McIntosh Marketing Blog

A highly effective way to become an author, and thus building yourself as a thought leader in your field, is to publish your book as an EBook. In an article titled, 30 Benefits of Ebooks, the advantages our not only cost-effective, but some recent predictions in the publishing industry indicate that by 2012, 25% of the book market will be purchasing their next read electronically.

Barnes & Noble has their Nook, as well as their app for the iPad. And they are not the only players in this game. Amazon.com has their Kindle and many other players will be emerging in this new avenue in which to reach electronic readers. Among the Ereaders, the competition is heating up as noted in this article in The New York Times.

One new EBook, Crisis By Design, has found the format an affordable and effective means of filling the need to clarify and understand the complex world of high finance, as it relates to the recent economic crisis and its impact on the world economy. In a politically charged year, this is a timely topic for a market that has adapted fairly rapidly to this new format.

This type of format allows one to offer to the world your book without the barrier of traditional publishing restrictions, high investment costs and precious time. While there are some drawbacks to this format, this is perfect online marketing tool for the guerilla marketer. Moreover, new income channels for authors can open up to sell to markets that would have otherwise been non-accessible.

Here is a video that promotes the premise of the book, Crisis By Design:

We have been preaching to our clients for years to stop using flash on their websites.  A website makes less money to the degree of flash and animation it uses.

Users don’t need to see ‘spinning globes’ and ‘dancing flowers’.  They need to be told what problem you solve and given the to solve it by buying your services.

It is one thing when a car dealership puts up a huge blow-up Santa Claus to get you to come into their dealership (an online equivalent to an advertisement on a website).

You would NEVER see a dealership stick a blow-up Santa Claus in the middle of their rows of cars (the equivalent of using flash animation throughout your site).  That would just distract their customers from the real reason they are there.

And now with the wide adoption of the iPad and iPhone, which both don’t support flash, your site will be even worse.  You will have huge holes in your website where flash once was.  And if you were using flash for you site navigation, your site because unusable.

The reason we needed flash ten years ago, isn’t an issue anymore.  We as web developers have powerful tools to do the same animations as flash, without using flash, so that you can view them in every browser and device.  You still have to use caution to not distract from the main goal of your site, but this is being done every day using tools like jQuery, prototype and mootools.

1. If your sales people rely on paper or drawing diagrams for presentations, an iPad gives them a way to perform the same task, and then email the notes to the prospect after the meeting.
2. Swipe credit cards on your iPad using Square.  Just a 3%-ish fee for the transaction which you would pay with any point of sale device, but no contract or monthly fee.  Your sales people could complete the transaction anywhere.
3. A lawyer can use it in the courtroom to do research where the sometimes spotty wireless coverage can’t be depended on.
4. A realtor could be could be walking their clients through a house while looking up and showing them pictures of other comparable properties or showing them maps and information about the local schools and points of interest.
5. It is common for actors and actresses to have thick scripts that have to be highlighted with all their speaking parts.  It is even more common for that script to be updated frequently.  Putting these scripts on the iPad would allow automatic highlighting and the ability to update them as often as needed without killing trees.
6. Coaches can use them on the field for game plans, practice notes, and a tool to show video from prior games or practices, or from other experts showing the correct way to perform a technique.
7. The concierge could travel to you.  They are no longer confined to their desk and can help visitors out by the tool plan their next outing.
8. If your service starts with doing a home estimate, the estimator could use the iPad to fill out the estimate and email the person before he leaves.  This servers the double task of getting their email so that you can follow up easily at a later time.
9. If you own a restaurant, you can use it to take reservations and see all bookings by time and table rivaling a more expensive computerized reservation system.  Any reservations from your website would automatically show up on the device.
10. Using Dropbox, you can have all your documents sync automatically with your iPad and your office computer.  This would allow you to edit any document, anywhere.

How could you use an iPad to revolutionize your business?