO copies of Attention: This Book Will Make You Money.

For those of you who don’t like to read here is a video review I did. If you do like to read and want some thoughts that aren’t in the video you can read those later

I read very few books and I have to say I did really like this book. It is a fairly quick read (many of the chapters are just a couple pages) but it is packed with tons of great information, instruction, and examples of people who know how to use attention to make money. There are many books and articles and blogs that will tell you “use social media to make money” but they never get into how and in this book Jim does a good job of explaining what that looks like and he gives some concrete examples of people who have done that and the benefits they have recieved.

Another thing I really liked about the book is how he goes into how to come up with ideas. I would guess for most people coming up with ideas to get attention or ideas for websites or ideas for a business or whatever is one of the harder things to do. I know I am not the most creative and innovative person in the world but I do really like the practical steps Jim gives for being creative.

I am not a fan of people who take themselves too seriously or feel that when they write a book it needs to be more formal and structured. When you read this book it seems like Jim is sitting right across the table from you or in the stool next to you at the bar and you are just chatting about this stuff and for me that is the kind of book that will help me.

Do yourself a favor and go order Attention: This Book Will Make You Money today. If you take what Jim says and put it into practice I have little doubt the title of the book will come true for you. Great job Jim!

If you don’t want to take my word for it you can check out the review Shawn Collins posted on Affiliatetip.com.  

And check out this review on Benspark.com

Right now (10:30 PST on August 10th) this book is #505 overall and #2 in some different ecommerce and web marketing categories. Go buy a copy today and see if we can get this book into the top 500!

{ 2 comments }

Ideas that got away

by Joe Sousa on May 15, 2009

in General business stuff

I was watching Pitchmen on the Discovery Channel a couple days ago. Personally I think it is a great show.  It takes a couple people with some new products for the direct marketing industry and Billy Mays and Anthony Sullivan listen to their pitches, test the products, come up with ideas for the informercials and commercials, and see if they are good products for direct marketing.  I will admit I am a sucker for informercials. When I am flipping around the TV at 2 AM I always get sucked into watching them and am often amazed how slick the product pitches are.  I can’t really remember when I have ever bought anything from an informercial but they still intrigue me.

One of the most intriguing aspects of it is how they take a product and make the public think they need it.  Take the Shamwow for instance. Millions of these have been sold off the 2 minute commericals with Vince demonstrating how great they are, how they replace paper towels, how they soak up a ton of water, etc.  They really make you think this is a product you can’t live without.  But if you stop and think about it they don’t do much more than a regular kitchen towel or paper towels.  How often do you really have a spill that is big enough that a paper towel won’t soak it up?  Does anybody regularly need to soak up a quart of liquid?  But after watching the informercial everyone thinks this is a product they can’t live without.  And this isn’t a new product.  I remember seeing something similar at the local county fair 25 years ago.

Or take the Snuggie.  Before I saw the commercial I never realized how difficult it was to answer the phone or use the remote when using a normal blanket.  How have I survived this long without a blanket with sleeves???  Now the Snuggie is a pop culture icon and they have sold millions of Snuggies over the past few months.  And the Pedegg.  Do we really need a cheese grater for our feet?

But back to the main point I want to get at.  As I was watching Pitchmen there was a 17 year old kid who had come up with an idea for the Spot Sucker.  It is a portable stain removal device that sucks cleaning solution through the fabric to remove the stain.  Watching this episode I was pretty suprised.  About 3 or 4 years ago I formulated a very, very similar product in my mind.  I was watching a commercial for a carpet cleaner and was thinking “wouldn’t it be cool if there was something small you could take with you that could take a small stain out of a shirt like a carpet cleaner?” and the idea I formulated in my mind ended up being very similar to the Spot Sucker.  But that was as far as it went.  Even if I would have thought about it more and decided maybe this is something I should look at making I really had no idea where to start to make something like this.

We all have ideas like this.  We see something and think of a way to modify it or have a problem and think of a theoretical solution but that is as far as it goes.  I am sure many of you internet types have thought of cool ideas for websites and then done nothing with those ideas and then a few months or years down the road you see someone else has made millions (or even thousands) off a similar idea. Or maybe those ideas are still sitting there in our minds and we haven’t seen them implemented elsewhere yet.

Of course many of our ideas are impractical or impossible to pursue in the real world but I am sure most of you can think of an idea you wish you would have run with and developed. I know I have dozens of ideas for new affiliate sites in my mind but I never get around to doing anything with them.  Why is that?  Why do we let our ideas go to waste?  So my challenge to you (and to myself especially) is to do something with those ideas.  Obviously we can’t always drop everything to pursue what could end up being just a pipe dream and there might be other practical obstacles in our way but do something with those ideas.  It could be something as simple as taking an hour or two a week to work on that new website idea or take some time to research what it would take to develop that new product you have been thinking about for years.  Or find someone to partner up with for your idea.  If you don’t have the technical ability to program that new site find someone who does.

But don’t let all those ideas slip away.  Take some of them and see what you can do with them.  You never know when they will turn into a gold mine.

What are some of your ideas that have gotten away?  Leave a comment and let me know.

{ 1 comment }