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Microcap & Penny Stocks : TIGI : Building Innovative Marketing Relationships -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: ztect who wrote (15)1/28/2000 4:32:00 PM
From: ztect  Respond to of 177
 
(cif) Context, History and Random Thoughts

The internet has had a dramatic impact on commerce, business.and marketing The 'net' facilitates consumption and interaction. Business creation or reorientation has sought financing more directly and prematurely due to competition for resources and the need to speedily implement ideas before competitors capitalize on similar visions. Marketing has had to quickly adapt to the net environment. Marketers have tried existing and new methods to position clients in front of and in the minds of users in order to direct the attention and "eye balls" to a client's respective site. With so many new businesses created, existing business redefined or existing businesses expanded, marketers have not always been successful with their old or new methods to direct traffic to sites in such a cluttered marketplace. Less expensive methods are necessary.

Now tsig started without its "dot com". Tsig redefined itself to fit the new market place . Such a redirection wasn't easy. Creation of any business takes refinement. In a shifting nascent marketplace like the internet many e-business have gone in and out of focus. Tsig's travails aren't unusual.

CDnow was started in garage in Jenkintown, PA on credit card debt. Initially Tsig has transformed itself from a telephone support or teleservice company into an internet retailer like CDnow with telephone support. Then tsig added more and more management for a more grandiose vision.

With Hwang, Guild, Newton et cetera tsig became a "dot com" akin to a kitchen with too many cooks in the kitchen with too many pots on the stove, and not enough money to pay for the cooking gas. Moreover, each and every one of these chefs wanted to prepare a different menu. While the menu was being debated and expanded, food spoiled and other resources weren't effectively utilized.

Refocusing was necessary. Refocusing occurred. Exit left Haber, Newton, Lewin, Hwang, Guild and others. Consequently, only essential management remains with a coherent vision and new directors well connected like Ragano and Walters to enact that vision. Tsig made mistakes, but more importantly tsig.com appears to have learned from its mistakes. Tsig.com also appears to have learned more about its strengths and weaknesses through its growing pains.

During the "menu debates", tsig was trying to do too much too soon. Web site development and hosting was a main course. Tsig.com was trying to position itself in a competitive marketplace on pricing. In this smorsgasbord, tsig.com unique marketing strategies were just another plate on the table. The mymusiccard site became less of an example of how offline viewers could be directed online to a site, and more of an example of a economically developed and hosted url to be emulated.

Fortunately, tsig.com realized that there are plenty of web site developers out there already well positioned and competitively priced. Tsig.com also realized that being simply an online retailor wasn't an expansive enough and sustainable business model. Rather tsig.com has appeared to realize its greatest strength which also fulfills the greatest need. This strength answers two pressing questions facing web sites: How to get people to a site and how to keep them there at that site.

Internet companies can be defined overly simplistically as destinations or common denominators. Destinations congregate content, products or services. Common denominators are necessary services required by other companies. Some examples of destinations are etailors, and portals. Some examples of common denominators are fulfillment houses, accounting software, and marketing services.

Tsig.com's is growing through its prior pains into both a destination and common denominator. Tsig.com's product sites are destinations. Tsig.com's marketing strategies are common denominators. These two can be both inclusive or exclusive. Or, in other words, tsig can use its marketing strategies to direct traffic to its sites or those of others.

to be continued

=========================




To: ztect who wrote (15)1/28/2000 4:37:00 PM
From: ztect  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 177
 
(cir) Spoke with Paul Henry (1/25/00)....

Had a list of questions regarding shares, management, current + future deals, strategies, et cetera. Most of my questions were answered as follows: we'll be issuing an announcement about that shortly.

Regarding shares we talked about the OS, full dilution and the authorized and how this relates to parted employees specifically concerning how many options were vested and left to be converted. Henry said, "not many".

Regarding management, we spoke about changes made both to contain costs and to maximize output. We didn't get into the specifics of who is gone and who is new. He did note that the list of management on the web site isn't inclusive.

Regarding current deals, we spoke briefly about LifeTime Learning and how to get better returns from this and other efforts. Henry noted that the LL was distributed to every school K through 12 nationwide by LL. Henry noted that this deal was the only deal that required upfront costs primarily from mailing. He said a number of schools did and are participating with fundraisors. but he also said they are exploring how to both get greater participation with larger fundraisors without having to re-incur costs. He said the full amount of money spent on this deal wouldn't be re-occurring since materials didn't have to be recreated. After a brief discussion on who purchased the most cd's, I suggested that the next mailing be more targeted toward Junior and Senior highs in more affluent areas (where more kids w. greater incomes are online) to save costs and to get greater returns. he said this was already considered. (There isn't much point in sending a mailing to a elementary in a poor rural area that won't purchase many cd's per customer. Targeted marketing is more effected than mass marketing). Thinking aloud, I also suggested that share holders could take a more pro-active involvement in their investment by introducing the schools that they have their children in to the mycard program and mycard.com website.

Regarding both current and future deals, the issue of execution was discussed. Henry said greater emphasis was going to be placed on corporate deals and deals where the fundraisers were more self directed. We spoke briefly about Coca-Cola. He reiterated that Coca Cola paid for the cards. He also wouldn't tell me the exact numbers of card involved or margin per card. When I asked him whether these card sales were going to be in the 4th or 1st quarter, he said, I believe, that these were going to be accounted for in the 4th quarter, but don't quote me on this.

This led to a very brief discussion about how tsig reported their sales. I noted CDnow accounting methods of including the cost of the passed through product in their gross revenues and the backing out of these costs before giving net revenues. I also said it would be nice to get additional info as a share holder about what was being sold, since card sales indicated retained customers. Henry said, as volumes increased, additional info regarding sales would be noted in the SEC filings.

The conversation was guided by my questioning, and probing realizing that much of what I wanted to know, Henry couldn't answer. Henry can't reveal information to me or any other share holder that isn't revealed to all share holders simultaneously. Consequently, our conversation revolved more around the big picture and I, specifically refrained from asking specific questions like when news was coming or what deals were with whom.

Some other fragments of our conversation dealt with 1 to 1 marketing and identifying targets to whom sales and sales effort should be focused. This briefly included colleges, greeks, and other similiar demographics.

Not part of our conversation, but a necessarily aside to understand the emphasis of some of my questions is a quick overview of the difference between 1 to 1 marketing ( aka relationship or permission marketing) and mass marketing. 1 to 1 not only acquires a customer, but identifies (targets) the customers that spend the most. Rather than just getting more customers, the key is to get more from the customers you have. Such a targeted rather than mass approach is more cost effective both in acquiring and retaining customers.

Anyway...'nuff said for now...

z




To: ztect who wrote (15)1/28/2000 5:09:00 PM
From: ztect  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 177
 
(cc) MyMusicCallingCard???????

By: stormy_moon
Reply To: 39456 by tbishop
Thursday, 27 Jan 2000 at 6:34 PM EST

Free Idea for TSIG

What are the two things that teenagers do more than anything else? No, it's not sex and drugs.

It's listen to music and talk on the phone.

Here is the idea TSIG:

Cut a deal with AT&T to issue special edition calling cards that double as a free 3 unit introductory Music Card. Kids by those calling cards all the time. I think they must be the biggest demographic group to use them. Then the kids could chew up the phone lines exhausting the calling card feature and could make up for the high price of the AT&T cards by saving on CDs.

Is that what this press conference is all about? Did you steal my idea? I sure hope so. If not, its your's for the asking.....no, just take it and run.