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Steve Jobs, legendary founder of Apple Computers passed away today.

If you missed Apple’s homage to him, here’s what their home page looked like moments ago:

I’m not one to spend a ton of time mourning for the dead (with the exception of loved ones and family) but I have to say it’s a sad day.

Jobs was and will remain a legend in not only the technology industry but world wide due to his powerful life story and of course the company he built that has impacted soo many of our lives.

Personally I only started using Apple products again this year after many, many years of being away from the fold. I’m hooked again. Despite not being engaged with its products for years, it has been impossible not to follow Apple’s rise and Job’s triumph of taking Apple from the brink to a dominant world player.

R.I.P Steve.

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I received an email this morning from a newsletter I subscribe to written
by Bob Bly. Bob is a legend in the copywriting industry and has published
over 70 books, including The Copywriter’s Handbook.

In his newsletter this morning, Bob details how you can figure out how
much to send on acquiring a new customer and I thought the message
was particularly relevant given that my readers and my clients are in the
business of generating new customers and keeping old ones happy.

Even if the majority of your new clients come from referrals, you can
still invest money in making sure you continue to receive referrals.

If for some reason you’re not looking for new clients, something
to consider is investing money in keeping your existing list of customers
active and happy. In either case, putting money back into your business
is a way to keep it healthy keep it growing.

Bob’s newsletter describes how to determine how much to spend on
acquiring (or keeping) customers. Personally I prefer to think of money
put into marketing as an investment. It’s an investment into your business
that should pay you a return.

Read through Bob’s ideas below and let me know what you think.
I think you’ll find he has an interesting way of thinking about the
value of a client.

Best,

Adam

*Note: Bob allows people to spread, share, and copy his newsletter
and blog content as long as you attribute his site as the source.
——————————-

Dear Direct Response Letter Subscriber:

To determine how much they can afford to spend to get a new
customer, many marketers base that figure on the average size of
the first order.

Therefore, if the front-end product or service is $500, they
won’t spend anywhere near that to acquire the customer, for fear
of operating at break-even or even a loss. If they want to double
their money on the promotion, the most they’ll spend to make the
sale is $250.

But savvy marketers know that the amount of money you can spend
to acquire a new customer should be based on the customer’s
lifetime value, not just the revenue from the first order.

Lifetime value refers to how much money your customer is likely
to spend with you during the period he remains a customer of your
business.

For instance, if the average unit of sale is $500, the average
number of purchases per year is two, and the average customer
remains a customer for 5 years, the lifetime customer value is
$500 X 2 X 5 = $5,000.

Based on the average lifetime value, you can see where it would
in fact be well worth spending $500 to acquire a new customer.

The business owner who understands lifetime customer value as it
relates to customer acquisition has a tremendous advantage: He is
willing to spend more to acquire new business, because he knows
its true value.

Example: A company selling books to corporate librarians planned
a marketing campaign to get new corporate accounts to start
ordering books from them.

I asked the owner what he would be willing to spend to get a new
account. He said about $300.

Forget advertising, I advised. Just open up an account for every
company you want as a customer – and put $300 in it!

Send each prospect a personal letter telling them they already
have an account with you — and that it contains $300 they can
use at any time this year.

Instead of a sales or marketing campaign, my client gave the
money he would have spent to generate leads and makes sales calls
directly to his key prospects, so they could try the service at
no cost. It worked like a charm!

Today online trading services use the same tactic. They send you
a letter telling you they have opened an account for you with $75
or so in it. You get the money when you do your first trade.

Need to stimulate business? Calculate lifetime customer value,
decide what percentage of that amount you want to spend on
acquiring new customers (10% is a common figure), and invest that
amount of money to acquire new customers.

It will likely be more than your competitors think they can
spend, giving you a huge edge in winning new business.

Sincerely,

Bob Bly
Copywriter / Consultant
590 Delcina Drive
River Vale, NJ 07675
Phone 201-505-9451
Fax 201-573-4094
www.bly.com

Follow Bob:
Twitter, http://twitter.com/Robertbly
LinkedIn, http://www.linkedin.com/in/bobbly
Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/people/Robert-Bly/535042603

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Apple vs. Google: It’s really starting to look like a clash of titans. The two companies have dueled in numerous marketplaces – smartphones, operating systems, and the like – but their most recent battlefield is a market upon which Google built its massive success. It’s also a market from which Apple hopes to draw 10% of its revenues by 2012. This market is none other than advertising.

The world of internet advertising has been conventionally dominated by Google. As times changed and people began using internet from their phones, Google adapted its ads to show up on mobile devices. However, AdWords ads remain at the mercy of Apple when it comes to iPhone users, as they could lock them out of the system at any time.

Apple, for the time being, isn’t going after Google directly. The company is targeting users in another mobile device activity that is swelling in popularity – mobile applications. Mobile device applications, known as ‘apps’, are becoming as popular and well-used as the internet on smartphones, and Apple is well-aware of this.

Thus was born iAds, the platform for advertising on apps. So far, it’s been a hit with advertisers: in its first 8 weeks of release, Apple has over $60 million of committments to advertise on iAds in 2010 – much of it from large companies such as Unilever and Citigroup. Analysts feel that this strong showing so early in the development of iAds is promising, even a long-term threat to Google. However, this is not to say that Google should be worried too much – $60 million is nothing compared to the billions of dollars of annual revenue Google generates from AdWords.

While it is too early to tell just how great of a success iAds will be, things are already look up for the newest addition to Apple’s product offering. It is also too early to say whether or not Google and Apple will end up fighting for control of the market, as there is still plenty of opportunity in the market itself, and many niches and media for each company to develop.

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The phenomenon known as ‘group buying’ is not all that new, but is quickly gaining popularity – not only among deal-hungry consumers, but among businesses looking for a lot of instantaneous exposure.
For those of you who haven’t heard, group buying is a deal between companies and a group of consumers.  The company cuts the consumers a really good deal, in exchange for:

• the sheer volume of business from the group of consumers

• the exposure, both through the consumers themselves and the word-of-mouth buzz if the experience was good

The method for setting up such a deal is through a broker of the service itself.  These companies operate by signing companies up to offer a deal to their subscribers, and then taking a cut of the deal to make a profit.  Enter the core of the group buying phenomenon: the group buying website.

Group buying websites (such as Groupon, featured in my post earlier this week) were started in big, social media savvy cities with a city-wide scope.  Since then, they have spread to nearly every urban centre in North America and Europe.  Not only that, the trend shows no sign of slowing down or becoming yesterday’s fad.  In fact, the coupon conoisseur has a range of options, with many cities represented by multiple deal-brokering group buying websites.

Here are a few players in what has become a very saturated market.  Deal lovers should have more than their fill of discounts after signing up for a few of these services:

• Groupon
• Citydeal (operated in Europe; subsequently bought out by Groupon)
• Shnoop
• Grooster
• CheapToday
• LivingSocial
• Tippr
• OfferMint
• DealOn
• Offermatic
• 8Coupons
• StealTheDeal
  

The group buying concept has proven to be so popular with consumers that there is even a website where you can sell your unused coupons – CoupRecoup.com claims to be the Craigslist of Groupons, so consumers can buy coupons that are sold out, or that they didn’t  purchase before the deadline.

Group buying sites are here to stay – particularly with the young, newly-affluent professional urban crowd.  Part of the success of the concept is the willingness of businesses to offer deals in exchange for large-scale exposure.  Knowing that the population segments they are going to reach are actively looking for interesting venues, these businesses offer great deals that they hope will generate regular customers, as well as a lot of word-of-mouth advertising.  Young urbanites in turn love the selection of hip, new places to choose from, and purchase coupons.  As more and more of this demographic continues to sign up, the draw for young or little-known businesses becomes even greater, and selling a coupon becomes a more integral part of their advertising strategy – and so on, and so forth.

In short, if you’re a city-dweller looking for fun – look no further than group-bought coupons; if you’re a small business owner looking for cheap exposure, group coupons should be part of your marketing strategy.

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