RFProductivity.com

Online media buying agencies usually interact with sales and marketing companies through a specific paradigm. After working with their client to create the parameters of a campaign the agency will send out a mass RFP. Advertising sales teams usually create a proposal (almost always as a PowerPoint presentation) and submit the proposal to an agency by a certain deadline. If there is interest from the agency or the client they then will engage in more detailed conversation and negotiation with the media company. There is opportunity to create a web service that will make this initial interaction more efficient and reach a wider audience. A media buying agency would post their RFP on this B2B website with specifics regarding the campaigns. Any marketer/sales team that has been approved (by agency) can view the RFP and respond by submitting a proposal. The website would provide value: 1)Allow RFP’s to easily reach a wider audience of media companies. 2)Cut down on bulky emails by handling all uploading and downloading of presentations and PDF’s. 3)Allow sales teams and marketers to easily manage all their proposals and quickly view all RFP’s. The website would not change the manner of which media buying agencies and corporate sales interact. Instead it would just add efficiency and organization to an existing process. The site would also enable more companies to view RFP’s and create more proposals. This should make the market more competitive and lead to better proposals. Let me know what you think, especially if you work in online advertising sales or in media buying.

VHS to DVD to Online

Building upon Cuban’s idea #3…. Start a business digitally converting home videos and VHS tapes. Different services/products could include creating DVD's, uploading videos to the internet, create video website with streaming files and also to encode tapes in different formats and quality. Customers with VHS tapes would want to do this because digital copies can easily be preserved, copied and shared and having digital copies is a better alternative than VHS tapes. The cost to do this is shockingly cheap. Set up is easy, margins are high and there is upsell potential for many of the services. There are also ways to utilize youtube, photobucket and the other file sharing sites. Bring in somebody who can use mac video ending software to give the videos a finishing touch. The key would be how effectively you are able to market the service. Go online and reach as big an audience as possible including leveraging Craig’s list, newsapaper classifieds, message boards and online community sites. Go to local camera stores and electronic stores and let them offer the service and then do a revenue share with them. The target is mom’s, older couples, people with video’s from the 90’s. Customer service and word of mouth are crucial because this idea is not really defensibly and there are going to be competitions. Luckily, there is a big enough market, and definitely localized enough that a bunch of companies providing this service can co-exist.

Mark Cuban's Ideas

Straight from his blog. Here are three ideas that Cuban threw out for others. ey, im busy. You may or may not be. here are 3 ideas that if i werent so … busy, I might take a flier on. 1. Txt messaging for 911 and Hospital Emergency rooms. Most phones have text messaging. Soon, all will. Every city should have an emergy room SMS number that anyone can text with info saying, who they are, what happened, and that they are coming. It could easily be extended so that anyone could go online and register their phone number and insurance info, so that when a txt was received from your phone number, it automatically pulled up any insurance information and/or patient history so that the entire process can be shortened in the hospital. it obviously wouldnt work for everyone, but if the process is sped up for some, its sped up for everyone. And for 911, of course, straight from any horror flick, the 911 for the time you cant or dont want to make a sound, or when a whisper isnt loud enough. TXT 911 with the problem and information. They can text you back. 2. Many high end cars are coming with navigation systems. Put in an address and find it. At least in my car, its connected to a DVD in the back of the car. Someone who is smart, could open up the specs for the DVD and create custom DVDs with the basics like information on the closest 7-11, but also customized information as well. And if car makers are smart, they add a USB port and a rack so that hard drives can be used and then they publish the specs so that all sorts of cool apps could be created. Or better yet, they could make it IPOD compatible, and chop out 10gbs of the IPOD for this application and the rest could be piped in for music or back seat video. 3. if i had no money, i would start a business going door to door with a laptop and a scanner and scanning peoples pictures for a buck a pic for up to 10, then discount from there. Beats the hell out of mowing lawns or shoveling snow and any kid or adult could do it. If you want to think big time, set up a service with the local drugstore and have people drop off their pics and you go by every day and return them the next day. Easy money