Buttonwood Technology Group, L.L.C.

New eStore Site Design Launches

Posted on 15. Apr, 2010 by David in Strategy

eCommerce Growth…

Posted on 14. Apr, 2010 by David in Strategy

Fashion Signals = Fashionomics

Posted on 12. Apr, 2010 by David in Strategy, Takeaway

Tyler Cowen is one of the most interesting people writing on economics in the world right now.  I highly suggest reading his blog from time to time.

He’s giving a talk  at The Association of Private Enterprise Education (APEE) conference in Las Vegas today on the economics of fashion which means the “signals” that your fashion choices send to others around you and the economics of sending those “signals”.

Here’s an example of signaling:

If a former SAAGNY board president were to buy a vintage THE CLASH t-shirt for $78 would he acquire the ability to generate a signal worth more that $78? (he could probably buy it for less but for this example it’s important that the t-shirt has a high value so let’s imagine that he bought it from a former girlfriend of Mick Jones)

Let’s imagine that he wore it to Promotions East and walked around all day and twelve people stopped him to talk about their tremendous appreciation for the band.  Now imagine that nine of those people were distributors who gave him their card and felt that they had made a important connection with a fellow THE CLASH fan who was wearing an important piece of punk rock history.

Now, most suppliers might value a qualified lead at a trade show at somewhere around $50 per scan.  In this case a $78 THE CLASH t-shirt generated nine “scans” worth a total of $450 for a cost of $8.66 per scan.

Was this a good deal?  Should he buy all of his salespeople THE CLASH t-shirts and have them walk around and have them walk around collecting business cards from distributors who like 80′s punk rock.

The economics would suggest that yes he should…and that’s how many fashion companies make money:

Connect with the buyer using a signal with high perceived value, use that signal to build a relationship, then sell the buyer something she can afford which allows them to retransmit the a weaker version of the signal.

In this case a distributor would be doing business with someone who signals that he “get’s me”. The distributor would be able to resell that suppliers product with a potentially move valuable signal since the distributor can share the t-shirt story with the client thereby retransmitting the signal and some of the associated value.

(i.e. look how awesome this pen is, the guy who makes it has the coolest THE CLASH t-shirt!)

Read more about signals and fashionomics here and  here.

(my apologies to any former SAAGNY board presidents who may not be THE CLASH fans)

REWORK – A Must Read…

Posted on 09. Apr, 2010 by David in Strategy

So this new book from the founders of 37signals is fantastic. It’s short, full of great ideas and easy to put into action.

My favorite three insights are…

- You need less than you think
-  Start at the epicenter
- Interruption is the enemy of productivity

What are you reading? Anything worth sharing leave a comment, tweet or post…I need something new to read!

Happy Friday!

Dangerous Ideas

Posted on 31. Mar, 2010 by David in Strategy

Here’s one of those talks that can change your view of the world forever. Starting with the deceptively simple story of an ant, Dan Dennett unleashes a dazzling sequence of ideas, making a powerful case for the existence of “memes” — a term coined by Richard Dawkins for mental concepts that are literally alive and capable of spreading from brain to brain.
On the way, look out for:
• a powerful one-sentence secret of happiness
• a compelling insight into terrorists’ motivation
• a chilling view of Islam
And just when you think you know where the talk’s heading, it dramatically shifts direction and questions some of western culture’s fundamental assumptions.

What should a client be doing on your website?

Posted on 08. Mar, 2010 by David in Strategy

Easy answer…buy a promotional product!  Is this a dumb question?  Not really…

So we all know that no client just calls up and buys a promotional product just like that!  Clients do a bunch of things before they buy, like ask for a sample, or a quote, or a presentation, or an idea, or a better price, or a million other annoying things before they finally actually part with their money.  So why should the web be any different?

One of the things we obsess about here at Buttonwood is something called conversions…not religious or metric conversions…but online conversions.

A conversion is an action a potential buyer takes before they actually purchase a promotional product.  This action could be many days in the past or just moments before the buy button gets pushed.  It could be as simple as reading a review or checking a price or something as complicated as posting a link on FaceBook so they can show friends what promotional product they are thinking of buying.

So we need your help figuring out what are the actions that constitute a conversion on Buttonwood’s Promotional Products websites.  In other words what are the things that clients are doing before they buy a promotional product.  Once we know this we can encourage clients to do more of these things and then hopefully purchase more promotional products!!

If you have any ideas can you leave a comment on the left side of the page (I think you can remain anonymous if you’re shy).  I’m hoping we can start a bit of a conversation and come up with some interesting ideas together.

Feel free to be honest just don’t be evil.

The Top 150 Marketing Blogs

Posted on 03. Mar, 2010 by David in Strategy

Check out the AdAge Top 150 Marketing blogs.

Company Stores and Inventory

Posted on 27. Feb, 2010 by David in Strategy

Five quick rules for making money on the web when it comes to company stores and inventory:

1) Decorated inventory is bad

It’s just that simple.  Once you put someone’s logo on something it’s becomes a lot less valuable to anyone else. A $10  hat with a Hertz logo on it is now a worthless hat to anyone but Hertz or maybe some Brooklyn hipster.  Don’t put a logo on anything until someone has agreed to give you money for it…trust me there are not enough hipsters in Brooklyn to buy all those hats no one else wants.

2) Don’t loose money in one place thinking you’ll make it up in another

That’s like agreeing to eat dog food as an appetizer because the main course is Filet Mignon.  Dog food is always dog food no mater what they promise you for dinner.  If you can’t ever make a profit then that is called charity. If you’re feeling like doing some charity work then there are lots of people in Haiti who need your help right now.  You’re in business to make money. Just because a big fancy client suggests you should work at a loss doesn’t mean it’s going to translate into something better later on. Dog food at the Ritz is still dog food!

3) Inventory is worth less every second

Take a look at your watch. Now watch that second hand move. Every tick is your unpaid for inventory becoming worth less.  Tick. Tick. Tick…now you’re poorer than you were three second ago.  Every day your inventory becomes worth less and less until the day when it is worthless.

4) No one cares about the size of your warehouse

The number of times I hear guys (you know who you are!) brag to each other about the size of their warehouse is amazing.  What is exciting about saying I have 50,000 square feet of expensive inventory sitting around making two to three turns a year.  That’s like bragging about your high fee, super risky, emerging market mutual fund that is loosing money or your third wife who just maxed out your American Express on her weekend trip with the tennis pro.   It may sound fantastic when you’re telling the story but everyone listening is not laughing with you.

5) Decorate on Demand is the future of company stores

So now that we know that decorated inventory is bad, loosing money is bad, decorated inventory is worthless and a big warehouse is not always a good thing what can we do about it?

Talk with your suppliers. They want to make money too!

Each large supplier either has or is working on a solution for small and single piece orders.  Buttonwood provides the electronic connection that keeps the order processing cost down and the suppliers can help dramatically reduce your inventory positions while increasing your product offering to your clients.

There are a lot of interesting things going on right now in the world of company stores that can really help distributors make money.  It will involve some new thinking and some up front work setting things up but the rewards are substantial.   Keep an open mind…you might surprise yourself and make some money!

Ever wondered how Google works?

Posted on 23. Feb, 2010 by David in Strategy

Wired Magazine has a great article on how Google uses context to give us what we’re looking for.

This is the hard-won realization from inside the Google search engine, culled from the data generated by billions of searches: a rock is a rock. It’s also a stone, and it could be a boulder. Spell it “rokc” and it’s still a rock. But put “little” in front of it and it’s the capital of Arkansas. Which is not an ark. Unless Noah is around. “The holy grail of search is to understand what the user wants,” Singhal says. “Then you are not matching words; you are actually trying to match meaning.”

Twitter vs. Facebook vs. Buzz

Posted on 23. Feb, 2010 by David in Strategy

Twitter shows staggering growth.

Updates/Posts

Facebook status updates: 700 per second
Twitter tweets: 600 per second
Buzz posts: 55 per second