DUTCHPOTMailcast - It’s not too early to start thinking about holiday marketing — in fact, according to Brandweek, retailers and manufacturers who don’t start thinking now may not make their Christmas 2007 numbers. The Consumer Confidence Index indicated a sharp decline in confidence this season, thanks in part to the housing market/credit crisis and increasing fuel costs. Store traffic is down, and smart retailers are decreasing inventory to avoid markdowns later. Reuters recommends you “temper your projections”, like Target and Talbots are doing.

The good news? The season will be great for online shopping, with 84 percent of consumers spending as much or more online as they did during the 2006 holiday season.

Continue reading "Holiday Marketing: Think Now, Think Email" »

SiliconCaribe.com - a news and trendwatching blog about who and what's defining the dotcom and telecom industry in the Caribbean, Latin America and the World. I revinted techwatchcaribbean.com and it's been the best decision coupled with seemingly great timing, the viral effect, the traffic, the ad requests....makes us feel good. We're adding new features, writers, categories....we're gunning to be the techcrunch.com of the region.

While the Election TV ad wars rage, my chair is hot, it's busy season for us as a company.
We're adding more local clients, gone into the Caribbean and the USA has come knocking. We're thankful and happy that election is less than a week away.

Regardless of who wins, what is needed is a govt that's serious about BUSINESS. Creating an environment where startups are easy, growth is a done deal, tax incentives are abundant, bureacracy and corruption is minimal,our nation's assets are preserved so that Jamaicans are their prime beneficiaries.

Good luck to the PNP and JLP! Let's see what business will be like on the other side of Sept 3rd.

Yep, where we are, we have light and water. I am using Dial Up to get online and check email and Susan is having DSL connection issues too. It's been three days after Hurricane Dean SouthCoast swiped us- but yes, we're open for business...for the most part. Our Virtual Office service is not yet up, but we're in touch with our Clients ( the one's who have light,water, internet and phone service) to see where things are by mobile phone and email.

But even as being online, checking email and having your mobile phone service up and running means WE are open for business, I know it will be still a few more days more maybe for us ALL( clients, service providers etc) to be really open for business.

Cheers to being back in the saddle.

What a rollercoaster ride we've had. Here in Jamaica, we watched Dean making a SouthCoast B line for us; we battened down, shopped for batteries, flashlights, tarpaulin; we stored water and prayed for the best. Now that Hurricane Dean has past and we can see almost all the damage done and not done, I feel both sad and glad.

Sad that the South Coast neighbourhoods, small hotels, business places took a good whallop - some houses swept into or swallowed by the sea, massive floodwater damage, possessions soaked and lost, roofs and stock blown away- homes lost, personal and business lives interrupted.I t's going to be a challenge to reolocate, rebuild, get back to a daily routine of living and doing business there. But it will be done, must be done.

And I am glad about the...gottta get up, clean up and get going spirit. No 1988 Hurricane Gilbert mailaise here. Most people seem to understand that a day lost in discomfort, complaining and woe is me, is also a day lost - of living comfortably, relaxing, doing business and making money.

Minutes to 7 am, while out touring after checking on my family and close friends, I saw residents themselves (or hiring walkabout men with electric saws for hire), already beginning to saw and cut offending tree limbs that burst power and telephone lines, or those that fell and blocked streets. Fast Food outlets powered by big and powerful generators started to open up to feed the need for hot breakfasts and ice cold drinks and a feeling that all is well for the most part, we're alive - now how about a Bacon double whopper and large Pepsi to go with it all.

I drove to Port Maria, St Mary and Ocho Rios, St Ann on Tuesday morning to check on relatives and to exorcise my cabin fever and in some places it's almost like nothing happened. You saw the usual foliage damage along junction road, some zinc roofs from corner shops on the side of the road. But it's when you got to the St Mary Banana Estate you saw why farmers will weep for a few more weeks. Hundreds of acres of banana trees where bowed and broken from the 145mph winds.

The Port Maria and the Coastal road into Ochi however was it's usual bustle of people, dusty, dry and sunny self. In Ochi I settled into Island Village's Coco Brown's coffee shop for a cold beer and a quiet read to settle my nerves, my laptop being charged in Port Maria in a friend's office with a back up generator, it's like nothing had happened here. Island Village was open for business and ready to receive a big cruise ship the next day. The place was pretty much empty, but it offered the quiet, clean, back in order environment I needed to personally finish shifting gears from bracing for a Hurricane, back what;s next in building my businesses.

Sad and Glad, I guess that'll be the common sentiment for a while as we collectively mop up, wipe down, reconnect, rebuild and make ready again our personal lives, our businesses.

Building Web sites involves three very different kinds of skill—technical, visual, and editorial—and the three must work together, which is why the task is so daunting. Which is why it should be left to the professionals.

Online advertising will be bigger than newspaper advertising in the U.S. by 2011, according to a new forecast. Veronis Suhler Stevenson's (VSS) annual media research report says money going to online ads will grow by over 21 percent each year for the next four years, when it will reach $62 billion, while newspaper advertising will be worth $60 billion. Web advertising overtook newspapers in the UK in 2006, when spend surged 41 percent against print's 0.2 percent to pass the £2 billion ($4 billion) mark, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau. source:Via FT.com and USA Today.

Jamaican/Caribbean Context: ALready the shift has started in Jamaica. With companies small to large, brands familiar and new seeking more targeted media that assures them full face time with consumers. TV and print ad spend is shifting online. The trick is not many site publishers have been taking the opportunity to put themselves in front of brands to get some of that ad spend. Not even the major newspapers and online mags have taken this super seriously. Even so, there are fresh signs of movements in that area.
1. The ad network BC Ad Group, our of ATL headed by a Jamaican is about launch and at least two others are in the pipeline.
2. Email marketing is going to get more competitive in the next 30 days.

Just finished reading The Dip by Seth Godin which came on the heels of The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki. The Dip was great validation. I saw DPI in it, the things we chose to quit, the things we chose to stick with. The switching of operational strategies and the tweaking of business models. Dutchpot is in a great place, we have new products to launch next month, just wrapped up a sweet partnership deal and new business still flowing in by referrals. We're in a good place. We're moving to the NEXT level. After going virtual two months ago - we have no regrets. We simply acknowledged our mistakes, learnt from them, restrategised and now we have wi foot pon di gas and our eyes ever pon di prize and man are we having more fun.

Continue reading "Out of the Dip and flying plus The Internet Allliance" »

From Febuary to July this year...whooaa ...talk about a rollercoaster. Collections were slow (try getting a cheque out some Jamaican companies on time); had to ask a member of staff to resign because he started a business in direct competition with us and wanted to remain employed with us while building it.(lol...I know...he was pretty good at what he did too);we owe some money(in the low four figures and non interest bearing, so it's nothing to stress about), so a couple of people are pissed off with me, us, the company; one staff member resigned and who remained we put them contract and expanded our talent pool beyond our shores; we doing the virtual office thing - one in Kingston and another in Atlanta..

Continue reading "The Dip and Powering Through it" »

Marketing your business online is now a business necessity. One way to reach a core base of new and existing customers is through a strong e-mail marketing campaign.For more info click here. Here are some tips to make sure your e-mails get read, and get results.

•Know your goals for the campaign. Should customers buy your product or service, subscribe to newsletters, use your coupon or special offer, or visit you in person? Identifying these goals will guide effective messaging in your e-mails.

•Target your audience. Resist using the shotgun approach. Response rates are typically in the low percentages, so ensuring the right people get the message will minimize your expenses.

•Keep copy concise. Explain the offering in the first two sentences. Attention spans are low, and customers want to know what they are getting without having to read long descriptions.

•Test the campaign on friends and family before sending it to customers. If your grandmother opens the e-mail and knows what to do, chances are your customers will too.

Then hit send, sit back, and watch your bottom line grow.
source:businessweek.com