BCG Matrix: What You Should Know Before Buying Any Directory
The BCG Matrix is a quite famous marketing concept developed by Bruce Henderson of the Boston Consulting Group (hence the name - BCG Matrix) in the early 1970’s.?Ǭ† It’s basically based on an idea that companies can be classified into four categories according to their market share and market growth. I’ve always used this marketing concept to buy long-term profitable web directories and thought that others might find it useful as well.
First off, to ensure long-term profitability, you, as a directory owner, should have a portfolio of directories that contains both high-growth websites in need of funds inputs and low-growth products that generally generate a lot of cash for you. Logically, the bigger the market share a directory has or the faster directory’s niche grows the better it is for you.
Now let’s actually classify all four different types of directories according to the BCG Matrix
- Stars: have high growth rate as well as high market share. So this types of directories receive high amount of traffic and submissions which increase month after month. Large amounts of investments should be made so the market could be completely dominated and thus making any directory a cash cow right away. (Examples: Directory Journal, ABC.md and 36Towns)
- Cash Cows: although have low growth rate but definitely have very high market share. Due to the law growth, investments into these directories should be also low. The directories should be the foundation of your web directories portfolio! (Examples: Aviva Directory, Web World Index)
- Dogs: have very low growth and very low market share. I would say 90% of all general directories out there are dogs… You should avoid the number of dogs in your portfolio and try to liquidate them as soon as possible.
- Question Marks: have high growth but low market share. This type of directories have the worst money characteristics of them all because of the high demands and low returns due the to low market share. If nothing is changed, this directories will eat all of your investments and turn into a dog overtime. Be very careful with buying this types of directories!
Thanks for taking the time to read the post, I hope you have learnt something new and will apply it soon enough! Please leave your thoughts and ideas in the comments.
Can’t Be A Gorilla? Be A Guerrilla!
After watching a number good movies about the military history, I have realized that there are quite a few parallels between any successful military strategy and successful directory promotion or successful selling strategy in general. Moreover, there a lot of such unique parallels, but the most relevant one is coming from Carl von Calusewitz, a military strategist, which is:
Where absolute superiority is not attainable, you must product a relative one at the decisive point by making skillful use of what you have.
Ok, what Carl says is that you have to allocate your strengths and power to where they are most likely going to product the greatest impact and thus the best results for you. Now you may wonder what the heck is the difference between a gorilla and a guerrilla, right?. Well, let me tell you. Any gorilla wins the most suitable territory for it by simply dominating it with its strengths. On the other hand, any guerrilla wins by following the Carl’s advice. Futhermore, it wins by simply dominating any territories that are relativly easily to achieve since gorrilas have not been there or can not go there easily.
Now let’s make some connections with the directory industry. In my opinion, the main reason why a lot of directory owners fail is because they want to be a gorilla (they see what gorillas get out of having a general directory and want to be one of them), while they don’t have any resources to do so (time and mostly money). How do I know that? I realize it by simply browsing various directory forums, receiving submissions to Directory Inbox and Directory Rate that 98.97% of all new directories out there are general niche directories.
However, successful directory owners have realized a long time ago that they can never win head-to-head battle with a gorilla. Therefore, they offer something that gorillas can’t match. It can be as simple as choosing not taken niche and working on it. Not only it’s a lot easier to dominate a smaller niche but it’s also pretty easy to keep dominating it for many years to come.
Remember: the only way to complete with gorillas out there is by knowing your strenghts and making the most out of them!
True Meanings Of Color In Directory Templates
I thought it would be quite interesting if I shared with you the real value of colors and emotions behind them. First of all, colors have different meanings in different cultures. Depending on your background, you might have different type of emotions whenever you see a particular color. In this post, I will share with you the most common emotions that come to the average North American.
Knowing the true meanings of color and what type of emotions it creates can be very useful in increasing directory submissions, improving affiliate sales and for everything else that deals with people and their emotions. I hope that after reading this post, you will realize what type of color scheme you should use for your directory template, depending on the desired emotions you want to create in your visitors.
Black and White Colors:
- White stands for purity, lightness and innocence. It considers to be perfection, or a strong desire to be perfect. It’s also generally positive and very simple. Often a color of charitable organizations, low-fat foods and various dairy products. (i.e. Google)
- Black is formal, elegant, prestige and very powerful color. It’s worth mentioning that in some cases it can also raise negative emotions (i.e. black list, black humor, death).
Primary Colors:
- Red is a color that’s full of emotions. It creates a lot of excitement and can be associated with danger, war, power, passion, love and desire. Sometimes, it can even increase your appetite.
- Yellow is a color of sunshine, a happy color. It creates some sort of hopefulness and stimulates strong mental activity. It also attracts attention, when it’s very bright.
- Blue is the most trusted color, creates a sense of security and trust. It actually symbolizes loyalty, wisdom, faith and confidence. Instead of increasing appetite like the red color does, blue color actually decreases appetite. (i.e. web links)
Secondary Colors:
- Orange symbolizes creativity, determination, energy, affordability, and success.
- Green suggests endurance, stability, growth, freshness, safety and efficiency. Obviously, it’s also associated with wealth and money. (i.e. “green” products)
- Violet combines the energy and strength of red, with stability of blue. Moreover, it represents nobility, power, luxury, ambition, dignity, independence and magic.
