EvoBloggito

Business in 2010: Still Evolving After All These Years*

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Jan 2, 2010; Category: Blogging, Business, Communication, Marketing, Zeitgeist; Tags: Blogging for Business, Business, Change, Economy, Entrepreneurs, Future; One Comment

New Year’s resolutions aren’t part of my tradition. They’re too easily forgotten or ignored, and they seem to focus primarily on end results rather than on underlying issues that create the need for improvement.

However, because the end-of-year holidays include more days off than I’m used to in a 2-week period, I usually do end up thinking about how things have gone over the previous year and where I’m going in the next. While I don’t exclusively think about business at such times, I’ll restrict this post to my reflections about Evo’s business (believe me, it’s better for both of us ).

My business has changed fairly dramatically in the past year, and blogging and blogs have played a big role. Evo has been in business since May, 2000—nearly 10 years. In terms of business activity, 2009 was not awful, but not great (until the last couple of months). My long-time business partner left the company in August and, while that has limited Evo’s ability to do some things, it’s also created profitable opportunities for collaboration with other companies.

I originally selected "Evolution" as part of the business name because I knew we’d have to evolve to be effective, as well as to stay in business. Back in 2000, I thought of websites primarily as online brochures. A lot of people still want static, set-it-and-forget-it websites that somehow bring them tons of business. It doesn’t work that way in 2010, and it really never did. I’m excited that websites can play an active role in marketing for a price that is well within the reach of most small businesses and organizations. My focus is now primarily on helping businesses and organizations incorporate blogging and blog-based websites into their marketing mix. In September, I developed and released a highly-customizable WordPress theme, Evo4 CMS, specifically for creating blog-based websites, and it’s greatly increased both my flexibility and efficiency in the implementation phase.

The challenge is that blogging, engaging online with customers, and keeping your website updated requires some time and effort. Definitely not a set-it-and-forget-it scenario. In 2010, I have to do a better job of communicating the benefits that kind of time and effort can bring about. Depending on how well I’m able to do that, next year should be a great year for Evo. And, I will have put some real tools in the hands of people to help them manage their business, which is a good feeling.

So, I’m focusing on two things in 2010:

1. collaboration with other developers, marketers, and consultants
2. helping businesses and organizations acquire the web-based tools and knowledge that allows them to manage their own marketing

I’m looking forward to it. Still evolving (and maybe still a little bit crazy) after all these years.

*apologies to Paul Simon

Fear of Blogging, and the Opportunity it Creates for People Who Aren’t Like Most People

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Oct 20, 2009; Category: Blogging, Business, Search/SEO, Zeitgeist; Tags: Blogging for Business, Change, Zeitgeist; One Comment

According to Seth Godin, there are two reasons people don’t buy (or do) things:

1. They don’t know about it.

2. They’re afraid of it.

If you don’t know about blogging and the substantial benefits it can bring to your business, that’s at least partly my fault. My business, and my mission, is to help businesses understand how and why to use blogging and blog platforms to grow their business. I’ll work harder at that: I promise.

The Psychology of Fear

I can detail all the advantages, show you examples of other businesses that have made blogging pay off, explain how much less money you will spend for the same or better results than you’re getting with your newspaper and radio ads, even plead with you (if I suddenly misplace my dignity); everything short of promising success. But at some point, you have to find the courage to do something different from what you’ve been doing, and different from what most people have been doing.

As the economy changed from orange alert (mild fear and wariness) to red alert (duck-and-cover NOW!), I had imagined that small and medium-sized business owners would be actively looking for something that would give them an edge. But I read an article (now long-misplaced) that suggested that the psychology of an economic downturn for most people is to hunker down and either do whatever they were already doing (but harder, with desperation), or to stop doing even what they were doing, while waiting for economic winds to blow more favorably. I can testify from the difficulty I’ve had convincing some businesses that blogging is at least part of the answer to their marketing dilemma in a down economy that this is the case.

Fear, apparently, is exaggerated in economic difficulties, and most people are even less likely to try something new, even if it holds the potential to overcome or mitigate the problem that’s the cause of their fear.

Now for the Opportunity

Here’s the good news for you if you’re even a little bit courageous: while your competitors are hunkered down waiting for the sun to warm their backsides again, you can get a jump on them. I’ve never talked to a business blogger who didn’t tell me they wished they’d started sooner. While you can’t start sooner than you start, you can start sooner than your competitors. Like most people, your competitors will wait until almost everyone is already on the bandwagon. By the time they’re figuring out "Step 1," you can be doing business with their ex-customers. Yup, it’s the law of the jungle. Survival of the fittest.

If I can help you with the issues you will face as you boldly go where few have gone before, please let me know. I can almost guarantee, those issues all have reasonably simple, easy-to-implement solutions.

Evo4 CMS Earns Silver Rating by ThemeGrade

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Oct 14, 2009; Category: Blogging, Design/Development, Zeitgeist; Tags: Design/Development, WordPress as CMS, WordPress Themes; No Comments

ThemeGrade is a website that tests and grades WordPress themes for general code compliance and for on-page SEO. Our recently launched theme for professional designers using WordPress as a CMS (Evo4 CMS) scored 6 of 7 points on the SEO portion, and 12 of 16 points on the general portion of the test (2 points were deducted because we don’t offer support: It’s a free theme! Who in their right mind would offer support for a giveaway?) At any rate, a silver rating puts Evo4 CMS in good company, in the top 30 of more than 175 themes currently, and we’re really pleased that our first theme did so well.

Other than offering support (maybe on the next release, we’ll make it paid and offer support), we’re looking at the areas where we lost points to see how we can fix them, or if fixing them is even desireable. For instance, we lost a point by not having nested or threaded comments. I’m not sure we want to “fix” that. First, few people use or want nested or threaded comments, and second, if they do, there are some pretty good plugins available to make that happen.

We lost another point having to do with sidebar link heirarchy. Frankly, I’m not sure what that is, but I will find out. And I’ll also do some research on what the SEO issue is with “home page heading.”

The Social Media Revolution: Still Think It's a Fad?

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Oct 5, 2009; Category: Marketing, Video, Zeitgeist; Tags: Blogging, Marketing, social media, Zeitgeist; No Comments

This video, from Erik Qualman of socialnomics.net, purposely looks and sounds a lot like the most recent version of "Did You Know", an earlier version of which was published on EvoBloggito in January 2009. The video above is about social media as a means of engaging customers. If you’re in business, you need to watch it.

FYI, the data sources for the statistics cited in the video are listed at www.socialnomics.com.

Hunkering Down: Local Business’ Dilemma

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Aug 4, 2009; Category: Business, Marketing, Zeitgeist; Tags: Business, Marketing, Zeitgeist; 2 Comments

Like a lot of people over the last several months, we’ve not been in much of a spending mood. We cut out some things that we judged non-essential, and one of those things was espresso. After several espresso-less months, however, my wife decided espresso was more essential than we thought. She headed to the local store (as far as we know, the only local store) that carries Illy espresso-ground coffee. That is, they used to carry it. They’d cut back themselves, no longer stocking low-margin, low-profit, or seldom-purchased items.

I should backtrack to let you know that this store is where my wife discovered Illy. The store contains (or used to) all kinds of “exotic” foods and wine, kitchen furnishings, furniture, and other household furnishings. We went there only on rare occasions, until my wife discovered Illy. Then she shopped there at least monthly, and she usually bought a lot more than espresso, which was the initial reason for the trips to the store. We’ve bought furniture there, which is not a low-margin item. I don’t mean to suggest furniture was an impulse purchase, but my wife’s familiarity with the store (we drank a lot of espresso) was a big part of the reason we bought furniture there.

Now, there’s not a huge reason for us to go to that store. No doubt we still will on occasion, but not monthly. Since we don’t know of another place to buy Illy locally, we’re looking for it online. Another local piece of business migrating online.

I can understand the store’s need to reduce it’s inventory to best-selling items where possible. But if you’re in the business of providing a range of exotic stuff, aren’t you shooting yourself in the foot (or your brand in the heart) by cutting back to best sellers? Isn’t that Albertson’s business model?