Thoughts on marketing, technology, start-ups, new product launch, branding, leadership and more from Jim Gardner of Strategy180. Find out more at www.strategy180.com Because Results Matter.
I urge you to .co-operate on this. Right after you finish reading this blog entry, go to your domain host and purchase your company's URL ‘.co’ domain.
As of today, you can register .co just as you have .com, .net, or .org, and other more obscure ones, such as .me or .name It will cost you under $30/year but save you headaches. I predict .co will be a popular domain because: a, outside the US, web users already are used to typing .co prior to their country code (eg, .co.uk, for the Brits, .co.nz for the Kiwis); b, it’s a letter short of .com, which is great for typo trolling sites, and of course, c, in the states, it is a suffix for legal companies.
Yes, I might be wrong about the eventual land rush for the .co domain. If so, you’re out $30. If I’m right, you could pay thousands later. I say that’s pretty good insurance. That’s it. Just this timely advice. No snarky comments, no opinion, no sermonizing. Mostly because I can't, off hand, come up with a good pun using '.co'. If you have one, post it in the comments (the .co mments).
Everyone knows that the bane of parents of toddlers everywhere is the repeated question, “Why?”. If a toddler wants to know why the sky is blue, they’ll ask again and again until you move off your initial perfunctory response of “God thought it looked pretty that way” to actually answering the umpteenth “Why?” by explaining the refraction of the sun’s rays on our atmosphere in terms a three-year-old can understand.
“Why?”
Because even an inquisitive toddler knows that asking “Why?” repeatedly is a great way to get to the answer. Not just AN answer. THE answer. There is even a rule of thumb in Six Sigma circles involving the “Five Whys”. It is a Six Sigma tool that doesn't involve statistical hypotheses… and so can be completed without complicated Minitab calculations. Asking “Why?” repeatedly can quickly drill down to the core of a problem saving time by focusing on causes, not just symptoms.
“Why?”
Because in marketing, as in manufacturing, solutions are often not as simple as they may seem initially. There are now layers upon layers of tightly woven inter-related initiatives that build brands and drive leads.
“Why?”
Because marketing today isn’t as linear as it once was. Since 2000, marketing has become increasingly segmented, specialized, and multi-directional. Information is accessible anytime, from a multitude of sources, both positive and negative.
“Why?”
Because technology, namely the Internet, Social Media, Dashboard software, and Web 2.0 have both created new, responsive interactive channels and revealed new ways to measure old (mass media) channels that make marketing far more quantifiable, measurable, accountable and effective than ever before... and marketing needs to embrace this paradigm.
“Why?”
Because if marketing ever wants a seat in the boardroom and to assume its rightful place in setting strategy for the organization, it will need to not only know the right answers, but be sure it is asking the right questions.
