Ideainterior.com is now in Puebla!

A lesson in marketing from Idea Interior

Idea Interior is the closest thing to Ikea in Mexico and I am glad to announce that we now have it in Puebla, Mexico! I have to say that I am hardly ever impressed with the marketing skills of new stores in Mexico, but Idea Interior sure knows their stuff.

Before the Grand Opening: A good name and good advertising

Prior to the big grand opening, Idea Interior announced that they were coming to Puebla by putting huge red banners all over the entire construction site.  Although we had no idea of what products were going to be sold, we guessed from the name that they would be selling furniture.  The huge red banners had the name and the date that Idea Interior would be opening.  They also had the unique selling proposition displayed on their banners that they would have over 10,000 square feet of floor space to see all their products.  The location chosen for the new store was ideal.  A new Wal-Mart was being built so they purchased the entire second floor of the new shopping center.  Timing was great.  They opened a few months after the new Wal-Mart opened and just before the holidays.  Opening just after Wal-Mart did, they were able to get foot traffic from Wal-Mart without having to compete directly with Wal-Marts grand opening.

Opening Day

Although we missed the grand opening, we visited Idea Interior just a few days after it opened.  We were greeted at the entrance of the new shopping center by friendly sales reps dressed in red t-shirts and carrying huge signs, passing out well designed marketing brochures telling us about the new store convenienty located on the second floor.  Although we were going to get some quick shopping done at Wal-Mart, we decided to take a “quick” look around.  We were quickly impressed.

Our visit to Idea Interior

Walking in the doors of Idea Interior the first thing you see are all the products laid out in a typical apartment like setting in the typical living space of 600 square feet.  Yes I said 600 square feet… and that is for the entire home in Mexico.  Puebla has a lot of new construction and the majority of the homes will range from 50-75 square meters with the average being 60 square meters… for the entire home.  The home usually includes the living and dining room, a small kitchen, 2-3 bedrooms, and a laundry area usually located in the back patio. We lived in such a home for our first 5 years in Puebla so I speak from experience of how important it is to be able to be extremely organized and have many items that can be decorative but extremely functional as well.  I digress.  Needless to say, we were impressed.  The first thing we see when we walk in was all the products laid out in the way they can be used in the home!  A complete kitchen was set up with fridge, chairs, tables, tableware, tablecloths, magnets, and so on! A very small bathroom was set up with a sink with built in cabinet for sale.  The sink literally measured six inches from wall to the edge of the sink.  The faucet was pointed sideways and a small cabinet was under the extremely space concious sink.  Trust me… Mexican bathrooms are usually very small so a small space conscious sink is a great item to sell in Mexico!  Two bedrooms were set up on display as well as a living room with couches, bookshelves, and even books.  Their marketing did not stop with just showing how the items could be used.  On every single item there was a little tag with the price and the words, “This product can be found in …. department.”  Amazingly as well, the prices were extremely competitive. We are used to seeing products marked up 200-300% of what you would find them for in the states.  This was a great breath of fresh air! Yes, we were impressed.

As we walked a few steps into the store we saw some more product displays set up as living areas, but this time targeting the owners of larger living spaces.  This was great!  They started with showing how you can use their items in the smallest of spaces, and then upgraded to showing how to use their products in larger spaces!  As we continued our journey we quickly realized that this store was not set up like the typical furniture or home interior store.  Idea Interior did something I had never seen a store do before.  As we continued in, we found that we did not have to make a decision of what we wanted to look at first.  The entire store was set up on a single path.  You had to follow the path through the entire store to see things and there were NO exits!  (Yes of course there were emergency exits.) There was even a map outlining the entire walking course through their store showing you how long it was going to take you to get to a certain section.  After passing the initial entrance, the rest of the store had more of a warehouse type of feel to it.  Having already seen how all the products could be used, we did not mind at all the warehouse atmosphere.  Now of course if you see something, you will want to add it to your cart immediately, as going back to that place where you first saw it, would quickly become a hassle.  But how many people actually go back for something.  Most purchases are impulse buys.  By having the store set up where it is inconvenient to go back to pick up, I believe will further encourage people to add things to their cart.  They can of course always take it out later!

As we made our way through the store, something happened to us that had never happened before in Puebla, Mexico!  I know this will be hard to believe, and for some very hard to understand, but the workers in the store actually said “Hi” to us!  We were literally in shock when a guy carrying a cleaning bucket who was obviously part of the janitorial staff, looked us directly in the eyes, smiled, and said hi!  To our utter disbelief, this happened no less than 5 times before we made it out of the store.  Every time we walked by a worker, they greeted us!  What is even better is that they were not annoying sales people following us around the store trying to sell us things.  They were just simply friendly.  Digressing here… I don’t know about you, but I absolutely hate it when an unsmiling, unfriendly salesperson follows me around the store, two feet behind me, trying to wait on me… so annoying.  First they are in my personal space, second, they are not helpful, they don’t know enough to answer quesitons, and the net effect is to make me to want to get out of the store and annoying situation as fast as possible.  Not Idea Interior.  The workers were friendly and I knew they were there if I needed to ask a question.

Idea Interior did not stop here though.  Half way through our visit of their 10,000 square feet I was feeling a little thirsty and tired.  Guess what they had!  A little rest area with a couple couches, a soda and snack machine, tables and magazines!  We bought a soda, sat down, rested, checked out the magazines, and basically got re-energized so we could finish our shopping trip.

As we left, I noticed that they only thing missing is that they did not get my email address so that they could follow up the visit with a targeted email campaign.  I would have had someone standing at the exit with free soda and snacks and ask the customers as they left if they would like a free soda or snack and then ask them to take a quick survey and get their email address.  When we went back a few weeks later, I noticed that they now had a raffle promotion going on where they were offering a free entry in the raffle in exchange for contact info… so we were just too early for that.  I have to say, we were impressed.

Internet Marketing Lessons I learned from Idea Interior

  1. Have a good name.  Be sure the domain name of my website is descriptiive enough so that people can figure out what I am selling just from the name.
  2. Announce my site ahead of time.  Even if I just put up a name and date, announce the site to build up anticipation and advertise it.
  3. USP.  No, not UPS.  Have a unique selling proposition that helps set my site apart from the competition.
  4. JV Opportunities.  Look for joint venture opportunities to get traffic and customers from other non-competing sites.
  5. Advertising.  Create great landing pages that advertise the offers and USP of my site and send the traffic to these landing pages when they come into the site.
  6. Creative Copy.  Always show your customers how they can use your proudcts by using the FAB, feature, advantage, benefit method of copywriting.
  7. Have different copy for different customers.  Think of your market and craft your salescopy for the different markets.
  8. Live Chat. Be friendly to my customers and just say Hi!  Be accesible to them with an 800 number.
  9. Funnel Marketing.  Have a specific sales funnel for my customers and know where they are at any given time in the sales funnel.
  10. Look for ways to provide extra services that don’t cost me a lot but will mean a lot to my customers.
  11. Create a list.  Don’t forget to get those emails so you can build your email list to send out future marketing campaigns!

 

How often do you buy a new laptop?

Well, it is that time again… a little sooner this time than expected.  My HP dv9408 which was purchased in July of 2007 has been giving me problems over the last year.  Lately it has been running hot and taking forever to boot up.  The main issue we have now is that when I leave it on and it is supposed to go to screensaver, it goes to a black screen.  When I come back and move the mouse or space bar, it does not respond forcing me to turn it off completely. It will then power up… but not fully turn on.  The blue lights on the keyboard light up but the screen does nothing.  It then turns on and off repeatedly until I turn it off completely again.  Usually after restarting it three times, it will start to work again.  Not last night!  This time I had to press F11 repeatedly, then F10, then F8… when nothing happened I called HP support.  After an hour of finally being routed to the tech support department, they admitted that the motherboard had failed and that there was a recall.  Since it was beyond the 1 year warranty, I was happy to find out that there was an extended warranty and that they would be sending a box to my house where I could pack it up and ship it back to them to be fixed.  Great news! ….. Only I am not in my “house” I am in Mexico!  Not to worry the tech support guy said… I had up to one year from July 2007 to return it.

So, the laptop will get taken care of on our next trip to the states… most likely in March or April for the next Stompernet Live conference.  Maybe if we find someone taking a trip to the states sooner we can get them to take it back and then ship for us.  But even if we could do immediately, we would need to wait for it to get fixed which I hear is at least a few weeks… then wait for it to be shipped back to Mexico! Since I certainly cannot be without a computer for that long, it is time to buy a new one.

When we first bought laptops we used to buy the top of the line with all the bells and whistles.  We soon realized that within 2 years we were ready for an upgrade or it was running slow, or other issues so now we focus on buying a mid-range laptop that will meet our needs for the immediate future.  For some time now I have wanted to get a Dell laptop for no other reason than it came in the color pink.  Why pink?  I have no idea.  One of those irrational desires that have no logical explanation but we still want.  Since I could not justify the expense of upgrading just because I wanted a different color laptop… I am actually a little excited I get to upgrade now.  Of course it also has to be 17″ and have the number pad at the right.  Also got to have the extra loud speakers and a good video card for watching Stompernet videos! All the other technical stuff I will let my husband pick out.  As long as it runs fast and I can run all of my programs at the same time I will be happy!

Of course we have to price shop so after picking out a few options on dell.com.mx, we will be heading out to the local Costco and Sam’s Club to see what other options there are.  (No Best Buy here in Puebla yet though we just heard it will be coming to Mexico City soon!)  I don’t think that the stores here are going to carry a pink laptop so I am hoping that we can justify the price online over the prices and options in the stores.  If not, there is always 2 years from now when I will be buying the next one!

Starting a New Business

Combining business with family isn’t that hard. About 15 minutes ago my family and I headed on to City Hall and started a new internet marketing business. The whole process took about 10 minutes- after filling out the forms, the required information and $25 fee. I really love starting businesses in the United States, really easy.

If you haven’t started a business and you’re thinking about it- now’s the time to start. After that we took a quick trip over to Oceanside Pier where my 3 kids are making sandcastles and new friends in the sand.

I really love internet marketing businesses.

Hackersafe A/B Split Test

Almost 6 months ago mostly due to high reviews and a great offer from www.stompernet.com we added hackersafe to two of our websites. As part of the offer we did an A/B split test to see if it really helped increase conversions or not. The A/B split test was run by Hackersafe and the results showed that conversions on our site increased 9.3%! Recently we just finished another A/B split test that we performed with google website optimizer (with the help of monitus.net!) and found that using the Hackersafe logo definitely continued to show an increased conversion rate! Off to test some more!

A/B Split Testing with a Yahoo Store

My latest adventure has been learning how to set up google analytics and use google website optimizer to do A/B split testing with my yahoo store. I can’t give a higher recommendation than to say that Michael at http://www.monitus.net is the guy you need to see.

First, monitus.net. Monitus.net is a service that you can pay a low monthly fee for to have your yahoo store set up with google analytics. One of the best features of monitus.net is the keyword monkey feature. With keyword monkey you can easily see which keywords converted. Each day you will receive a report for newly converting keywords and if you login to keyword monkey then you can see an easy to read chart of all keywords that converted as well as your conversion rate for any given keyword. This is great because then you can see which words you should be focusing your seo efforts on. Keyword monkey also tells you if the words are found in your store so that you can know if you need to create special pages for those words to generate even more conversions. I had google analytics set up for some time, but Keyword monkey is so much easier to read and understand. Also, if you want to use google website optimizer to do any type of a/b split testing with your yahoo store, then you will need help from monitus.

StomperMom.Com

Ever wondered how to homeschool 3 kids, take care of twin babies, manage the household, and run a full time business all at the same time? I have news for you. You can’t! At least not alone. Almost a year ago I joined an internet marketing membership site called StomperNet. Since then I have learned some important things about running an internet business.

1. You should be working ON your business and not IN your business.
2. Do you have a J-O-B or a business?
3. Is your business an asset that can be sold?
4. Don’t forget the most important thing: Spending time with Family.
5. Your income is the average of the people you hang out the most with.

Number One: This was me about 6 months ago. In between processing orders, answering the phones, and updating the websites to delete discontinued products, there was no time left to actual work on the business. I was so involved in the every day activities in became impossible to actually grow the business to the next level. Solution: Get out of the house and get an office. Hire a Manager. Train manager to do everything I do so that she can supervise all the other people I will hire. Second step: Hire a webmaster. Third: Hire link getters. Fourth: Hire someone to work on product updates and uploading new products to sites. Fifth Step: Outsource everything else and then train manager on anything I am still doing. Granted, these five steps took six months. It takes time to train people. But once you do, you can actually start working ON your business and not IN your business. It obviously also takes cash flow. You don’t want to go into debt to pay salaries, but you have to look at things ojectively. If I can pay someone $7 an hour to answer the phone, and I choose to answer the phone instead, then I am making $7 an hour! My job is not to answer the phone for $7 an hour! My job is to work on Traffic, Conversion, and Community.

Number Two. Do you have a J-O-B or a business? Do you HAVE to get up everyday and go to work or everything will fall apart? If so, then you have created a Job for yourself. Part of the beauty of being an entrepreneur is that you have FREEDOM to go and do whatever you want, whenever you want. If I want to take the kids to the park, I CAN…. because I have a business, not a J-O-B. You need to create systems and policies and procedures so that your office can run itself. If YOU are the center of every decision, then you have a job.

Number Three. Is your business an asset that can be sold? If every day you have to work 16 hours just to keep the business running, then you don’t have an asset that can be sold. You have a nightmere! If someone offered to buy your business tomorrow, do you have the systems in place for someone to come in and take over? It is as old fashioned as creating step by step flow charts for your workers using a program such as SmartDraw so that everything can be run without you. It takes time to think out and plan the flow charts, but once in place, everyone will know what to do and how to do it. Keeping good books is also important. No one is going to want to buy debt. Make sure to pay the sales tax you collect on time to the respective states and be sure to only go into debt for inventory and office furniture. Don’t bank on tomorrow’s income to pay today’s salaries.

Number Four. Remember why you quit your job! You quit your day job to be an entrepreneur so you could have the convenience of working from home and spending time with your family. Nothing is more important than the kids. If you don’t get that project finished, so what? Who is going to fire you? Your kids however, are only little once and they WILL remember that mommy or daddy put them first before their work.

Number Five. Brad Fallon said this at one of the live conferences. Your income is the average of the people you hang around. How true is that. Don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone and go out and meet people in a higher income bracket. It is not about the money. It is not about what THEY can do for YOU. It is about what you can learn from THEM. It is about the tips and advice you can think about and apply to your business. It is about expanding your horizons and seeing things from someone else’s point of view. Maybe spending $30 a month on pay per click ads is a huge deal to you. Wait till you meet someone who is spending thousands of dollars a DAY! Then ASK them for some tips! Believe it or not, people usually like to talk about themselves! They like to talk about their experiences and the their successes. Be genuinely interested in other people and don’t forget to help out those that are learning!