Kiosk Interfaces for Brick n Mortar
Posted by jonpape | Filed under Business, Usability
Last year, my local big box store had photos of products in aisles but no interactive ordering. This year, setup large product displays in aisle and use kiosk for order fulfillment. Free shipping to home would sell customer. Shipping costs could be included in product price.
Problems with Current Merchandising:
- Customer has to find sales associate
- Sales associate needs to find stock
- Sales associate needs to find way to move stock
- Customer needs to verify they can move large box in car
Potential Uses for a kiosk:
- Children’s backyard toys
- Pools & Spas
- Outdoor Furniture
Benefits of an Interactive Kiosk:
- Better Merchandising
- Less stock in stocks
- Reduced operations costs
- Better customer service
- No wait
- Better visual displays
- No problems for customer trying to ship home
Basics of Kiosk UI
- Category page w/ stripped down navigation
- Redirect to category page after 2 minutes of no activity
- Mockup would have large product images similar to photo display previously used
Rules for Beginning Developers & the People who Manage Them
Posted by jonpape | Filed under Business, Internet Marketing, Usability
Inspired by the blog “1,001 Rules for My unborn Son” I decided to create 10 rules for beginning web developers and the people who manage them.
- Never criticize someone who emails you in all caps. They usually own their own business.
- Its better to quit a project early then work for poor management.
- Always setup domain nameservers ASAP.
- Resumes will never tell you how good a web developer is. If a web developer can’t show you sites they have worked on, it’s a bad sign.
- Developers often underestimate how long it will take to communicate ideas to laymen.
- You’re doing something wrong if you have to write the same code twice.
- Always check the domain before you email someone you don’t know or reply to an email.
- If you put something back together after you tore it apart, left over screws are usually OK. Left over wires are bad.
- Websites don’t live in a vacuum. If search engine can’t index a website it better be really, really cool.
- Never read a computer book that is over 5 years old.
Dissecting a Social Marketing Campaign (the MeanWhile)
Posted by jonpape | Filed under Business, Internet Marketing
The MeanWhile is a small bar located in Grand Rapids, MI which offers a variety of community events and promotions to bring in patrons. By having a consistent voice and focusing on a several key tactics, the MeanWhile is able to create a consistent social media strategy offering interesting, entertaining advertising without incentivizing user participation.
MeanWhile Bar’s core values (strategy) is that their organization values the community. Their organization is able to communicate this message effectively because of the high level of commitment to local groups and non-profits and because of their deep roots in the community.
Whether selling “Michigan: Americas High Five T-Shirts” or naming drinks after local politicians such as the Vern Ehlers (which is Jameson & Vernors, a local Michigan soda), patrons know that the MeanWhile Bar is proud of Michiganders.
What I really think is great about the MeanWhile Bar is the series of marketing campaigns that they are running that focus increasing foot traffic to local businesses and encourage participation. I’m going to analyze the campaigns professionally but I suspect that all of these campaigns are essentually grass-root and focused more on fun, interesting activities that the owner of the MeanWhile support. Essentually, this makes there advertising more authentic and original than profit focused.
The largest marketing campaign currently running is the MeanWhile Film Series. This series is sponsored in coordination with the Wealthy Street Theater and features a series of movies that are cult-classics. Social media users are reminded weekly of upcoming movies and because of the Wealthy Street Theaters proximity to the MeanWhile Bar, an increase in customers is anticipated after each event.
The campaign is supported on print (posters) and digital social networks such as MySpace and on Facebook. The Facebook campaign is particularily effective because of the integration between the fan page and the individual events pages. Friends of the MeanWhile profile on Facebook are sent weekly reminders using the Facebook messaging system to attend the screenings.
Other local businesses which benefit from the increased foot traffic also display the event posters and the film screening are prominately displayed on the classic theater marque at the Wealthy Street Theater.
Another campaign that MeanWhile supports are bike rides throughout Grand Rapids. This campaign is harder to define because there are two distinct aspects to the campaign.
The group bike rides that the MeanWhile sponsors start at the MeanWhile and from there, participants ride to a series of other destinations (bars). Eventually, the ride ends back at the MeanWhile with a group of thirst, tired bike riders. The other prong of the marketing campaign is sponsorship of local bike riding events. I couldn’t find much information available except for this positive comment on Facebook:
Michael Tuffelmire: Bikestock happening August 1, 2009 at Ah-Nab-Awen Park (Gerald R. Ford Museum) would like to thank the Meanwhile for there sponsorship.
The MeanWhile bar does a great job of promoting interesting events in a variety of mediums. I like that the MeanWhile has an authentic voice that communicates positive, community driven events that appeal to variety of niches. MeanWhile Map
