This may be our favourite support ticket of all time!

“We are using your product to schedule training worskhops. EventArc has been an absolute life saver, making scheduling and enrolment for courses quick, efficient and seamless.

We plan to move more of the training scheduling onto EventArc, including the fee paying courses. Thanks heaps for a great product.”

Normally a support ticket means a customer needs help. This one just meant that they loved our service!

Great way to start the day.

When you first launch your web application, there is one MASSIVE hurdle that stands in between you and enormous bundles of cash.  We weren’t initially aware of it ourselves, but over time it became clear.

It’s about conversions.

The path from interested prospect to paying customer is filled with so many holes, walls and mountains that it is a wonder that anyone, anywhere ever gives you any money.

You know that smooth “conversion funnel” you built to allow people to sign up and interact with your product?

It’s really only a funnel shape in your head.  It is not smooth, and it …

In an effort to increase our conversion rates we recently decided to redesign our sign-up page (again). The very first incarnation of this page involved six input fields. We realised this may have been a possible deterrent for users so we stripped it back.

Right back.

Maybe we went a little too far.

OK. We know. Hindsight is 20/20. We now realise it might have been a bit extreme, but we had our reasons at the time.

Pros

• Minimal fields
• Simplicity = no distractions

Cons

• Is this too sparse?
• This doesn’t look like the page I just came from. Where the heck am I?

We’re man enough to admit when we make a mistake (ie: we blamed it on the designer) …

We recently jetted over to SXSW for networking, trade show promotion, learning, beer drinking and way too much Tex Mex food.  Before we left, we had a long hard think about whether we could produce a slightly more interesting business card than our current effort.

We wanted to stand out and be memorable, but after much brainstorming we decided to stick with what we had.

(Editors note:  In this instance, “much brainstorming” is roughly equivalent to about 24 minutes.  We tried!)

Luckily for us, other companies attending the conference were much more creative.  Here are just a few of some sweet looking business cards that we thought worthy of highlighting.  Hopefully they will …

As a new startup, we often review what other successful companies are doing to see what we can learn.

Where have they put their call to action? What copy are they using on the pricing page? Where have they successfully reduced the friction between buyer and seller?

This constant review of “best practice” is enormously beneficial, and we have taken a lot of what we have learned and rolled it into Eventarc.

You need to be careful though.

There are things successful companies do because they are already successful and it NO LONGER MATTERS.  They get away with it, but if you tried the same thing you would die a quick and painful death.

Case in point?  Groupon.

Groupon is a phenomenally …

In so many ways, it is easier than ever before to use social media to promote and announce your fundraising event. But the more difficult tasks are those of engaging and holding people’s attention.

Today, internet users are regularly asked to sign petitions, join mailing lists and attend events for this charity or that social justice campaign. The task of breaking through apathy is today matched by the task of engaging people beyond superficial actions.

Social media – with its potential for dialogue, immediacy and ever-expanding networks – is an important part of establishing a sense of meaning around fundraising events and amplifying …

Niche thyself.  So says Guy Kawasaki, and it’s pretty good advice.  Being the best at something is generally a stronger position than being average at everything.

These images from our recent trip to the States show three retailers that have taken that advice to the extreme.

Example 1:

Take a single animal.  Sell bits of it, not the whole thing.  Always add salt.

Example 2:

Sell one product, but sell every variety you can get your hands on.

Example 3

Potentially a rip off of a Simpsons episode, …

When you make content that is worth sharing, people link to it.  They talk about it, and pass it on.

The SXSW Trade Show.  Over 400 vendors all competing for attention, all selling their wares.  Each have spent tens of thousands of dollars on their booth to make them look professional and successful.

The problem is, all 400 look the same.  Everyone has flashy signs, matching furniture, t-shirts to give away, brochures to take and free beer to drink.

You get to the end of the show and you cannot tell one from the other.  They all spend their budgets in order to stand out, but it has the opposite effect.  They blend in….

Over the last few months we have been madly finalising the remaining Trickytix functionality to be included for launch. At the same time, we have been thinking about our sales and marketing processes, our market, our customer development, and how each of these contributes to future success.