Posts Tagged ‘Open source’

• Give away for free or penalise theft?

  Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

  The latest furore in the UK about “three strikes and you’re off the Net forever” should give many marketers cause to ponder new business models.

  The music industry, as with other sectors such as telecoms, are operating with old business models, creating and then charging for false scarcity. However, many with online businesses that work, have seen the error of this model and are working on new ways to generate revenue that involve giving away a huge proportion of their ‘product’ for FREE.

  Assuming, or accusing everyone of being a thief is not the way forward, nor is penalising folk who may have been ignorant they were doing anything wrong. Or worse, who may not even have done anything wrong but who are penalised anyway.

  What ought to be happening is that businesses work to attract potential customers by giving them a taster of what is available on becoming a customer, and playing to human nature. Everyone loves a freebie. Look at all the free tools on the Net that are becoming embedded in online culture, and who can then look to paid models for the avid.

  Twitter, Facebook, Gmail and Google docs, Google itself, Zemanta, WordPress – in fact, most businesses who started online have had to adapt to the thinking that “Everything is free on the Net”. Open Source software is another prime example.

  Take a look at your business. It may be that you are Rolex, and therefore do not need to give anything away for free because the quality of your brand is historic, known and appreciated, and freebies would actually undervalue the product. You won’t find a Rolex in a cereal packet, ever!

  However, most businesses are not in that privileged position and need to look to what can be offered as the magnet to attract punters to you, to your website etc. White papers, free software with full or almost full functionality, seminars and webinars, online tutorials, how to manuals, guides, tools, video, podcasts…the list is endless.

  If your product is so exclusive and every aspect of it is copyright, you are denying your largest unpaid workforce of evangelists and sales people the chance to add value to it, promote it, or engage with it.

  

  Tags: facebook, free content, Google, marketing, Open source, Rolex, WordPress, Zemanta
  Posted in Content, Stats & Trends

• 10 tools to add Live Chat to your website

  Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

  We all now that developing relationships with potential and present customers is the name of the game. To do so, we need to choose one of a wide range of tools for the job, and live chat is a fast-growing sector. This software will allow you to chat directly with your website visitors, solving any issues they may have, collecting feedback, monitoring visitor paths around your site, answering questions in real time, and much, much more.

  Putting a telelphone number or email address on your site and expecting them to call or contact you is _so_ yesterday! Get interactive in real-time with your site visitors with live chat.

  The obvious options for live chat can include Twitter and Skype, but there are also plenty of other choices.

  Free and Open Source Live Chat software:

  Crafty Syntax offers a comprehensive range of features and is well worth a look, particularly if you want to go beyond customer help and monitor paths through your website etc.

  LiveZilla has an enormous number of features,  and although reported to be sometimes difficult to set up, you can get help from helponchat (who will also offer operators for your own 24/7 chat if you are short on human resources to provide the service.)

  Volusion free is a very simple version of livechat that is easy to implement, whilst the premium version offers all the functionality you would expect when paying for a live chat solution.

  Tinychat is a simple solution with webcam support. It ties in neatly with many social networking tools and the video quality is reasonable. More useful for holding webinars than Live chat in our opinion.

  Paid Live Chat solutions:

  Website Alive prices start from $29.95/month for 2 operators and limited functionality, rising to $97.95/month for a fully functioned solution. No set up fees.

  BoldChat has 3 options, with prices ranging from $29/month per operator to $99/month. The full featured version seems to be one of the most comprehensive available, including call load balancing, SalesForce integration etc. Possibly overkill for an SME, but great for large enterprises.

  ProvideSupport has 3 options, ranging from $15-60/month. The fully featured version has some great options, such as allowing operator to operator chat (which will help deal with awkward customers or questions), as well as automatic emailing of transcripts.

  LivePerson is one of the original chat solutions and has many enterprise clients. The features are many and varied and this is a 5 star solution worthy of consideration if you have the budget and resources to make the most of it.

  If you are using live chat on your site, let us know which tool you are using, what your experience with it is, and how it has affected your sales and conversions.

  

  Tags: customer help, customer service, live chat, LivePerson, online chat, Open source, real time marketing, twitter
  Posted in CRM, Online PR, Small Business Resources, Social Media, Tips & Tricks, Web Analytics