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While I very much agree with your sentiment (email marketing is usually a bad thing), this article seems like a small example of "psychological hacking" and I h
by jordan0day 16y ago
While I very much agree with your sentiment (email marketing is usually a bad thing), this article seems like a small example of "psychological hacking" and I hate to admit how interesting this sort of thing really is.
It frightens me to know that there are people who spend as much time optimizing the performance of their marketing messages as we do on algorithms. The key difference (at least this is what I tell myself) is that while my work improves the actual product, the marketers work does no such thing.
- space-monkey 16y agoTwo thoughts: For many consumer products, the value of the product is the experience created by the product in conjunction with the marketing. I think hackers tend to focus to exclusion on "core" or "objective" value. If the consumer market thought like that, everyone would be buying off-brand cola. Second, I would imagine there's at least one order of magnitude more effort going into marketing optimization than there is into computer algorithms.
- nitrogen 16y agoEven after reading HN for 662 days now, I still have to force myself to concede that not everyone is motivated by product quality or code cleverness. It still feels immoral to me for a company to sell an inferior product with superior marketing, but I have to ask myself: "Who am I to argue with what people want?" Or, more technically, "Who am I to argue with the neurochemistry of the majority of the population?"
- klbarry 16y agoMarketers work does improve the actual product, in the eye of the consumer. Intangible value is still value!
- patio11 16y agoPreach it, brother! If your stuff will improve someone's life, not hearing about it is the most severe bug you can think of!
- bigiain 16y agoIf you keep thinking that way, you're doing yourself a great disservice. No matter _how_ great your algorithms are, without letting people know about it, you won't sell anything. Like everywhere else, 90% of everything is crap and "marketing" is no exception, but how many bingo cards do you suppose Patrick would have sold if he wasn't greatly skilled at some oft-disparaged disciplines like SEO and email marketing? Marketing done wrong is just as useless as all the programming done wrong you laugh at on Daily WTF. If you think you can run a profitable startup while religiously _not_ doing "marketing", I think you're wrong. I'd love to hear how you pitch that philosophy to investors though....
- jordan0day 16y agoHey, I said it was evil... I never said it wasn't a necessary evil. Obviously having salesmen is just the way the world works, and just like how libertarianism, communism, and utopian markets could all work in an ideal world, I recognize that's not the world we live in.