New Technologies: Options vs Replacement

Ken's Blog

You will see, over the years of your growing e-businesses, new technologies come. Some will stay. Some will go and become footnotes in the history of "never-made-it" ideas.

Some add something completely new. They even seem to replace something else, but in fact, if you think it through, they usually add an option.

RSS certainly seemed like it would replace mass e-mail. After all...

Why fight through all the problems and decreased effectiveness that spam has brought to those who mass e-mail honestly (confirmed opt-in, spam filters, etc., etc.) when RSS could provide both you and your followers with the same advantages and less hassle?

But it never was an either/or. It was an additional way to build a following, just like the recent twist on the Facebook Fan Page that Facebook is now offering, and just like Twittering...

They are all ways to offer options to those (who like you) to follow you.

Some people like e-zines. Nothing fancy. It comes to you. Pretty simple when you like and trust who you follow.

Some use RSS extensively. For them, subscribing to your Blog It! RSS feed is easier.

Some live on Twitter. Why not open an account and add it to your contact page? (At a minimum, you can program twitterfeed to let your RSS feed your Twitter account every time it updates.)

Some folks live on Facebook.

So... you have 4 potential options for folks to follow you instead of 1. Sure there's some overlap, but my guess is 2-3x as many people would follow you. Twitter and Facebook also offer other advantages (although those require more maintenance).

Just as an aside...

I learned this way, way back in the dinosaur days when I launched my first product, PennyGold, $1,000 software (my pre-SiteSell experiment with the Internet). I've told this story before so I'll shorten it to this...

I was sure anyone who found my product and wanted to buy it at $1,000 would never fax me an intent to order. Why bother? Just fill in an "intent to order" form, agree to a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), and Janice would call you back and take the order over the phone. (We did it this way to verify that we were not being defrauded out of very valuable software and to make sure that each and every person had agreed to the NDA).

-----SIDEBAR-----
In this case, the point is not the ordering
process, which was intentionally secure and
personal. It was limiting options about
how they could send in their information.
-----SIDEBAR-----

So I didn't offer a fax option. Just fill in the form and press "Send."

I mean, the Web form simply replaced the fax.

So, guess what? Before I even realized that our site started being found by search engines, the first order came in...

BY FAX! At 2 AM.

I was in the office, figured the customer was awake, so I called him. After a nice chat, I had to ask him, "So why did you send in your intent to order by fax?" I told him how I had placed a fax form at one point on the site, but then decided to remove it because no one would likely use it.

His answer?

"Because I like to keep a hard copy of everything I do. So I printed your form, filled it in by pen, and found your fax number, which you had left on your contact form."

I'm sure the lesson is clear. Yes, in the long run, some technologies will and do replace older technologies. But in the short to medium run, they usually are better considered as options.

It is rarely a mistake to offer an extra option if it involves little or no extra work on your part to offer it. If you listen to your customers, they'll tell you what options they like. If you insist on leading them the way you believe things should be, you limit your rewards (and theirs).

All the best,