New Informous Features – Lead Location Data

At Informous we pride ourselves on being user focused and we strive to deliver functionality that solves real problems for both buyers and sellers in the Packaging & Food Processing and Informous Plastics industries.

Over the past few months we’ve been focused on generating more leads for our listing companies. Our Solution Finder has been incredibly successful, and it’s been fun watching the leads pour in! As lead volume has increased, several companies receiving the leads have requested that we add location information to the other lead data we collect.

The feedback we’ve gotten is that many companies distribute leads based on geographic sales regions, so having location information is critical to make sure the right sales person is equipped to follow up. Special thanks to Mark from Econocorp and April from QuickLabel Systems for your suggestions– we’ve heard you loud and clear!

As of Thursday morning, we now display Requestor Location for all leads.  We’ll collect City, State, and Country information for all leads within the United States, and City and Country information for international companies.

Our Category Sponsor and Content Spotlight companies also have access to some performance reporting, which includes data around who is viewing your content. We’ve added the same location data to this report as well.

In the near future we’ll be enriching Informous leads with even more useful information, including company size, years in business, and annual revenue.

What other ideas do you have? Send us your feedback – your suggestions just might end up in an upcoming release!

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jsrcyclist/3179684119

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Good Motorcycles and Bad Market Research

Equipment manufacturers, software companies, and motorcycle dealers alike can benefit from quality market research. No matter what you’re selling, customer input can help you improve your business and your products. I’ve been thinking about this recently after my experience at a local motorcycle dealer.

A little background

Shopping for a motorcycle is totally different than shopping for a car.  Most motorcycle dealers don’t allow test rides.  In fact, some motorcycle dealers don’t even let potential buyers sit on new bikes (crazy!). So even though I’m not in the market for a new bike, whenever there’s an opportunity to try out different motorcycles I usually take advantage of it.

One of the motorcycle dealers in my area recently offered Triumph demo rides.  For demo rides,  a motorcycle manufacturer will send a truckload of 15 or 20 new models to an event for the day.  After hearing a description of the ride route and specific safety instructions, demo riders are taken out in a group with guides at the front and rear (to make sure everyone obeys the rules and doesn’t “accidentally get lost” with a new $10,000+ motorcycle).

The Saturday of the demo rides was a gorgeous 75 degree day, and I chose a Bonneville SE to ride.  It had a totally different seating position, handling, and even exhaust note from the motorcycles I normally ride. With a little more time in the saddle, I might have fallen in love!  (Hmm, maybe I am in the market for a new motorcycle after all…) While the Bonneville was great, there were things I didn’t like about the experience, but no one was around collecting feedback. Fast forward to last Monday night:

My phone rang shortly after I got home from work. It was a representative from the dealer that hosted the demo rides and she wanted to ask me a few questions about the event.  Aha – now was my chance to provide some valuable feedback! Now don’t get me wrong – normally I don’t do phone surveys and say “I’M NOT INTERESTED” more rudely than I should (mostly because I don’t like being interrupted right after I sit down to dinner) – but I was actually happy to get the call because I had an opinion and feedback to give. She asked me just a few brief questions:

• Which bike(s) did you ride or were you interested in?
• On a scale of 1 to 5 how would you rate your overall experience?
• On the same scale, how would you rate your interest in Triumph?
• Do you currently own a motorcycle?  If so, what make/model?

That was it! I was shocked that I wasn’t asked any open-ended or qualitative questions. When I rated the overall experience just a “3,” I couldn’t believe that I wasn’t asked why. There were no questions about what I liked, what I didn’t like, or what I would change about the event.  There weren’t even any questions about how soon I would be looking to purchase a new motorcycle. I’m still trying to figure out what they were hoping to learn from the questions asked.

Here’s what I took away from the experience:

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Don't Let Technology Steal Your Productivity

Have you ever had one of those days that was over before you knew it, but when you looked back on the day, you couldn’t pick out anything you actually accomplished?  Between incoming emails, ringing phones, buzzing text messages, blinking instant message windows, tweets, and status updates, sometimes it’s hard to get actual work done. All of these technological advances in the last 15 to 20 years can become a double edged sword. While technology enables us to access an endless amount of information in seconds, it also enables endless distractions.

Here are a few tips I’ve picked up over the years to manage technology, alleviate distractions, and increase productivity at work:

1. Designate a quiet/unplugged period of each day.

For a while now, I’ve had a quote written on the whiteboard behind my desk that says “Interruption is the enemy of productivity.” This was inspired by a chapter of the same name in Rework, by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson of 37signals. They explain how interruptions really divide our work day into small chunks of “work moments.” It’s hard to get anything meaningful done when we’re constantly stopping and restarting.

To offset these interruptions, it’s helpful to designate a quiet/unplugged period of each day or set aside part of one day during each work week. During that period, silence your phone (cell phone too!), close your email program, and sign off of instant messenger. If you don’t have an office door that can be closed, hang a sign outside your cubicle or let colleagues know that you need to spend a few hours interruption free. I’ve also found it helpful to put on headphones with some background music to block out other office noises.

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Motorcycles and Startups: Wild Rides

Between having two young kids at home and all the cold and snow we’ve had this winter, it had been far too long since I fired up a bike and felt the wind in my face. This past weekend, I finally had the opportunity to get out on my motorcycle for the first time this year. When I left the house the temperature was in the mid-fifties, which seemed nice and warm sitting still, but on country roads at 50+ mph it was on the refreshing side!

While I was riding around for a few hours, I was reminded of all of the things I like about motorcycles. I’ve also been thinking lately about how much I enjoy working for startup companies. Surprisingly, the two have a lot in common:

Roads less traveled

Ted Simon summed it up well when he said, “Hooray for the motorcycle! It seduces you into getting off the freeways and onto smaller roads and doing things the harder way and being aware of the countryside.”

My motorcycle takes me on roads I wouldn’t otherwise travel. When I’ve got a free afternoon, it’s fun to hop on the bike and try to find some undiscovered routes. When I turn down a new road, I don’t know where I’ll end up.  Sometimes, it’s a dead end.  Sometimes it takes me right back where I started.  But sometimes, I find a great road with smooth pavement, little traffic, and lots of curves. Other times I find a beautiful scenic overlook or a tucked away pit beef stand with the best sandwiches in the area.

Similarly, the roads ahead of a startup company are largely unknown. When new products are launched or different methods are tested, the outcome is often uncertain. Sometimes the new ideas don’t work.  Sometimes new products fail spectacularly! But sometimes, the road leads to a discovery that changes the face of the industry.

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New Informous Features – Solution Finder

Have you ever tried to find someone in a crowd? It’s hard work, especially if you don’t know what they look like, or exactly what they’re wearing.

The crowd of companies and product information on Informous is growing every day. If you know exactly who or what you’re looking for, our search and browse functions will help you find what you need. However, if you’re not quite sure which companies offer the best solutions to your packaging problem, or which plastics products are the the ones you need, the volume of information can be a little overwhelming.

To solve that problem, we launched a new function this morning. Now, Informous’ visitors can skip the crowd and easily find what they need.  Just fill out a simple form with your contact information, a brief description of your needs, and the general category, and we’ll search through the hundreds of companies on Informous for you. We’ll select a maximum of four companies who best match your requirements and send your request on to them.

This function benefits our visitors, and listed companies. Site visitors who are looking for packaging or plastics solutions can find what they need faster by reaching out to multiple companies at once. And our wonderful listed companies will get even more qualified leads.

We love a good win-win!

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Website Usability Lessons from Chuck Norris

When someone mentions the name Chuck Norris, what’s the first thing that pops into your head? Eighth Degree Black Belt? Tae Kwon Do Grand Master? Awesome beard? Texas Ranger? Maybe gifted actor or television star?

Website usability, anyone?

Probably not, but there’s a lot we can learn from Chuck about making websites more user-friendly. Here’s what I’ve gleaned from literally minutes spent studying Carlos Ray Norris:

Chuck Norris doesn’t read books, he stares them down until he gets the information he wants.

Chuck probably doesn’t read websites either. In fact, in general people don’t read, they scan. For example, how many people read the instruction manual before turning on their new [insert electronic gadget of choice]? This is especially true on websites (with the exception of news articles and really engaging blogs like this one).

In the current age of 140 character Facebook and Twitter updates, our brains are being trained not to read. Many of us no longer have the concentration to read articles through to their conclusion. In fact, if you’ve read this far, I’m impressed!

Therefore, it’s important to limit the use of text on web pages. That means using half or less than half of the text you would normally use in conventional writing. Instead use bullets, highlighted or bolded keywords, and images to convey your message. Omit all of the extra words that you don’t really need needless words.

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New Informous Features – Let's Get Social!

This morning we added some functionality to enable companies to link to their Facebook page, Twitter account, LinkedIn page, or blog from their Informous listings.  It’s another way for companies to enhance and complement their social networking efforts in the packaging and plastics industries.

In the near future we’ll be featuring some of the best blogs, streaming relevant tweets, and more. Don’t miss out, make sure your company’s social networks are tied to your Informous account.

We’ve already automatically pulled in social links for the companies who follow us on Twitter, but if you haven’t followed one of the Informous accounts (@informous, @informousPLAST, and @informousPACK) yet, we may not have your social network information.

To add your company’s social network pages to Informous, simply login to your account, click on the Company Info tab on the left side of your dashboard, and enter your URLs in the fields provided. If you’ve got any questions, feel free to send us a note, and we’ll be happy to help!

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Funny Business: Why You Should Laugh at Work

Recently I was thinking about the percentage of our waking hours that we spend at work compared to the time we spend doing anything else.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average person (age 25 to 54) sleeps 7.7 hours a day and works 8.7 hours a day.  That means that over 50% of our waking hours during the week are spent at work.

I don’t know about you, but if I’m spending over half of my time doing something, I want to make sure I’m enjoying myself!  Not only that, but researchers at California State University Long Beach determined that people who have fun at work are more creative, more productive, work better with others and call in sick less often. After all, “A merry heart does good like a medicine.”

Art Petty says that “One of the unarguable rules of the universe is that happy employees make happy customers.”  And unless you’re the crazy guy from DecorMyEyes, I think we all want happy customers.  According to Steve Abrams (the CEO of Magnolia Bakery who turned a $1M investment into $23M/year revenue), “It’s not rocket science.  If we’re not laughing, we’re not doing our jobs right.”

Unfortunately, according to a William M. Mercer survey, only 29 percent of employers nationwide encourage humor as part of their company culture.  Even worse, only eight percent of companies have a policy of using fun to reduce employee stress. Here at Informous, we’re fortunate to have a culture of humor and fun.   Over the past year, here are just a few things we’ve done to keep the creativity and productivity flowing:

1. We’re going to party like it’s your birthday

Our development team built a company dashboard in their spare time.  It’s displayed on a large monitor visible from almost anywhere in our office and it refreshes every 15 minutes to show any new progress toward some of our key goals. Depending on how we do there’s even audio that accompanies the visual updates, so we can hear sounds ranging from Super Mario coins to the Price is Wrong tune.  For special milestones, we might hear “You’re the Best Around” or even Len’s personal favorite In Da Club (although he refers to it as “the dirty birthday song”).

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New Informous Features – See How Your Content is Performing

We’re happy to announce the release of some new reporting functionality on Informous! These new functions will give companies listed in packaging and plastics more visibility into how their content is performing.

Visibility statistics – each listing company now has access to a dashboard that displays some key visibility metrics:

Want to know how many times your content has appeared in search?  How many times your content has been viewed or downloaded? Login to your Informous account and check it out!

Ranking compared to similar companies – the new and improved Informous dashboard also contains a ranking section to show how your company stacks up compared to other similar companies:

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New Informous Features – Improved Search and More

Our awesome development team has just released another round of Informous enhancements, several of which I’d like to point out below:

Sort Search and Browse Results

We’ve added the ability to sort keyword search results and category browse results several different ways.  In addition to “Best Match” (the default), you can now sort your results by “Most Viewed”, “Date Added”, and “Title” (alphabetically).

For example, if you’re looking for recently added information about packaging containers, simply search for “packaging containers” and change the Sort Results By: from Best Match to “Date: Newest First”.  You can refine your results further by choosing the category “Packaging Containers” and then choosing only the type “Product Brochures”.

Or maybe you want to browse all of the content related to Capping Machines, but you want to look at the most popular content first.  Simply click Browse Content, then click Closing, Sealing, & Capping Machinery, then click Capping Machines.  From there, simply Sort Results By: Most Viewed, and you’ll see the most popular Capping Machine content at the top of the list!

Filter Search Results

If you’ve used the search on Informous before, you probably noticed the ability to fine-tune your search results by keyword, by category, and/or by type.  We’ve also added the capability to refine your search results by company.

Let’s say you’re looking for information any packaging materials from Sealed Air Corporation.  Simply run a keyword search for “packaging materials”, and then refine your results to Sealed Air Corporation by clicking the company name.

View Packaging Companies

Don’t remember the name of a company you saw on Informous?  Now there’s a simple way to browse through a list of the packaging companies on Informous.  Simply click View Companies, and you can browse through a list of all of the companies on the site, or click a particular letter to jump to just companies that start with that letter.

Are there other ways you’d like to sort or refine your search results?  Please let us know!

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