How to make $37mn: the #squarespace way

If you saw your twitter account today, you might have noticed a bunch of posts with ‘#squarespaces’ tag in them. Some of the tweets were totally irrelevant, while others at least bothered to enlightened you to squarespace.com which is giving out free Iphone 3GS it seems.


Now suddenly it all makes sense. Squarespace is a web hosting service, nothing unique about that. But they obviously have a smart marketing team which thought of this innovative way to get themselves some buzz. So squarespace is indeed giving out free Iphones. Well actually they are giving out $199 Apple gift certificates, thus you have pay for your on own data plan and stuff. So its not even an unlocked phone. Now doing the math, Squarespace is investing $5970 for a 30 day campaign.
And what are they getting in return: almost 15mn unique impressions each day for 30 days. Assuming a cost of 1 cent per impression, they are getting $4.5mn worth of eyeballs. Considering a 3% click through rate and a rate of 50 cents per click, that is equivalent to $6.75mn worth equivalent campaign on Google Adwords. Now assuming they have a 3% conversion rate, they would have already signed up over 400,000 accounts. Their cheapest plan is worth $8/month, so let us assume everyone takes only that the basic plan. Now considering a profit margin of $2/month and retention of 1 year, we are looking at customer value of $91, leading to profits to the tune of $37mn!!!
That is an estimated ROI of over 617326% !!!
My head is spinning already, This has got to be one of most amazing breakthroughs in marketing history. I know there are lot of assumptions in my calculations, but I’ve tried to be conservative and err on the lower side in every assumption. No matter how you choose to look at it, it is still a mind boggling number in profits and ROI for a single campaign. Hats off to Squarespace, you guys rock, and as a tribute, I’m gonna tweet about them. Who knows, heck I might actually snag one of those Iphones.

Technorati Tags: #Squarespace,Iphone 3gs,ROI,Adwords

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Iphone 3GS: What is the fuss all about?

Apple launched the new Iphone 3gs at the WWDC today. Rumors had been circulating around the tech world over what are the features that the new Iphone will carry. Some of the rumors and leaked pics actually turned out to be true. As was expected, the new iphone carries a new 3.0 mp camera, with VGA shooting video support.


The new Iphone will also support 7.2 mbps HSPDA speeds with AT&T’s 3G network. Added to that is an unrevealed faster processor and Apple promises magic, and at least 2x times faster operation and browsing experience.
Voice controls are a big new feature, although many other smart phones already carry that in some form or the other. A inbuilt magnetometer will aid compass apps and direction indication on maps. But all of these leaves me kind of disappointed. Specially after looking at the feature list of Palm Pre. Sure Iphone should be faster and have a better browsing speed. It has a better camera and has video, but there is no multitasking yet. Push is still not supported in the truest sense.
What is exciting though is that the new Iphone will available at the same price which is $199 for the 16 GB model and $299 for the 32 GB one as compared to Sprint’s $199(after a really lame $100 rebate). And the current Iphone 3G be will available for $99. Now that is a real smart move. Not only does that bring Apple in the lower segment, but it also matches Pre’s price with a newer phone and 50,000 strong app world.
My early reaction was underwhelming leading me to dub it as Ifail, but I take my words back, its a good update on the existing Iphone and one which will satisfy all its fans.

Technorati Tags: Iphone 3gs,Palm pre,AT&T,Sprint,Apple,WWDC

3 Reasons why Bing won’t become another Cuil

So Microsoft has launched Bing after months of secrecy and hype. Is it just another over hyped Cuil? In case you forgot, Cuil was supposed to be the big Google killer created by ex-googlers themselves. My belief is that Microsoft has played a good hand and Bing is here to stay. Here are my reasons:

1. Unlike previous times, MS this time actually had a good product and did not make the usual implementation faux pas, which we are so used to from the Redmond giant. Bing was launched carefully throughout the world and it wasn’t an half baked product. It replaced Live.com which was MS’s current search product so all the browser extensions and bookmarks were automatically updated. The UI was nice and the whole engine site pretty snappy.
2. Bing was covered by nearly the entire online media and as if that was no enough, MS has launched a rumored $80mn campaign which includes TV and online marketing. Cuil didn’t have the financial muscle in spite of its huge venture funding. For a search engine to compete against Google, a sustained campaign is absolutely critical to capture the mindshare from the masses. For eg. the chart here shows Cuil’s big start at the time when all the buzz about was there, but as you can see for yourself it sharply fell down due to lack of interest and backing.
3. Bing has a number of unique features of the board which give it a unique selling proposition against Google. The travel search is excellent and combines features from Kayak and other leading travel sites. It integrates with Farecast, which MS acquired last year. I can already see myself going to Bing for all my future search as a first choice since it integrates all existing travel sites. The Video preview feature is a nice touch and even image search with the infinite scroll makes it easy to look images without having keep hitting back button each time.

In conclusion, even though I love Google as a company and all their products, I’m happy to see a strong competitor to their bread and butter product which is search. It will bring out the more innovations for us consumers from both Google and Microsoft. With Wolfram Alpha already out there creating its own niche, these are exciting times for users.

Technorati Tags: Googe,bing,wolfram,cuil

Microsoft opens Bing travel: looks Kayakish

Bing.com’s long promised travel search launched today over here. At first sight it looks a lot like Kayak’s interface. But that is not to say that it isn’t good. Copying isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Bing has put into use the Farecast feature as well which lets you know if the price is expected to go up or not with a tip similar to stock buying. Maybe someone could start an Ebay.com for flight tickets and start options trading on them. Ideas… Ideas…

Technorati Tags: Bing.com,Microsoft,kayak,farecast

All about profile pics.... Enough said!!

Didn't I just say! "All about profile pics.... Enough said!!". Its just awesome, covers all the possible combinations. Hilarious