While attending a meeting of programmers and other web geeks, I got to talking with a woman who clearly was non-geek. She told me she was there to learn about blogging and her ambition was to be the next “Dooce”. I did a quick double take – having mentally misspelt the word.
Turns our “Dooce” is a leading “Mommy Blogger”.
A few days later I was reading Seth Godin’s blog on The Next Google. Essentially giving the same advice I give to all our clients who want to be the next whatever – don’t waste your time — it has already been done.
Most of my life I have live in small communities. One common business thread that I see over and over again is
- Some one gets an idea for a new product – say a candy store
- They start making money with their business
- Another candy store opens on the next block.
- Both stores compete by lowering prices.
- Eveyone goes broke
We can easily see the cause and effect in a small market. First there is a limited market – an inelastic market. This puts a limit on the demand. As more suppliers enter the market there are more opportunities for customers to substituted services. The price is reduced to either attract or keep clients. At some point price will be reduced to a point where no one can make a profit.
The Internet is different. The demand on the Internet is large – but fixed. The price is zero – not much room for price reduction. And, there is customer inertia.
Lets go back to our small town. If the new candy store had the same prices, they will only attract people who were dissatisfied with the other store. Customer inertia will keep people at the first store if there is no difference in product, price or service. To attract customers, they have to do something different. Being the same is not an option.
Getting back to our potential “Mommy Blogger”. She needs to either find a niche within the genre that is not being served or define her own blog in another manner. Being the next “Dooce” is not an option.
Google Analytics – Benchmarking
Google Analytics is beta testing a new tools. It will benchmark your site against industry averages. This is a Win-Win situation for both the business owner and the web developer.
I like Google Analytics for small businesses. (see Google Analytics – Are They Right for You?) They are easy to use ‘right out of the box’ and with a little tweaking are a very powerful online tool.
How will this new tool benefit small business owner?
It will, possibly for the first time, give the business owner an in-site into how well their site is preforming. By being able to compare their site to equal size sites, in the same industry, across the country, business owner’s can force web developers and marketers to deliver the results they are paying for.
For business, such ours, that do web development and online marketing, there is now an unbiased tool that lets us go to potential clients and show them how our sites compare with the industry average. It will move web development and online marketing out of the dark – into the light of verifiable results.
For web developers and online marketers – this is the marketing tool they have been waiting for. It may not have been designed with us in mind, but it certainly fulfills an industry need.