Tag Archives: monetisation models



You are wrong. Offline and Online all the same.

September 7th, 2008

Every Monday I like to throw some ideas out there and see what happens.

They return to me in the form of ‘I’ve tried that and heres why it didn’t work’ or ‘that’s already been done’ or ‘feedback’.

This one I have been throwing around for ages and talked to a lot of people so I thought now was time to unleash it.

Think about the mass of learnings we make online, monetisation models, usability

Now let’s apply them to an offline situation.

Why?

Fundamentally we are all humans interacting with your website or service.  We all have the same basic needs and wants.  We engage with your product sometimes with an end goal in mind othertimes we get sold on that end goal.  

Imagine I have taken over the local cafe.

Monetisation

Hmmmm ok, immediately I think of two things.

  1. Offer coffee for free or very low cost to boost volume. (adsense model)
  2. Offer coffee for free but charge for the experience (freemium)
  3. Offer unlimited coffee at a monthly charge.  Different plans better coffee (saas)
  4. Offer a special coffee that comes nicely packaged with chocolates on the side. (price discimination)

Usability

I like this one

  1. Remove barriers to your end goal.  Buying a coffee.  Have a sliding door, efficient ordering system. 
  2. Rather than volume (above) make it usable, friendly help user have a compelling experience (create flow), they are likely to spend more. (something online world hasn’t tapped yet).
  3. How quickly can i read your menu? how does the language affect my selection? do you have a top 10 list or ‘most popular’ items.  

I’d better stop you get the idea using usability you can keep going for a while.

Community

This one is already applied somewhat

  1. Create a community of coffee lovers, run a coffee course, teach them how to make coffee.
  2. Setup a monthly newsletter for your loyal fans
  3. Give your loyal fans cards valid for a free coffee for there friends (help them spread your idea)
  4. Offer free wifi and organise tweetups / meet ups (via meetup.com)

You get the idea.

Other filters you can view your cafe through: 

  • Conversion Rates: Optimise your entry points and languages for certain products.  
  • Authenticity: Have nice personable people greeting you, I’m more likely to open my wallet if I’m feeling good about my experience
  • Colours: Colours affect my perception of the store.
  • Analytics: Do you know what type of customers come when? how long they stay? what they buy? Most effective source?
  • Leaking links: Do you advertise / have signs that are building others brands not your own?

Conclusion: Ben should buy a cafe!

You can see that we have this great platform of learning online, we should all be looking at how we can apply these learnings into new contexts.


Monetisation Models

August 5th, 2008

Monetising your web service has been a topic I am forever intrigued with and been bouncing around as a blog post for a few weeks now.

Given recent discussions on Twitter I thought I’d grab this out of drafts and post it.

In terms of monetising your service, what options are there?

Freemium
Idea is provide a free service with a premium model where loyal fans pay for extras.  The inherent problem is creating enough value in the premium option to swing users to pay (creating status is key).

Ads based
Make money off advertising, default is to use adsense.  Problem here is this is based on large volumes to cover your services.  No good if your starting out.

Glue ons
Features to your site that are actually of value to your users.  I call them glue ons.  You glue on a new feature (if your users like it, it sticks, if not it falls off).

Examples include: Job Boards (where people pay to list), Toolbars (which generate revenue help user), Consulting Time/Services, Ebooks/Book…

Long tail of monetisation
There are lots more: donations, blog sponsorship / paid blogging, selling links, cross selling, special one off content, limited edition merchandise

However….

Looking at all of the options think anything that helps your users is likely to help you.

A job board that helps your visitors whom will need a job at one time or another, a paid fan club that gives me extra benefits (and status) that no one else gets, access to special reports that other have to wait 3 months for.   Think about what you can glue on.



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