karmaback

A Focus on Small Business

Small Businesses, whether they be a burgeoning startup or a solid “mom & pop” or something else entirely, have needs.  They need sales.  They need cost efficient Marketing techniques.  They need to reach “the right people” at “the right time”.  They need passionate fans to help evangelize their greatness.  We at Karmaback have interviewed dozens of small business owners around the country.  Now, we are proud to announce, Karmaback is dedicated to helping companies (of all sizes, especially small) to address these needs directly… with results.

Sales: The Goal.  This is the ultimate need of any company, and for small businesses, it is usually the #1 topic on their mind.  How am I going to make rent, lease, payroll… How can I keep my dream alive?

Karmaback’s answer: We believe you should be delighting the people who love you.  Give them special deals and special offers.  Let us help you make those offers viral, so friends of your fans can see the generosity and the love.  Karmaback Social Coupons are live now, and they are going to get even better soon: http://karmaback.com/sweepstakes/social_coupons/

Efficient Marketing: This means reaching “the right people” at “the right time”, with the “right message”.

We can’t help you with your message, but we are dedicated to helping small businesses reach the right people at the right time.  Social Coupons do this… Social Sweepstakes do it better.  http://karmaback.com/sweepstakes

Passionate Fans!

We can help almost any company find them, reward them, motivate them, and leverage them.

This is what we do!

Let us help you!

We’ll only charge you if we are successful… and it will be 100% more efficient than any other advertising or marketing method you’ve used before.

If you are a big company, we’ll help you too… especially if you treat your customers with respect, love, and almost act as though you are a small company, even though you are big.

Innovation at the Speed of Customers vs. Technical Debt.

Last night, a Karmaback customer asked for the impossible.  Around 6pm EST, I got a message asking how our new Social Coupons can support % rather than just $ discounts… he wanted it right then.  He said simply “how do I do this?”.  Well, one answer would be “you can’t”.  Karmaback’s answer, though was, “hold on a second…  let me build it.”  That’s speed of customer.  Less than 15 minutes later, you could.

How did we do it?  Do we have an army of programmers?  Is it such a trivial thing?  No, and No.  We do it because we have almost zero “Technical Debt.”  So adding a feature, by just 1 programmer, can take 15 minutes.  Even when that feature touches 7 different files, including templates and web-pages.

Consider, every time you “don’t comment” or you “hack it together”, you incur Technical Debt, or stuff you will have to do later… cleanup.  We all know cleanup almost never gets done, so the debt piles up.  Some companies have literally man-years worth of technical debt.  Their entire software has been “kludged” together.

Now consider when  you do it right.  You take the time to “architect, plan, comment, code, test”.  You have no technical debt, and you can Innovate at the Speed of Customers!

Why Karmaback was founded.

“What? You mean we’re spending HOW MUCH on advertising?” I asked, dumbfounded at the amount of money we were spending related to the number of units we were selling.  I had just built a new metric for my startup, Bigfoot Networks, called “Marketing Spend/Unit”… or what I thought of as ‘customer acquisition cost’.

This scene, and more like it, serve to why Karmaback was founded… where we came from and our main goal.  But first, welcome to the Official Karmaback Blog!  This Blog is an extension to my Blog on Business and is “feedburned” into Karmaback just for you.  Now, on with the story.

“So, we spend $x with Google to get a site visitor, then y% just leave or BOUNCE on the first visit… and so on and so on till we get to what, a conversion?” I asked dumbfounded.  This was my first stint as CEO.  Prior to this I had been in Engineering, Architecture, or Sales… and now Marketing was my #1 expense!

“Okay, so how do we measure when this 1 special Google ads site visitor actually buys one of our products?” I asked, hoping for the best.  I got the worst.

“So, we don’t have any way to know if that customer who we say ‘converted’ because he clicked on a reseller link, actually bought or not… so, we have NO idea to know if all these Dollars we’re spending is worth a dime, right?”

This frustration led me on a 3 year chase at Bigfoot Networks to shore up this hole.  I wanted Marketing to justify itself.  I wanted to be able to say $X in marketing spend will yield $Y in sales.  What I wanted, was unheard of.

Years later, I had an idea.  I thought it likely that thousands of companies have this similar problem.  I thought it possible to solve with technology, and so Karmaback was founded.

Our main goal, if you didn’t know by now, was to create a system… a fun system… to somehow connect “interest” to “the sale”… in short, to Justify the existence of Marketing.  After looking at the landscape, and building our first product (the like-it-flow), we discovered that MANY companies do have this problem… especially with Social Network Marketing.

Now, 1 year after Karmaback’s founding, we are on the threshold of Success.  Using Karmaback a company can:

  1. Grow fans and followers at a low variable cost of $0.25/new relevant fan.
  2. Measure those fans and followers interactions as they “evangelize” and “follow” the company.
  3. Convert those fans and followers into REAL and Measurable sales.
All without the constraints of Time, Space, or Real-estate.
With Karmaback, a company really can justify Marketing.
Call us to find out how.
(888)-406-5033

Karmaback converts FANS into DOLLARS at $0.10 per “social coupon”

Karmaback launches Social Coupons aimed at helping companies convert & reward real sales from Social Networks like Facebook and Twitter.  http://www.sunherald.com/2010/07/27/2359874/karmaback-inc-launches-social.html

This builds on our previous product, Social Sweepstakes, which brings companies tons of fans and followers.

Now, companies can BRING fans and followers and then leverage that attention into REAL sales.

Choosing to make a difference with charity over profit.

If you know you could make a difference, would you?  I mean really?  My company, Karmaback, has a chance to leverage some of our profits to help a ton of very worthy charities… all we have to do is… well, do it.  Yes, it will cost us some profits.  The profits we lose are probably 10x in value because of leveraging effects.  So, I ask, if you could make a difference, one where it has a “multiply” effect, would you take it at the expense of some profits?  I would.  Here’s why you should, and how you can!

You should take it, because you are doing MORE than just “linear” help.  You are doing non-linear, multiplicative help when a business gets involved supporting a charity.  Your employees participate, your partners participate, and your customers participate too.  For Karmaback, all 3 will be true when we launch our upcoming new program! (more details to come in the future).  So, just find a charity or 2 that you believe in, and do it.  The KARMA you get back will nonlinear as well.

And how can you do this?  How can you participate in charity in a “non-linear” fashion?  Simple, get your business involved.  Don’t have a business, easy, get your community involved.  Don’t have a community?  No problem, get your family involved.  Don’t have a family, for goodness sakes, join a community!  After all, we humans need each other!

When plans go awry.

In the startup world, plans often go awry.  A well-thought out plan can almost never foresee all contingencies.  Interestingly, many entrepreneurs are so overconfident that they even forgot the obvious contingencies.  Nevertheless, when something doesn’t go as planned, a decision usually has to be made.  The decision is sometimes as simple as “fight or flight”, and sometimes as complex as “steal or die”.  From my life, a real-world example is what to do when you build it, they come, but they don’t buy?

My startup Karmaback has had some HUGE success.  We’ve launched amazing innovative products, collected thousands of fans and followers, and are actually pretty good at bringing qualified customers (companies) to our website.  The problem?  How to get those qualified customers to pull the trigger and start running Karmaback Social Sweepstakes or Social Coupons for their fans and followers.

Classic marketing theory would say, lower the barriers to participation.  For example, we don’t offer a “Free Trial”.  The problem with this is it goes against my principles.  I don’t believe that it is fair for a company to reap the benefits of our thousands of fans AND our viral features AND our platform AND our legal, etc. without paying.  Fairness is a core value, a principle, of mine.  So, what do I do?

Well, when plans go awry, here is what I suggest you always do: stick to your principles.  I believe in fairness, and free is definitely not fair.  But “pure variable” micro-transactions are fair.

So, for now, we’re going to begin to offer “pure variable” priced products & services, beginning with Social Sweepstakes and Social Coupons.  Pay only for success.  That’s fair, and that’s a decision.

Meanwhile, I am looking to bring more “free” stuff to Karmaback for companies.   Stay tuned for parts of THIS blog to show up on Karmaback and for white papers, tutorials, and more to be offered for free.  Why?  Because knowledge should be free… or so say my principles.

Giving with No Expectation of Return.

How many books have you read that describe “tit for tat”?  Classic and neo- negotiation tactics books all describe tit-for-tat as a way to give and expect something back.  According to Seth Godin in Linchpin, this time-honored tradition is simple barter, not gift giving.  Giving a gift has an entirely different meaning according to Seth, and I find myself really enjoying its simple charm and Karma.

For Seth and I, a gift can be anything…  not just something that cost you money, not just something that is physical, and you can even charge money for it.  How?  A Gift is anything whose value far surpasses its price.  People who put their soul, their art, their passion, into their product or service, and for no expectation of “extra/tip/reward” are giving a gift.

In my own life this has lead to 2 things I realized recently: 1.) I should not feel bad about going above and beyond for my customers… it’s okay… it’s a gift, and I give it freely because I love what I do and I take pride in hard work and others success.  2.) I find myself “leaning forward” into the concept of charity a bit more.  Charity under my own terms, with my own gifts, of course.  Helping others start and manage their business.  Helping grow my beloved town of Austin.  and more… (stay tuned Karmaback fans!).

So, consider… is there something “more” you can “lean forward” into at your own work?  MORE you can do in your own job or art or life that is NOT REQUIRED, but that will likely delight?  Try it.  Give it.  Lean forward.  You’ll soon find that you are a Linchpin.

Karmaback Social Sweepstakes’ new Pricing & new Look.

Whenever a new service or product is launched, getting the word out is job #1.  Job #2 is converting that buzz into real sales!  If done right, you can use Google Analytics to measure how people are flowing through your site.  You can even set up conversion events and tracking to see how people are converting and where they are coming from.  Here is the thing: the data doesn’t lie!  Fix whats broken!  2 things were a bit broken according to Google for our website sales funnel… first, people were confused about the pricing.  second, people were bouncing on the sweepstakes page.

So without further gilding the lily, and no further ado, I present to you the new look of Karmaback.com and Karmaback.com/sweepstakes.  (Check them out, leave feedback, let me know how else I can improve!).

And what’s better?  Simpler pricing: $0.25c per relevant fan or follower we bring you… and a cap of $299.99 no matter how many we bring you.  (You can set a lower cap if you want).  That’s it.  Brain-dead simple.

Want 1,200+ new fans & followers for your Facebook or Twitter pages?  You got it!

Enjoy

My new startup, Karmaback, nominated for COOLEST NEW COMPANY from Austin Business Journal (ABJ).

We’re very pleased to have been nominated for “Coolest New Company” by the Austin Business Journal.

Please take a moment to vote for us!  (takes just 5 seconds)
http://abjentrepreneur.com/contest_nomination.html

And if you don’t know what Karmaback is… shame on you!  Check us out here: http://karmaback.com 

Vote for us… its good Karma!
You could Get Some Karma Back!

Obvious and True: Fans and Followers are a Very Targeted Audience.

One of my favorite blogs (The Marketingsherpa Blog) recently posted the result of a study that showed “like search traffic, social media traffic tends to be very qualified” This stunning statement came from Maura Ginty, Senior Manager, Search and Social, Autodesk.  Is it any big surprise?  

Let me think, people who like you, follow you, fan you, or are searching for you on social networks are a targeted audience.  While this does seem obvious at first glance, what is interesting about what Autodesk has done is that they actually developed a keen way to measure it.  Unfortunately, their measurement stops at “sentiment”.  Karmaback would like to take that measurement all the way through the sale.

According to Adam Sutton (Marketingsherpa),  “the [Autodesk] team can calculate the velocity of a marketing message — the number of people a message reaches in a certain amount of time in social media — and combine it with a sentiment analysis”.  And while this is nice… speed of message, sentiment of message, I find it lacking in 1 key area: the Sales!  Why is it people assume that sentiment leads to sales?  

Remember, for a sale to happen, you need to have 3 key elements: demand (sure, we can call that sentiment), price (there needs to be a match between price and demand!  Economics 101), and place (a place to buy, to shop, to complete the purchase, that is convenient & fast).

Here’s a Social Marketing Tip.  Ask for the sale!  Heck, even play with the price (promotions).  While you are at it, why not let them go ahead and buy, directly inside Facebook?  (place).