So, I'm a (fictitious) office products reseller that recently worked on an opportunity to develop a proposal for a new prospect that buys around $10,000 of office products and supplies a year. About 60% of this spend is on paper, pens, binders, folders, etc.; the other 40% is on ink and toner. My competition for the business was one of the big-box high-street retailers.
For one office products reseller (A), it's possible to feel upbeat about the business prospects; for another (B), it's entirely possible to feel pretty beat-up and pessimistic about the future: the same industry and business model but opposite ends of the spectrum.
As readers of my blog will know, I'm a strong advocate for information technology and its role in helping achieve profitable sales growth in a local market. I'm an advocate because I don't think it's realistic for an independent office products or equipment reseller to improve its value proposition or develop the web traffic volume necessary to build sufficient awareness without information technology.
The content we've been publishing over the last few weeks has been focused on the path to digitally transforming a business by deploying 21st-century marketing techniques designed for generating new and sustainable sources of web traffic. The competition for web traffic is intense, and a poorly designed site lacking helpful content will neither attract nor sustain traffic.
Did you do a double-take when you saw this news? Frankly, I'd have been less surprised if the headline had been the other way around! Not long ago, I wrote about the lack of consolidation at the OEM level in the office products and imaging industry. Not anymore!
According to WhatIs.com, The Internet of Things (IoT) is a system of interrelated computing devices, mechanical and digital machines, objects, animals, or people that are provided with unique identifiers and the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction.
Everyone loves numbers .. don't they? No, I don't think so, but we all have to deal with them every day of our lives. I've blogged numerous times about the "science" of web traffic development and, as you must now know, that part of the puzzle is a numbers game.
I've blogged about website traffic development, customer churn and acquisition rates, responsive, content-rich websites, and inbound digital marketing. I promised a future post to dive into the numbers behind direct email marketing, social media, and blogging.
