Pure Play

Toyota IQ - the important (Christmas Tree) question answered.

At this time of year this is the question on the minds of every aspiring IQ purchaser - will it hold a normal sized Christmas tree?

The answer is yes - a 6 foot tree, a 6 foot driver and his daughter fit nicely.

Here is the tree without the people in view:

 

and unwrapped.

keith

Disclaimer - I (and 3 others) won the IQ for 6 months to drive and blog about, I pay for the petrol. No limitations on what I can write.

Toyota IQ, the money trail

I have had the IQ for just over 4 months now and more than anything aware of just how much money it saves on petrol.

I have done just over 8,000km in 4 months and so annualised that would be approx 24,000km.

At 4.3 litres per 100 km that is 1,032 litres and at e1.18 that is e1,217 spent on petrol. The old Volvo I have would be double that.

So annual saving is approx:

Petrol        1,200

M.Tax          442 (diff between Volvo e614 and iq at e172)

Insurance    100 (approx)

TOTAL      1,742

My challenge? That saving would give me a repayment capacity of e8,700 (5 year loan and no interest allowed for). That does not purchase a new car, even an IQ. So to be better in terms of Co2 emissions would cost me around 2k per annum. Which I cannot afford.

But if I was in the market for a new car it would be a great incentive to go for something this economical!

And the reward for making it this far - an IQ meets 6 adults!

keith

Disclaimer - I (and 3 others) won the IQ for 6 months to drive and blog about, I pay for the petrol. No limitations on what I can write.

Amanda & Lorna talk social media

 
Amanda Webb (http://spiderworking.com/blog) shared her thoughts on how social media works for herself and her client.

Her presentation here:

Social Media Campaign

View more presentations from keithbohanna.

She drew my attention to monitoring - and specifically of interest to me were boardreader and boardtracker - forums being a key area where existing guitar communities congregate.

Also she mentioned a monitoring service which I had not seen before: http://socialmention.com

She pointed out Puddleducks and Hairy Baby as two Irish businesses with really good Facebook pages.

Her session was really good.

 
Lorna Sixsmith started blogging 2 years ago and while it was for SEO purposes she found it really engaging and has gotten addicted to it. It has paid back with a number of large orders coming via organic searches leading to the blog and then an email or phone call to Lorna.

http://www.garrendennylane.ie/blog

She said that the visuals are very important for her blog and would always recommend using photos. She also has a regular series every (or most) Fridays on Interior Design solutions which is both good for readers and is also a good discipline. 

Both of the above gave sessions as part of the Advanced Internet user group in Carlow CEB.

keith

Barcamp Cork One Week Away - 23 great topics so far

I wanted to go to this barcamp. I booked to go to it - as an attendee and speaker. But now have to pull as have been invited to the Irish Software Association awards this day week in Dublin.

I know there are many of you who would dance till dawn in Dublin and then trek to Cork. My grumpy arsed body is not able for that - not without destroying my ability to do actual work for a day or two.

So I have pulled out and would implore you to go in my place. Book here.

keith

The speaker lineup for your information:

Name	Talk/Session/Tutorial
Bernie Goldbach	Notes from a Failed Entrepreneur
Simon Whelband	Subject TBC (but likely something to do with Outsourcing and the challenges it presents)
Randy Jordan	Talk about anything Database, Present Home DIY Web server, Demo @fleetthoughts, @querynet Twitter Bots, Suggest @ideaforecasting at ideaforecasting.com
AJ Mckee	May do a talk on the trials of raising a mil then loosing it.
Niall Harbison	Happy to give a talk on anything that is needed on the day. Video possibly?
David Behan	I’ll probably do a talk about our experience in the IQ Prize – from the idea, to the business plan, to the presentation – what we learned, what we’d do different, what we have gotten out of the experience, and how you could do it next year and win!
Donagh Kiernan	Technology Partnerships
Una Coleman	Marketing Strategies for Start-ups and Entrepreneurs
Martha Rotter	Robotics or Multi-Touch
Paul Sweeney	Connection 2.0: Communicating with Customers After the Web
Barry Walsh	I could present a quick one on importing from the East and getting it to market, clean technology basics, realities and future opportunites
Fegus O’Rourke	Defamation and being careful about what you say online
Paul Lee	Will be happy to facilitate a talk/ demo about Google SketchUp, Google Earth, Google Apps.
Sabrina Dent	Talk: Stalinist Web Design: Throwing Client Collaboration Out the Window
Donncha O’ Caoimh	How WP Super Cache Works
Elaine Rogers	Would love to give a talk/lead a discussion on subjects such as time management, stress management for the small business owner, and create a discussion around what works in terms of support systems, getting paid, networking, social media etc
John Handelaar	How (and why) KildareStreet is porting a million-row-DB app to Django without changing the existing DB *at all*
Joe Lennon	I would like to give a talk/presentation introducing CouchDB – an upcoming open-source database management system. I am the author of “Beginning CouchDB”. I intend the talk to include a brief overview of what CouchDB is, how it’s different from traditional databases, what cool features it has and who’s using it to do what.
Conor O’Neill	Hope to talk about OpenStreetMaps
Keith Bohanna	dbTwang – the more we do, the more we learn. Sharing our mistakes and our constant battle to focus on the key stuff that will make us successful
Mike Butler	Seeing an iPhone application idea through to the Apple app store.
Phoebe Bright	A talk on ‘Jumpstart’, the grouping together of experienced professionals to help businesses begin or reinvigorate their online presence
John Hardiman	I could give a small presesntation on top 10 technology mistakes for small businesses and how to avoid them??
Paul O’Mahony	Mental Health – the value of madness in development of the entrepreneurial spirit
Tamas Nagy	Erlang for Five Nines. It would cover Erlang’s history, what it can do, how it does it and where it is used.

Email Marketing veteran tells us how tomorrow

Denise Cox has been working with email newsletters for as long as I have been using the internet.

She is featured prominently in the IIA's Email Newsletter training course tomorrow. Details and booking here.

9.30: 7 Critical Steps to Maximising Your ROI from Email - denise cox, Newsletter Specialist, Newsweaver

Email offers one of the highest ROI channels available to marketers. They can help customer retention rates, as well as convert prospective customers. Learn the key strategies to increasing readership and engagement; including the use of compelling content, testing, design and smart segmentation to stand out in the inbox - and get opened.

10.15: Case Study - The Challenges of a Successful Email Marketing Campaign - Irene Gahan, European Head of Marketing & Operations, RehabBingo.com

Irene considers email to be the "life blood of our organisation". Irene will take attendees through the challenges she faced in implementing and running a hugely successful email marketing programme at RehabBingo.com - Ireland's favorite online bingo site. She'll take attendees through the challenges and decision making process, including: design, copy writing and crafting calls to action that achieve results, as well as how she uses metrics to benchmark and improve on campaign successes.

11.00-11.30: BREAK

11.30: Data Protection Guidelines: Email Do's and Don'ts - Gary Davis, Deputy Data Protection Commissioner

The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner outlines some easy guidelines for consumer and business email campaigns to ensure that you get the best return on your campaign. Gary will touch on opt-out and opt-in requirements, storage of email addresses as well as unsubscribe best practice.

12.00: Anatomy of an email newsletter - denise cox, Newsletter Specialist, Newsweaver

A timely, targeted and relevant email newsletter is one of the most powerful and effective communication channels available to you to stay in touch with customers and prospects. This session will provide tips and examples of the must-have elements in email newsletters that generate readers and revenue. The session covers what gets you delivered, opened, read, clicked and forwarded. Plus how to generate new subscribers ... and encourage sales.

12.30: Panel Q&A - your chance to ask all your questions

13.00: CLOSE

Keith

(disclosure: I am on the board of the IIA)

South East Event Manager Required - Part Time

From a friend last night, could be interesting for someone with an events background:

Event Manager

The Green Party wishes to employ a part-time Event Manager from November 2009 to March 2010. This role carries responsibility for the organisation of the party’s Annual Convention in Waterford from 26th to 28th March 2010.

It will average 2 days or 14 hours per week over the period.

Requirements

• Experience in the organisation of major events.
• Strong organisation skills and an ability to meet tight deadlines.
• Must be a team player, committed to Green Party values.

Applications

Further information on the position and an application form are available on our website www.greenparty.ie

Completed application forms must be returned by 5pm on Friday 30th October

Keith

Busy & Behind

I am extremely busy right now - consequently rejigging how I organise myself and my workflows.

If you need to get to me and I am not answering - resend the email, text me, whatever you need to do. Nothing personal just backed up.

keith

Old Fashioned Sweet Shops

One of the businesses attending my Social Media workshop this morning is the Slip Sweet Shop.

They are modelled on the sweet shops of your memory with jars of sweets lining the shelves and some old fashioned brand names on the counter.

Personally I would prefer to see it jammed to the ceiling with no space left for anything other than candy - but you cannot have everything.

Active on Facebook to - you can see their business page here.

keith

Social media talk - new slide inspired by (THE) John Keyes

Today I am fortunate to be working. Hacking my way through 21 legal docs relating to various aspects of the previous and soon to be current dbTwang funding rounds, collaborating on a 38 page training tender document and writing a 3 hour social media presentation.

In the middle of it all had a quick chat with John Keyes and from that comes a large text slide for the workshop tomorrow.

Context - business and social networks

If you do not make an effort to help people you will get back SFA

Thanks John :-)

keith

Helping us to feel good about ourselves - from IT article on bizcamp

Cross post from www.bizcamp.ie

Written by Ian Campell who spent a couple of hours at the event last Saturday it captures the mood really nicely.

Full article linked here.

Extracts:

PUTTING ANY talk of recession to one side, about 300 budding entrepreneurs gathered at BizCamp in Dublin last Saturday to soak up free advice that ranged from no-nonsense business planning to more esoteric ideas on what it takes to succeed.

From number-crunching to brain-training, Adrian Avendano hosted a session on using the two sides of your brain, but it was not always motivational. “If you’re going to do a start-up, you’re going to fail,” he said. “Fact. The thing is to get over it.”

Next door, it was less about sides of the brain and more about using your brain at all. “We seldom see a clear description of a product,” said Enterprise Ireland’s David Lucy, in an instructive talk on the common pitfalls in business plans.

Not just about presentations, BizCamp is a day when delegates have the opportunity to network among themselves. It is hard to imagine anywhere outside of singles club where introductions and personal details are exchanged with such speed and enthusiasm.

The mood was defiantly upbeat. It was the second event the BizCamp organisers have run this year and with the help of its sponsors, two more are planned for 2010, something that will be enthusiastically welcomed judging by the comments of one delegate.

“This is the kind of event the country needs,” he said. “It helps us to feel good about ourselves again.”

Thanks Ian!

Keith

Bizcamp - as many presentation as we could find

Alan O'Rourke did a great job gathering as many of the talks, blog posts etc as he could find for the day.

See them in this post here.

keith

Twitter, Facebook & Linkedin for business. Free workshop in Kilkenny

I would never, ever consider myself an expert on social media. But I do enjoy it, watch it and learn from others regularly.

The benefit of that (together with 3 real casestudies who will be there to share their experience) is FOC in Kilkenny on Tuesday 29th Sept in Days Hotel Kilkenny thanks to Kilkenny CEB.

Their online booking form is linked here. 45 already booked in - dead fashionable this stuff.

Formal blurb: In this workshop we will cover blogging, twitter, facebook, linkedin and youtube showing you the relationship between them, where they might fit in your sales and marketing strategy and how you can make decisions on which one to give time to.

Let me know if you are going to be there :-)

keith

Bizcamp Panel Discussion - Taking the Rough with the Smooth

(Cross post from www.bizcamp.ie)

At 2pm for an hour on Saturday we will be hosting a panel discussion in the main networking area on the Second Floor of Guinness Storehouse.

Theme: Taking the Rough with the Smooth - entrepreneurs talking about the challenging times they have been through, the impact on them personally as well as the business and to end - how they got through it to make a success of things.

Format: Off the cuff for 8-10 minutes each, no powerpoint - just passion :-) . Followed by Q&A

Panelists & Moderator (biogs at end):

• Kevin Traynor, Sonic Academy
• Colm Lyon, Realex Payments
• Jerry Kennelly, Founder & former CEO of Stockbyte, Endeavor
• Asheesh Dewan, Jaipur
• Martin Kelleher, Mason, Hayes+Curran: Moderator

I am looking forward to it - I have seen Kevin and Colm talk before and they do bring a love of what they do to the table. Jerry and Asheesh will be new to me.

keith

Biogs:

______
Kevin Traynor is the founder of Sonic Academy which he set up in Belfast in 2004 as a training facility for DJs and music technology enthusiasts, which has since become the premier facility of its kind in Ireland. A former drummer with one of Ireland’s most successful bands The Divine Comedy, it wasn’t long before he dumped the drums in favour of decks and began DJing and promoting club nights between London and Belfast. Since then he has notched up appearances in Holland, France, Italy and Australia and played alongside some of the worlds’ best DJs from James Zabiela to Adam Freeland and DJ Dexter to Tiefschwarz.
Kevin was awarded the Prince’s Trust Young Achiever of the Year Award in 2005 for his work in setting up Sonic Academy. He also sits on the board of Disability Action Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Employers Group of Creative & Cultural Skills (the Sector Skills Council for the Creative and Cultural Industries).
______
Colm Lyon is Founder and Managing Director of Realex Payments. He is highly regarded as one of the foremost innovation leaders in the online payment processing business. His career has spanned almost twenty five years in payment related businesses, starting with fourteen years in the financial service sector.
He founded Realex Payments in 2000 and since then the business has grown rapidly to a position of inspired leadership in the online payment processing business. The payment exchange concept, which he conceived has provento be the market winning approach in that it offers a strategic solution which addresses the core issues. Today Realex Payments process in excess of €6bn for 3,000 businesses.

Colm is a regular industry speaker. In 2005 he was acclaimed and rewarded for his leadership when he was a finalist of the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. As an industry figure he was Director and Chairman of the Irish Internet Association for over four years - during which time the association significantly enhanced its position. He was invited (2008) by Enterprise Ireland to participate in the Steering Group to devise the strategy for the Irish Software Sector. He is a graduate of University College Dublin with a Bachelor of Commerce and a Master of Management Science Degree.
______
Jerry Kennelly (Founder & former CEO of Stockbyte and Stockdisc *- sold to Getty Images for over €110 Million). Jerry has been honoured by the Deloitte Fast 50 Awards and was named the Ernst & Young Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year in 2005. Jerry has been instrumental in the launch and roll out of the very successful Young Entrepreneur Programme which is aimed at fostering an entrepreneurship culture among second and third level students.
He has been involved in the recent launch of Endeavour which is located at Shannon Development's Kerry Technology Park in association with Institute of Technology. Endeavour is a national campaign to search find, grow and launch Ireland's next generation of global entrepreneurs - featuring one-to-one by Ireland's most successful entrepreneurs.
______
Asheesh Dewan is the founder of Jaipur Indian restaurants, which employ over 100 people.  With six restaurants in his group in Ireland, the most recent one being Ananda in Dundrum shopping centre, Asheesh is also the proprietor of Benares in London, one of the first Indian restaurants in the UK to be awarded a Michelin star.   In March 2009, Asheesh was awarded the Ulster Bank Business Achievers Award and last year was named Permanent TSB Ethnic Entrepreneur of the Year 2008.  He is also a co-founder of Segala, an IT company which specialises in web accessibility and mobile web standards compliance certification.

______
Martin Kelleher is a partner in the corporate group and head of life sciences. He previously worked for eight years with Elan Corporation, plc (NYSE:ELN), a global biotechnology company.

From 1996 to 2001, Martin worked as an in-house counsel for Elan in Ireland and advised on the commercial aspects of Elan's global business. In 2002, Martin transferred to New York and played an important role in Elan's successful restructuring. During this period, Martin passed the New York Bar exam. He returned to Ireland in late 2003.

Martin has significant international transactional experience. He also has particular experience in advising early stage companies on funding corporate matters. Martin has an MBA from Cranfield University, School of Management and was a recipient of the J.P. O'Reilly Scholarship from the Law Society of Ireland.

Twitter and Facebook for business

Here is a copy of the presentation I did for 2 workshops this morning at the South East Women in Business conference - well done to the City and County Enterprise Boards in the South East for a great event. And myself and Krishna De enjoyed ourselves while she sat in on the workshops - thanks for your assistance Krishna :-)

Business use of Twitter and Facebook

View more presentations from keithbohanna.

keith

Bizcamp - thanks to the sponsors/supporters

[Cross Post from bizcamp.ie]. One week to go and time to say a big thank you to the businesses who have made a free day possible for us.

Sponsors

First off Microsoft Bizspark. Clare Dillon who runs this program has been so supportive of the bizcamp so a really big heart out to her

Bank Of Ireland were there for the last one as well - good to have you guys on board.

Mason, Hayes and Curran are solicitors in Dublin who do a hell of a lot of work with start-ups and (speaking from personal experience) have a strong commercial skill-set to bring to the legal side of any business.

Three.ie are also new to us with this event so welcome.

Supporters

Our supporters are Enterprise Ireland and the Irish Internet Association. Bizcamp happens because a group of volunteers put the time in to organise it. Both the EI and the IIA have been helping out with back office stuff which makes the organisation a lot easier for us.

keith

Other peoples Business Plans are easier!

In the two weeks before San Fran I did some consulting work with a Scandanavian early stage business. They had two small to medium funding rounds under their belt and had written their draft of the plan which is being used for the next round.

I helped them do a couple of things:

• Refine the pitch
• Develop the flow
• Clarify the focus

I enjoyed it and they found it really helpful. It was so much easier to do this with them than for the dbTwang plan we prepared last year - working like this you can take a very detached view of the proposition. In fairness to them they were receptive to the feedback and suggestions and in the process agreed a number of changes to sections which they had already debated internally.

Watch and see the results now - meetings with potential investors start this week :-).

keith

Congrats to all shortlisted blogs

Congrats to Michele, Maryrose, Sabrina, Matt and Ruth on getting through to the Best Business Blog Shortlist.

"Keith does not blog to win awards, he does it for the love of his business" said a spokesperson for the once longlisted blogger.

Best Blog of a Business - Sponsored by RedCardinal.ie

• blog.blacknight.com
• brightspark-consulting.com/blog
• sabrinadent.com
• curiouswines.ie
• nicedaydesigns-ruth.blogspot.com

Looking forward to seeing you all on Saturday evening in Cork - the rest of the shortlists are here.

keith

bizcamp Dublin - speaker selection No. 1

I am going to do a series of posts which each highlight 5 speakers at bizcamp Dublin and their chosen topics. The 1st 5 are a great cross section - finance, marketing and startup experience with innovation and management skills thrown in. Full line up here.

• Aileen Hannan “Practical Finances for Entrepreneurs”….sales projections, switching from paye to self employed, profit and tax, understanding p&l and balance sheet, doing figures for the bank, that sort of thing.

• Anton Mannering “Networking, how it helps to get your business going“….. Networking and getting your business going when you don’t have much resources.

• Eve Bulman "Our Communication Styles" This short session will provide an overview of the 4 Communication Styles, their Strengths & Weaknesses, how they serve us as Entrepreneurs and facilitated discussion on the topic.

• Chris Byrne “Startup advice from a serial entrepreneur” ….Starting your own business, email marketing, online research.

• Johnny Beirne "The story of how one business innovates" Johnny Beirne talks about how his business constantly innovates their service to develop new markets and also shares the story of the Leitrim Business Network

Thanks to everyone who has offered to speak to date - 22 in total so far.

keith

Whale watching was brilliant

We had a brilliant time yesterday. After the disappointment in summer 2006 of watching dolphins for 3 hours we saw loads of fin whales (the world's second largest mammal after the blue whale) and a couple of humpbacks (pretty much the only one which does the tail in the air dive - the tail lob). 

We went out with Nic Slocum of WhaleWatchWestCork - he is courteous, knowledgeable and respectful of the animals we went out to see. I cannot recommend his trips enough.

It was a mild and calm morning - so despite the heavy frost when we got up the journey was quieter than our last outing.

This is what we were looking out for - the blows which a whale does when it surfaces to breath and which are followed by the sight of the majority of the whales length coming to the surface. There are three in this photo and the ususual thing about this group is that there are 2 fin whales and a humpback - something which Nic Slocum (the skipper) said he has never seen as it is rare for different species to "hang out" together!

The tail of a humpback - we saw this a couple of times with two different animals and it was wonderful to see - reminiscent of the poster shots of whales which are so popular. It signifies a terminal drive by the whale - one which brings them down deep for 5 to 10 minutes and so they can end up anywhere when they blow again.

The best bit of the trip was this - when a female fin which is 50 ft approx (smaller than the max) blew and surfaced about 30 to 40 feet away from the boat. It caught all of us by surprise.

Here is a slideshow sequence showing a humpback blowing and then going into a terminal dive with a tail lob at the end.

keith

BizCamp

Conor O'Neill has posted the learning from CorkCamp2 over on their blog - link here. In it he suggests there maybe interest in a Bizcamp.

My interpretation is a Camp which does not exclude technology sessions/streams but which is pitched more at business discussions and experience sharing. So it would appeal both to the early stage technology community which turn up to standard Camps but also to entrepreneurs and startups from other sectors.

Happy to work on it in KK/South East - welcome comments or feedback. Alternatively would also pitch in with a team taking it on elsewhere.

keith

enterprise-ireland.com

One of the most interesting projects I have worked on as a consultant is as a member of the Path Pacific team which is currently developing a new web strategy for Enterprise Ireland.

 

Apart from Michael Clyne in Path Pacific who has enormous experience in the eGovernment sector (most recently with reach.ie) I am also working with Gerry McGovern, Brian Lamb and the crew at CustomerCareWords.

Meeting some great people in EI and looking forward to seeing how the outcome turns out - we all have preconceived ideas going in but the outcome and recommendations will be based on the the results of the methodical and comprehensive work that is being done :-)

keith

Photo from Tinakilly House in Wicklow

Stayed here on Thursday evening and really enjoyed it

Keith

EI, a photo of the new building

The stairway in the EI only half of the building. Only place we could get coffee :)

Quick prediction

Reading an article on ebooks and very confidently thinking that I will never consume books on that medium. Followed immediately by the memory of having been wrong many times in the past about technology trends.

There is a pleasure in reading real books that screen reading does not add to for me. And there is no missing functionality that I am aware of.

Wait and see ;-)

Keith

Humour does not get much more geeky

Thanks to Paul in Ormonde Design for passing on this - font comedy!

keith

State discrimination against same sex couples who want to help the environment

From Mamanpoulet via Mulley comes confirmation that democracy does not always work. Because you end up with a load of backward politicians who use legislation to try and force everyone to conform.

In short: If you are a same sex couple you cannot take advantage of the extension of the Free Travel Scheme to partners.

The long version is here and here.

keith

Sparing a thought for the family of a total stranger

Back in October 2007 I posted a link to a talk given by someone who knew he was dying and who wanted to pass on his thoughts to his family and kids. Randy Pausch died earlier today. RIP.

keith

Taoiseach to lead transparency Drive

Received by email this evening - proof that Brian Cowen is indeed setting new standards - looking for support to install windows in his office:

Title: Department of Taoiseach Windows Support Contract
Published: 09/07/2008
Published by: Department of the Taoiseach
Full Text: http://www.etenders.gov.ie/search/show/Search_View.aspx?id=JUL104703&ln=EN

keith

I'm not normally like this - adult language coming up

Don't much stray into politics here - but I really enjoyed this mashup which I saw on Damien's blog. Adults don't laugh enough, this will change that for a few moments :-)

keith

Subscriptions Online - summary points and Q&A

Sean Donohue, Marketing Sherpa summarised some of his takeaways from the 2 days

Adapt to changing subscription business models

• Continually rebalance mix of paid and free - continuous analysis required - monthly or at least quarterly. New content, different user/subscriber types
• Sell service as well as content - filter and aggregate data, save time, offer analysis
• Exploit your niches

Make Web2 work for you

• Find a technology or platform that is a good fit
• View it as a long term strategy

Optimise your marketing mix

• Measure, monitor and track your marketing spend
• Paid search -
  • If CPC is rising explore long tail terms
  • Look at second and third tier search engines
  • Focus on the profits that are being generated by each click stream

Defend against the economic downturn

• Plug your leaky payments bucket
• Focus on customer retention and cross-sell/upsell opportunities
• Repurpose content for additional revenues
  • Elsevier (scientific and technology book publisher) digitised 4,000 books for the subscription based sciencedirect.com platform.
  • marketed through free trial and volume discount
  • Signed up 2000 customers for free trial
  • Converted enough to make material impact on their annual turnover

Target tests for maximum potential value

• Identify your major pain or biggest subscription driver and try
  
  • Upselling to higher sub package
  • Trial registration path
  • Feature/service that gets visitors over the hump
• Form a hypothesis and test it

Comment during discussion on offering a free trial or not - person from FT.com said that they dropped free trials a while ago and offered a money back guarantee only. She said this has not proved as effective as the free trial. A free trial allows you to continuously market to the potential subscriber - but should always be done having taken their credit card details first.

Suggestion on subscription renewals or conversions from free trials to subscribers - watch usage patterns and prepare a specific marketing message or offer to people who are low users or who have not used the service coming up to renewal or conversion deadline.

Another attendee brought this a stage further and suggested segmenting active customers with different services and communications for each. Reward highly active users/subscribers.

keith