That means that there is a potentially free (money, not time) communication channel to reach more than 5mm American adults every day.

Should you use it? Probably, but also keep in mind your specific demographic and their use of Twitter.

Also keep in mind your geographic area, and the local use of Twitter (especially if you are a retail location). Do your customers use Twitter? Daily? Do they retweet or reply?

Finally, keep in mind all of your other marketing channels and how effective they are on an ROI basis. Even if Twitter isn’t right for you now, keep an eye on it, as it will only become more common as time goes on.

Applied to improving your business, the concept is:

1. Learn why your customers are hesitant
2. Deal with one issue today

That’s it. Basic.

In his example, the community he is building at Human Business Works has a $27/month fee (cheapest consulting ever?). Even at that low rate, people are still (rightly) concerned about what that fee gets them. So Chris’s response is to do one thing – a quick screencast showing what’s “behind the fence”, giving people the exact answer to their question.

For me, the hesitation around my consulting services was similar – what do I get for my fee? So, I rewrote my service descriptions to be more, well, descriptive. The result was a higher click-through rate from the top-level pages into the specifics and three new clients.

What 1 thing can you do, today, to improve your business.

If your market is that 18-24 (and really 15-18 and 24-35, if we think about it), that changes the calculus on whether or not to try location-based promotions, a mobile version of your site, or even a mobile app.

Gap Promo Shows Location Deals Need Work

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t experiment with location-based offers, but that there are a few considerations.

1. Do you have reason to suspect that a quorum of your customers/potential customers use Foursquare/Places/etc.? Managing and maintaining an active social media presence and/or mailing list will let you ask this question directly.
2. Does your offer explain itself well enough for people to take advantage of it? Are you trying to generate interest among early adopters or just get more people in your door?
3. What is your plan for managing customer reactions when they don’t understand the offer correctly? If your goal was to generate foot traffic, and a customer has come in without officially “checking in”, does it really matter?

And the list goes on beyond that, of course, but without answering those basic questions, perhaps another campaign would be a better choice for generating foot traffic.

PS: To be fair, the promotion was still a success for Gap, and a great first trial for Facebook Places deals, as this quick summary on FastCompany shows.

Why Websites Suck. Guy Kawasaki interviewing Gerry McGovern

The most recent example? Bob Stapleton’s interview on Cyclingnews where he talks about the business rational behind working with Specialized.

…Specialized is Silicon Valley’s bike brand. They can help us build this franchise, and bring in people who can complement HTC, Google and Skype. I’d love to have a little west coast, geographically relevant compatible group of partners who are focused on common marketing objectives, and Specialized is strong enough to make that happen.

For too long, the sponsorship search in cycling has been something along the lines of:

• Find someone with budget who’s interested in cycling
• Back the team into the marketing budget to justify the expense
• Repeat the process with no regard for how the sponsors fit together, as long as they have the money

The new paradigm is something a bit more like:

• Find someone with budget who’s interested in cycling
• Design a launch of the sponsor or one of the sponsor’s new products at the beginning of the season or at Le Tour
• Reach out to existing sponsors’ business partners and potential business partners, with sponsorships based on sound business rationale
• Repeat the process on a rolling schedule, based on sponsors’ needs, not the team’s racing schedule

Only the second model will result in a strong, stable cadre of teams powerful enough to wrest a share of control away from the UCI and a few large race organizers. It may sound counter-intuitive, but the survival of smaller teams may actually depend on a few large teams becoming more powerful. Well, that, and responding to their sponsors’ needs.