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gamingvulture · 7 years ago

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APPLE HOMEPOD REVIEW

Apple’s late arrival in the smart speaker market means it’s playing catchup with Amazon and Google but the HomePod might be special enough to persuade Echo or Google devotees to switch. It doesn’t look particularly assuming. Actually, it looks rather bland. A fabric mesh (in either white or “Space Grey”) covers the entire exterior, save for a black plastic blob on top. Neither branding nor controls are visible the only physical connector is the power cable. Address it with “Hey, Siri!”, though, and a familiar luminescent circle appears on the top surface to show it’s listening. Touch sensitive volume controls also appear on the same surface as needed.

Not blown away? Start playing some music and you just might be. We don’t just mean that the HomePod is loud although it certainly can be. On paper, its maximum volume level of 77dBA may look merely average, but unlike most speakers it doesn’t distort at all even when pumped up to ten, making it feel much more powerful than its rivals.

What’s really stunning is how vibrant, arresting and perfectly controlled everything sounds. Apple’s custom speaker arrangement gives dance music an irresistible driving kick; indie rock grinds and roars as it should; and the timpani in Verdi’s Requiem have a palpable impact. Even at moderate volumes, the HomePod has a muscular musicality that easily outshines anything else this month. Perhaps the cleverest part is that the HomePod can listen in on its own output, and automatically apply acoustic processing as needed to ensure you get the best sound no matter where it’s placed. If a nearby wall is producing nasty resonances in the mid-range, the HomePod will adjust those frequencies to compensate. Treble getting muffled by a nearby curtain? Again, the HomePod will sort it out.

The upshot is that you can stick the HomePod carelessly on a shelf, or in a corner, without the slightest regard for its acoustics, and get an effect that sounds like a high-end hi-i system. All that’s missing is a stereo soundstage and Apple’s working on adding that feature right now. Once it’s available, we suspect there will be no shortage of audio enthusiasts queueing up to buy HomePods by the pair.

For the rest of us, the HomePod isn’t quite such a straightforward proposition. First of all, $500 is a heck of a lot of money for a device that does the same basic job as the everyday Amazon Echo. Sure, the difference in audio quality is night and day but whether it’s worth the gaping price gap will depend on your priorities and your disposable income.

Then there’s the uncomfortable question of compatibility. Alexa and the Google Assistant will both work with either Android or iOS, and you can happily use either to access Spotify, Netflix and so forth. The HomePod, by contrast, works only with iOS Android users are shut out and services such as Spotify, meanwhile, get treated very much as second-class citizens. You can kick off Spotify playlists manually from your iPhone (using Apple’s proprietary AirPlay transport - buyers guide for iphone), but if you’re looking for voice control of streaming music, you’re limited to your own purchased iTunes songs, plus Apple Music and Beats 1 radio assuming you have obediently paid for your subscription. There’s not even a Bluetooth option for playing tunes from a non Apple phone or laptop. If that doesn’t put you off, there’s one last consideration to bear in mind: compared to its established rivals, the HomePod is a somewhat limited device. As befits its design, it’s at its strongest when it comes to musical functions. Siri does a superb job of picking out new music you’ll like, or assembling killer mixes within a given genre or era. For general smart speaker duties, though, the HomePod lags behind Amazon and Google. You’ll look in vain for features such as phone calls and multi-user voice recognition. It works with smart home devices only to the extent that Siri can control them via HomeKit, and right now you can’t even use it to control an Apple TV. Oddly, there’s also no manual microphone-mute control: you can tell Siri to stop listening, but then you have to use the Home app on your iPhone to enable it again.

your iPhone to enable it again. What you make of all this will depend on what you want from a smart speaker. If you’re looking for a convenient voice hub that will work with your Android phone, Spotify account and mishmash of smart home devices, the HomePod clearly isn’t a good i t. It’s almost insolent how pointedly it refuses to integrate with non-Apple services. If you’re primarily a music fan who’s already devoted to the Apple way of doing things, however, the HomePod will likely make you vastly, qualitatively happier than any of this month’s rivals. It’s not perfect, and it’s far from cheap but you’ll be loving the sound of it long after the expense is forgotten.

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gamingvulture · 8 years ago

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Key leverage points and partnerships

In today’s economy, it’s more difficult than ever for anyone, especially a small business, to go it alone. It costs more to pay for all your own advertising, find all your own customers, and do everything else using only your own resources. There’s an alternative: cooperating with and forming strategic alliances with other businesses. This enables you to pool resources, share customers, spread the cost of marketing, and do it in a way in which all parties win. A partnership with another company can be simple and limited or very involved and complex.

Partnerships in marketing can be employed by virtually any business when it can find partners interested in mutually beneficial cooperation. Fundamentally, it involves pooling resources—whether those resources are knowledge, expertise, distribution infrastructure, brand recognition, reputation, or simply money—to achieve a result that would be more costly to obtain independently. Startups are eligible for business partnerships from the very beginning. Actually, a lot of successful startups made a major leap in progress not just by boldly attracting investments, but by creating strategic partnerships. So, it doesn‘t matter where your startup is in the development cycle, you can and should look for possible partnerships that will boost your business.

Identify key leverage points relevant for you

Usually, there are at least a few possible leverage points in any business and yours is not an exception. Leverage point means a place where even small amounts of effort can generate significant results. Most starting entrepreneurs can’t see leverage points at the beginning, but once they notice and create at least one of them, it becomes nearly a habit to exploit them. If you manage to identify and use leverage points in your startup, you’ll quickly notice a meaningful increase in your key metrics of growth and profits. Here are a few areas where you could start looking for possible leverage points:

Marketing leverage is the ability to control and generate large profit increases from low-cost or no-cost marketing methods. Marketing automation and sales funnel optimization are the most popular domains of startup marketing. We’ve already talked about many things that could at least slightly increase conversion in your sales funnel. These also might be leverage where the implementation doesn’t require too many resources. For example, one-time offers and point of purchase incentives might be a leverage point for nearly any startup. It takes no extra expense to generate a second or third purchase if you implement an up-sell or cross-sell strategy. Increasing the frequency of customer purchases is another example of leverage because if you have customer contacts, know his interests, or at least purchase history, you can make him a customized offer without even spending anything on advertising.

Customer service and FAQ automation might be another pool of possible leverage points. Remember what we’ve talked about in terms of customer touchpoints and think about how a minor change in each of the touchpoints could result in a major effect on your business. A number of startups use a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section on their website to provide answers to the most common questions in order to save their time avoiding explaining the same issues to each client. Well, that is a good solution, but not a great one, at least not from a marketing perspective. Effective marketers see FAQs as a leverage point to overcome any objections potential customers might have. Raising the right questions and answering them shows potential customers that you have nothing to hide, that many other people had similar doubts and reservations about buying or using the product, but here are the clear and honest answers to these questions. Some startups from my research reported that just by applying this type of approach to FAQs has helped to increase conversion by 5 to 18%.

Big data leverage allows you to do analysis that identifies purchase patterns of your customers. It might lead you to identify much more accurate targeted segments (or even niches) and create customized offers for them. But you should consider this domain of leverages only when you have a huge amount of data. Otherwise, results aren’t accurate and valuable.

Sales force leverage helps get more out of your sales team without expanding it or spending additional costs. The main principle is to identify the right sales process and improve the effectiveness. This is usually done through outlining a consistent sales process and then setting sales objectives around those activities or the ones related to specific sales goals. According to Shelley Cernel from SalesForce (2015), companies that follow a defined workflow are 33% more likely to be high performers. The next step is to properly train your sales team. Continuous training can yield up to 50% higher net sales per sales rep, especially if the sales team is equipped with such tools as sales playbooks, training materials, persona-based selling tips, etc. Startups never stop learning, therefore this cycle should be repeated continuously: identify which sales tactics are effective, build them in your sales processes, and teach your sales team to use these tactics.

Partnership leverage basically mean that you are using other peoples’ resources at low or no cost at all and you might be trying to get money, connections, specific skills or business operations, time, and any other resources.

Find with whom you would like to partner

There are dozens of ways to cooperate with other businesses.

One of most common practices (although in some countries, it‘s illegal) is to trade mailing lists with other businesses. It is forbidden by customer rights protection laws in some countries, but there is a civilized and polite solution. If you can‘t exchange mailing lists, you can rent them by sending official emails with your name from your mailbox and combining promotional information of your partner. Most often examples include:

The partnership of non-competitive businesses. This could include a tow service, auto-repair shop, and car-rental business teaming up to offer end-to-end service to the same customer.

Destination partnership. For example, hotels, restaurants, and tourist-oriented businesses pool resources to market their location to prospective travelers.

Technology partnership. These are often formed to promote a new device or concept. In many cases, innovative technology startups often face greater competition from companies that represent the existing and established alternative technology. A partnership allows these startups to create a greater market presence to displace the old technology and ensures that they get to establish the standards for the production of the new technology.

Partnership to expand into new markets. This is particularly useful since independent expansion requires a huge investment of resources and the development of new distribution channels. This is especially useful for tapping into overseas markets, whereby a company in one country can offer a product through another company already established in another country, thus tapping into the new market immediately. This principle also works for domestic expansion.

Research prospective partners, taking into account the likelihood of a return on investing in such a relationship:

What can these companies provide to you?

What could you provide to them?

Do they have a partnership with other companies, and how have they fared?

Are they stable and follow similar customer value proposition as yours?

Do they have a compatible management style?

If you run a web design business and want to find more potential leads, try partnering with a web hosting company or online marketing agencies. Any partnership which benefits both companies is a great idea and a great way to grab the attention of new potential clients. It’s also a great way to boost your targeted marketing. Just make a list of potential partners to serve the same customer segments but don’t compete with you.

Todo.ly is an online to-do list and task manager. The founders had a goal to reach millions of new users and make Todo.ly widely available as a web application. They succeeded in securing a partnership with Google Chrome and were able to leverage their 200 million user database to help them achieve their one-year growth goal in just three weeks:

1000% increase in average daily traffic

780% increase in user base

400,000 new tasks each month

The key was that the Chrome platform was brand new and the Todo.ly application was submitted three to four months prior its launch date. As the Todo.ly app was exactly what Google was looking for to add to the Chrome Webstore, they have contacted the founders and asked for an integrated two clicks login through Google OpenID. Todo.ly has implemented that and became featured from day one. There was a huge marketing campaign around the Chrome Webstore, TV spots, prints, and press conference.

Peter Varadi, the founder of Todo.ly, shared his advice based on his personal experience: “Look for new waves of technology, new platforms that are expected to be used by a massive number of people and try to be on that platform as one of first.” In Todo. ly case, it was clearly visible that Chrome had 200 million users already and when they launched their webstore, they would obviously put it front of all their users. Google needed web apps to fill their webstore for the launch and they opened the app submission process a few months earlier. That was a timely opportunity for Todo.ly to jump in.

What could be your new wave and chance?

Reach out to potential partners and be persistent

Most partnerships are mutually beneficial, so before scheduling a meeting, be sure you have a win-win proposal. Persistent actions are as important as reaching potential investors during fundraising (Learn more on How to get startup business funding). Look for possibilities to network at appropriate conferences and trade shows and meet partners face-to-face. Use personal referrals and active follow-up on your most valuable potential clients. If you have to reach out to potential partners by email, focus your introductory e-mail on what’s in it for them (this might include traffic, money, new customers, or gaining competitive advantages, depending on how the partnership works). Always explain your startup’s vision clearly and highlight why partnering with your new company is beneficial for them. Persistent actions mean a lot. You shouldn’t give up if most of you potential partners say “No”or simply ignore your offer. If it is a win-win proposal, you’ll eventually find significant partners if you just put forth enough effort.

I want to share my personal experience with partnerships. I was working as CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) in an international logistics company, but I wanted to start my own marketing consulting practice. I created a website and needed to attract targeted visitors. At that time SEO was quite a new thing, because not every business understood it’s importance, so I decided to take a chance on it. I wanted to find as many link-exchange partners as possible. These are companies that provide services to other businesses who would be willing to put my link on their website if I would put their link on my website. Basically, it means no costs to any of us, we are not competitors, and even if the website visitor doesn’t click on the link, Google will see it anyway and will rank our websites higher. When I approached potential partners with this proposal, roughly only 2 out of 10 agreed to exchange links, but when it came to implementation, I lost a third of these partners because to some of them thought it was too difficult or it took too much time and effort. But I didn’t stop until my website got into the top the three of Google search results by almost all of my main keywords. Even though I was just starting out as a marketing consultant, my website was listed first compared to well-established marketing experts who had 15 or 20 years of experience. I got more leads, worked on them attentively, and converted them into sales. After just a few month, national business magazines and portals started asking my opinion about various aspects of marketing, and I became a nationally known marketing expert. And all of it started from my persistent, targeted actions to create beneficial partnerships.

#thoughtleadershipzen

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