Let’s try to understand what’s about:  the term describes the collective cooperation to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations.

Supply and demand mainly meet on the internet, where two different types can be found: private initiatives, born for a specific purpose or crowdfunding platforms. These can be divided also into: generalist, collecting projects in any fields, or thematic, specialized in projects of a particular sector.

The basic idea is for sure not so original and seems very close to charity, however the innovative aspect is the online application, which confers a new value on social connections. In these platforms friendship becomes resource, as well described in the Kapipalist Manifesto by Alberto Falossi, who found in 2009 Kapipal, the first platform in the world open to private projects.

Crowdfunding is based on the following principles:

1. Your Friends Are Your Capital

Your social network friends and contacts can help you to raise capital.

2. Your Friends Make Your Dreams Come True

Any of your contacts can make a contribution, no matter how small.

Together they will help in achieving your every wish, project, and dream.

3. Your Capital Depends on the Number of Friends

Many contributions can build big capital.

The more contacts you have, the greater your chances of reaching the amount you need.

4. Your Capital Depends on Trust

Contribution doesn’t happen automatically. Even if you contact a large number of people,

you must still gain their trust, especially if you don’t know them personally.

5. Your Capital Grows by Word Of Mouth

Your friends can contribute by giving money, but also by spreading the word.

This will help your social network grow, and increase the probability of reaching your goal.

Crowdfunding is in fact non only about business or non-profit but can also make private dreams come true, such as weddings, travels etc.

In Italy the most important and business oriented platforms are Eppela and Boomstarter, while Shiny Note is dedicated to non-profit. YouCapital instead was created by the Associazione Pulitzer to promote investigative journalism.

As already said crowdfunding exists also outside platforms. The most famous example worldwide remains the presidential campaign of Barack Obama in 2008.

Like everything else in the 2.0 era crowd funding is also in costant evolution. In April a new revolutionary platform will come to light: Starteed. With it every user will be also investor with a small registration fee. The amount of fees constitute an extra found that will go to the most voted ideas by the community.

©starteed

While waiting for this platform to start, think about your wishes maybe someone will realize them

Successfully building a company from scratch takes not only dedication but also a clear business plan and a good amount of marketing know-how. E-mail marketing is one of the most valuable and effective tool because it’s based on a two-way relationship with the customer.

This means not only that your messages will be better targeted at various groups but also that your company  will implement a highly client oriented communication, which in the medium – long term will produce a strong customer loyalty as well as word of mouth.

The main advantages that e-mail marketing offers to startups are on the economic side. In fact, it guarantees a good price/ quality ratio because its costs are much lower than traditional advertising tools, that besides don’t  allow so easily to establish a direct and bilateral communication with the customers.

The e-mail marketing is therefore an asset to your company but, like any tool, what matters most is how it’s used. Let’s see the best way to start.

First of all do not attempt to immediately sell your products or services. Your first e-mail should instead  provide information, that will enable you to display your knowledge in your field.

It is essential that recipients can immediately interact and connect with you, so provide links to your website, Facebook account or a subscription page. In this way they will feel involved from the very beginning and you will collect the first statistics.

Adopting  a good opt-in system but most of all including always an opt-out method (removal from the database by request) over time will let you not only consolidate your database but also communicate with those who are truly interested in your business, without incurring legal or technical problems (i.e. inclusion in the blacklist), and thereby gaining an audience properly targeted, attentive and receptive.

As a startup you want to tell the story and mission of your company but instead of writing what you consider important, figure out what information your audience actually wants to receive.

Also remember to be concise, mailboxes are often so full that too long messages are almost automatically deleted by recipients. This however should not detract from the tone and style. Take your time to choose carefully the way you want to communicate, as you know “First impressions count”.

Since the main goal of an e-mail marketing campaign is to build a group who will follow your activities being at glance identifiable is a crucial point.

From the beginning recipients should be able to recognize directly your company, then don’t forget to include logos, fonts and brand colors. Therefore don’t skimp on the design. If you need, rely on professionals but without overdoing it. It’s important to make an impact right away but keep it simple.

At this point you know what and how to write, the question arises:  “Well, now that I have a great message whom can I send it to?”.

Creating and managing (privacy, obsolescence, updates) a database is challenging, trust who have been doing it for more than ten years.

If you want to go for free, use your personal contacts (business cards, friends, acquaintances, etc..) and / or small market researches. If you choose instead to start with an extended target, rely to companies that provide databases. Analyse carefully their credentials, reliability and the guarantees offered. The risks in terms of results and images are too high to regard just the price.

The most important aspect of this activity, however, is consistency, without which is really hard to cement the relationship with customers. Although e-mail marketing seems to be a simple tool, you should invest proper time in planning and executing campaigns.

It will therefore be essential to set a regular schedule, in this way you’ll also be able to prepare in advance the contents, that with time will become more sophisticated including videos, posts, surveys, etc..

Finally, the monitoring of feedback and statistical data will allow you to understand what topics and channels work best and then adjust your newsletter from time to time, making this activity more and more effective.

Nowadays, with the proliferation of profiles, the social reputation of a person is online and therefore available to everyone. Of course, you could easily reply that this is an Orwellian scenario, where there is no more privacy and so forth, but to use a quote: “that’s the way it is”.

So instead of complaining you’d better be cunning and avoid making blunders.

For example, if you present yourself as a reliable person while on Facebook or YouTube there is public evidence of your wild nights, you can easily understand how doubts may arise in the minds of those who are evaluating you.

Your interests may also be compromising, especially if you are applying for positions in the PR. It is therefore advisable to select carefully the pages you are a fan of.

Most of the common mistakes are related to the photos on the curricula. It is important to clarify that even when a good-looking presence is required, it doesn’t become automatically a beauty pageant. It’ is therefore pointless to “display ones goods” by sending photos in bikini, perhaps taken directly from your holidays album.

Random choice is wrong as well: a picture is not as good as another! Thankfully the advent of digital technology has freed us from passport photos that have never done justice to anyone, so use photo editors in your favor. However, do not overdo editing: in case of an interview they should be able to recognize you!

Now let’s talk about e-mail. It seems a harmless tool, almost neutral, but just the simple account can reveal a lot about a person. Who would hire partygirl@xxx.it or studmuffin@yyy.com? If these addresses may still make sense for applications in the porn industry, missy18@xxx.com or teddybear83@yyy.it have no chance in any field.

Besides, applications are often sent with an empty subject line, and this is the best way to be deleted by the receiver or be stopped directly from the spam filter.

Very often you use a preset text or copy & paste of an e-mail sent earlier but, as you know, “Haste makes waste”. Thus you can easily forget to change the references to prior advertisements or positions that have nothing to do with the current one.

Do you think that after all this there can’t be anything worse? You are wrong. The most common mistake is in fact sending the e-mail without attaching the resume. At this point the bravest among those who realize it (which is not obvious) try to make amend with a second e-mail. No harm in trying, but success is not guaranteed.

At this point, do not be discouraged, the mission is not impossible as it seems, just pay attention while using these tools.

We promise not to leave you alone, follow us to discover how to use e-mail and social networks properly.

Welcome aboard!

We like to think of email marketing as a social channel, rather than a one-way statement. There’s a strong difference between speaking with someone and talking to him. Surely, a valid way to start a conversation is to say hello, such as we do in traditional relations.

Despite its importance, automated welcome e-mail are often overlooked by marketers. According to a research conducted last year by Experian Marketing Services, this kind of message can produce conversion rates nine times higher than generic first e-mails.

It’s clear imagine what, however, the research confirms:

- Welcome messages with a reward (like a special offer to new customers) generate more conversion than those without a reward.
- Instant welcome messages generate eight times more conversion than the ones sent on a weekly (or more) basis.

Consider three assets:

- CHECK: welcome messages, in particular the ones those contain a double opt-in, allow to confirm non only the interest of the user, but, moreover, the address validity.

For this reason, don’t send a text message with just a few lines of welcome: prepare a graphic template in accordance to the regular template of your newsletter: this is the first impression!

- INTRODUCTION: welcome messages give the opportunity to present the company and the benefit already reserved to those who have already subscribed to the list. Further a welcome message is also effective to focus on the tools available to the members.

Despite this, do not overwrite: send the key concepts keeping in mind that users will probably store this first message.

- DRIVE THE EXPECTATION: the welcome messages, are, after the registration page, the place where you give the idea of who you are and what your subscribers can expect from you.

In addition to this, consider a follow up. Help new members to manage the different kind of you communications, collect feedback and make possible to the user to manage their own preferences.

The overall goal of a welcome message is to iniziate and pursue a relationship with prospects: if you will be able to enhance their motivation to be in contact with you,  you will have the edge over the conversion process.

Remarketing

You may have heard something about the Rule of Seven, theorized by Jeffrey Lant. The idea is simple: if you work in the marketing industry, you must enter into the mental dynamics of those who can buy. The theory claims that a significant penetration of the market needs at least seven contacts over 18 months.

Actually, this rule is not to be taken literally, at least for email marketing. You should be ableto understand on your own which is the right frequency to your readers. In any case, it’s important to identify the need of follow up since each user left to himself can became a sales wasted opportunity.

Marketing aim is to attract back those potential customers who may have begun a path towards conversion. Bringing them back will give you a second chance to monetize their presence.

Many polls show that most company do not have a re-marketing program, do you? If not, we can give you two suggestions!

- FORWARD TO THOSE WHO DO NOT OPEN THE MESSAGE
Sending tools enable you to check the open rate of each e-mail you send. You should give a new opportunity to those message that have not been open by the recipients. You may have sent in the wrong moment. Open rate, with a reminder sent after 7/10 days from the first delivery, can improve by 50%.

- FOLLOW THE PATH OF CLICK, DO THEY CONVERT?
If a user click on a link, he may be interested in your offer, but what if he do not convert? Follow the path and identify those users and encourage and convince them to the purchase. Do not just resend the message: change the subject, customize the offer making it more attractive and give a deadline.

Again, always remember the Rule of Seven: a successful marketing requires relationships that are built over the time.

The main KPI are:

BOUNCE RATE (bounce/sent  x 100): refers to the percentage of email addresses in the subscriber list that didn’t receive the message because it was returned by a recipient mail server. There are two categories of email bounces including hard bounce and soft bounce.

DELIVERY RATE (received/sent x 100): the average delivery rate (emails sent minus the bounce-back rate).

OPEN RATE : is a measure used as an indication of how many people viewed ( = opened) the email. It is estimated thought a web-bug, so it is subjected to the software.

CLICK THROUGH RATE (clicked/delivered x 100): the number of readers that click through to the pages of your site compared to the total number of recipients of your email.

Helpfull to understand consumers’ interests is also the analysis of the social sharing, the deal of the browser views and the multiple readings. These actions do not necessary bring to a conversion, but decidedly guarantee user’ interest to the contents. Also unsubscriptions  attest a preference, even if negative: that’s why it’s important to keep an eye on this value comparing it to the previous. These metrics are vital, but they do not often allow a close analysis of the performance: they quickly document technical result of the communication but they do not permit do understand how and when these values were formed and modified.

In addition to the KPI, occur the funnel, a marketing observation model that explain the theoretical trip performed by a person that travel from the brand’s unconcern to the conversion. This method is useful to pick up critical stages and project new actions.

According to the logic of a real funnel, the highest level is made of of each recipient of the email marketing campaign. After it’s required to clean the quantity filtering first on who actually received the message, than on those who opened it at least once. Each action from this point on is to be picked over since directly influenced from contents of the message.

Segment this way the reaction stage allows to use at best KPI. For example, a high Open rate and an unfulfilling Click Thought Rate point out the problem inside the message, excluding responsibility on the subject or on the sender’s identity. The Click Through Rate signal the switchover from recipient to prospect: the reason of no conversion should be researched in landing page deal.

Social media spread enhance email marketing’ values, but add complexity to the funnel working out, given that it’s very difficult to calculate viral range. Forward and tell  a friend options increase people who can reach the communication. In this case, targeting is done by the initial recipients who, knowing interest and habits of their acquaintances, will send the message only to people potentially interested. That’s why the new viral cluster will probably generate more conversions than the original one.

Considering the new viral group let to obtain at least three new values:

-          Global Reach: given by the sum of the initial recipients with the new cluster;

-          Broaden rate: obtained dividing the viral cluster by the global reach;

-          Viral Quality Factor: calculated dividing the conversions by the estimated forwards.

Last metric is really important since it allows to determinate which cluster leaded to more conversion in order to optimize future targets.

Continuous comparison of each campaign funnel permit to focus on drop and growth stage, success key always stays in the planning stage: quality contents, good segmentation and simple but catcy subjects. You can find some advice right on this blog.

Paypal idea is simple: to provide Facebook users a platform that allows Paypal members and social network abitualsto send and receive money without adding further informations or paying commissions. Statistically 80% Paypal user have a Facebook account so a big catchment area is expected.

The same goes for the opportunities: many observers conceive it as an immediate way to celebrate occasions of contacts not physically reachable. Personally I think it’s more correct and functional to imagine it as a possibility to make or receive small loans for emergency situations or subscribe donations, taking advantage of the favourable taxation. Facebook deducts nothing in fact on money tranfers while PayPal applies a 30 cent fee.

It’s true we live in a bad economic period but giving money is not a proper act in interpersonal relationships and it could be realistic only within family borders.

Despite this, the service is configured on this bases and, through Facebook or PayPal we can enter the page and select the addressee of our (optional) digital postcard among Facebook friends: we can also add messages, images, contents (beyond the money amount). It’s obvious that with this expedient we can make money circulate without any need of a particular occasion.

Sendmoney structure is conceived to be used in 65 countries.

The most audacious ones think that the introduction of these new technologies is a good attempt to free people from traditional banks and their tax regime but pragmatically we can consider them a good aid to tear down some barriers like the waste of time when we’ve to insert numbers and personal data to pay for something.

On the business side there are no doubts that for social business and social marketing oriented companies will enjoy the possibility to count on a more flexible money movement. Especially for promotions and refunds.

Development margins for these new frontiers are closely related to the legislative body of every single country: in Italy for example there are quite restrictive norms and we can expect governments are studying new documents to regulate this sector that have discontinuous features compared to conventional ones.

Smartphones

It’s important to consider the number of people using smartphones while they are in a store: almost one user in three use mobile device as a tool to compare prices in real time; this is an increasingly behavior as demonstrated that in September the two-thirds of smartphone owners have made at least one operation related to a trade: comparing prices to find discounts, taking a picture of a products or locating a store.
Consumers this year will therefore have two good allies such as mobile and web to make the traditional Christmas shopping, which will take place later, as Ebay Italy states.

The world’s most popular marketplace web site also informed that 61% of Italians have started thinking about Christmas gifts only in December, and18% of them will wait for even the last days of holidays available: it is estimated that the peak day for purchases via mobile will be on 12 and 13 December and 19 December via web.

Reading this data and thinking about them, it’s increasingly clear the need of adapting web sites related to retail to mobile era, making them compatible to smartphones and tablets.

Thank to the pocket projector PKA21 Optoma (that has the same dimensions of a tv remote and a weight of only 160 grams) it will be possible to show photos, videos, productions with an extension up to 70” diagonal simply connecting our device (mobile phone and laptop with a great compatibility).

Being an offset projector, 100% height will be projected over the line of the objective center. This will allow users to place the projector on a desk or a table and see the entire image projected on a wall or a screen without the aid of a tripod.

A real revolution.

Let’s focus on the main features: the projector is equipped with a LED lamp (that minimize electric energy consumption) that can last up to 20.000 hours and there’s no need to change it. Lamp luminosity is 20 lumen ANSI e color reproduction is absolutely perfect: the precision of the images stands out for its sharpness. It can operate on various file formats, both audio and videos.

It has an internal storage memory and a slot for MicroSD cards that permits a memory upgrade up to 32 Gb. There is a wide range of ports icluding Micro USB, VGA e MINI HDMI to connect every analogic or digital device. It’s equipped with a lihium ions removable battery that allows the projector to be used autonomously up to one hour. We have to remark that with the audio output it’s possible to connect earphones and external speakers, an opportunity to create interesting home-theatre effects.

Now we’ve to start projecting!

It’s the case of social commerce, the new consumer frontier in a future key. Although, especially in Italy, a considerable part of the public isn’t still used to e-commerce, all over the world it’s spoken about f-commerce, where “f” is for Facebook: the most important and most commercially exploitable social network nowadays.

Surely every user noticed the fast-growing ads presence ( based on our action and preferences) inside our pages: it’s clear that many companies has understood the potential of this communication.

The step that is up to come is to switch from simple activities/products/services report to 360 business relationships management. Beyond an increased pre-shopping stage, a mechanism of direct selling and post-shopping interaction is starting.

This is one of the most significant  points for business trend because it allows an effective feedbacks collection which is useful to set modifies and strategies about market approach.

The advantages of finding interesting stuff and buy it on a social network are evident:  for users it’s good to have an easy way to find informations and the opportunity to skip some intermerdiaries like in e-commerce and, last but not least, the possibility to share choices with friends and contacts like a virtual shopping tour. A lot of people usually relies on friends and relatives when it’s time to make purchases, asks for advices, experiences and everything that could help in make the final decision.

Watching from business side advantages focus on targeted marketing, use word of mouth and virality, reach a bigger public than conventional tecniques ( unless with expensive investments), target profiling and creation of loyalty via post-selling relationships.

For the moment the easiest part to develop is the so-called “pre shopping”, that is to say ideas and opinions sharing, discussions creation after our purchases or the ones made by friends. Here through word of mouth is possible to create the social relationships that generate traffic and value.

Many companies involeved in e-commerce are watching with interest at these devolopments: for example Ebay has recently released the “x commerce” platform that assembles Ebay, PayPal, Magento and GSI. The concept is to offer devolpers an open e commerce solution over which they can create new applications to let social commerce be the next big thing.

Meanwhile Ebay is joining forces with Facebook just to explore every single way: in the new Open Graph Magento and GSI will be included, so brand pages could count on new business opportunities.

This is without any doubt another bet, a further addiction to enforce the multimedial experience of a social network that was born to share contents and now is a universe all-accomplished.