Websand's School of Thought

On Wednesday I was sitting in the Address Hotel in Dubai Mall, waiting for a meeting, reading the FT (Middle East Edition), drinking some Caramel / Toffee Tea (I am English, and it was the afternoon). As u do..

An article entitled ‘Strategies for playing at War’ written by Jan Cienski has caught my attention, it’s about a clever chap called Victor Kislyi and his Belarus based Wargaming.net, which is one of the fastest growing games developers in the World.  

The key to it’s success has been the online game - ‘World of Tanks’.  Here is why…

1. Relevance - while everyone else focused on Orcs, Elves and Wizards, they stuck to what they knew best.  Tanks.  Because, they thought Tanks are cool, very popular in Russia, every town has a Tank monument. It also provides a point of difference in a competitive market, makes it locally relevant.

2. Business Model - when they launched completely online with a mix of free and power-up pay models (a bit like Zynga but with heavy artillery).  Play for free, or pay to power-up. 

3. Retention - 1 in 4 pay to powerup, and that is powerful retention tool to keep playing (and paying). Peter Warman, from Newzoo (a games market analyst) was quoted as ‘they extract money faster than any other multi player online game’

4. Focus on data - they provide a game, but they are a data driven business. They recognise that. Those that play, 60 million of them, 20 million play regularly. The balance between paying and non paying players is a fine line. Over 20 statistians are employed to review the data daily, and provide the analysis to drive the decisions that make sure the balance is retained’ “It is very easy to ruin the economy because of a few bad decisions”

5. Growth - have you heard of it yet?  Popularity is expected to drive growth in US and Asia.

Not sure if the story is widely accessible as I am reading the Middle East edition and the FT is behind a pay gateway usually, but hope you found this as useful as I did (if you got this far).

Saul

Who is Saul Gowens?

Saul is the founder and Sultan of Websand and has over 15 years experience helping clients around the world build loyalty with their customers.

What is websand? 

At Websand we help clients to get the most from their customer data. To drive relevance, retention and growth from their existing customer base. Get in touch and start creating smarter business growth.

www.websand.co.uk | @websand | 0191.4661190

Linked in has been a nightmare today.  Anyone else had any issues or are we simply pressing the wrong buttons?

Just settling in to our new quiet room in Websand Towers beavering away on the launch marketing campaign to bring easier email marketing to the good folks of England and beyond.

Check out the website and the linked in pages.  If you want to make your email marketing easier, or simply want to grow your business through smarter working we can help.  Promise!

@websand

email: info@websand.co.uk

As it’s Friday and we like to drive customer response, it’s time to share ‘The predictor’ from Richard Wiseman. This is a bit scary, and you may think a little bit naff, but he’ll get you in the end. 

Enjoy

The pictures didn’t tell the full story.  I want one of these for the office.  #goal1

Saul @websand

Nate Silver is a genius statistician who is currently published in the NY Times and making waves around the world.  The reason is he told the world a few days ago that President Obama would win the US Presidential Election.  

The media suggested it was supposed to be close, but not according to the data and a bit of common sense.  Nate Silver is not Paul the Octopus, he is smart not on a run of random luck.

The data showed that the combined polls showed that President Obama would beat Mitt Romney.  No weighting, no special secret stat sauce, just simple averages reviewed as a whole.  Take a look here….

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/nov-1-the-simple-case-for-saying-obama-is-the-favorite/ 

Perhaps everyone else was over analyzing, too much data slicing, too many infographics or simply manipulation to show what they wanted to happen based on their own opinions?    

The question to you is…do you understand the data you use to make your business decisions?  Do you over-analyse?  Do you ignore what you simply don’t want to see (easy to do with bad results)?  Or is your data locked away as file knowledge building up in a CRM database that no one actually looks at?

As my grandfather once said, “the winner will always win”, and Nate Silver has used the information available to everyone to prove that is the case.

Thanks for reading

Saul @websand

O2 opens Wallet to enter mobile payments race - Telegraph

A smart phone wallet is not something new, but this one is a bit different.  It’s payment mechanism that links the offline to online.  So instead of you swiping or having your phone scanned instore to accept payment.  This one has built in barcode app (like redline) that will then search the internet for a product and allow you to buy it using your smart wallet.  

In financial terms, that allows O2 to generate affiliate or commission revenues from ‘partners’ who have signed up, a closed payment network along the same lines as the current financial payment networks.  It also provides value to o2 customers as they can search online for tangible items they have just found instore.  The impact on retail could be significant as it could make stores glorified fitting rooms.  However, if your are an exclusive retailer then you are safeguarding yourself (but what would that mean for your sales in a diminishing market).  This development raises a lot of questions for retail in the UK.  It’s a change, put it will depend on o2 customer size and % usage.  It could be a gamechanger, it could just be another channel to bamboozle consumers looking for the best deal.

Footnote - no news on how this fits with Priority Moments (I like Priority moments, so I hope it stays as it is!)

Winning free tickets to Thinking Digital is an excellent start to the day.  Thank you to Wired UK and to Thinking Digital.  I’m looking forward to stretching my mind in the Sage.

Twitter for Business | Common Craft

Commoncraft just make good videos. Shame it all seems to be member controlled now.