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I wonder how this would work in practice as I have a hard time imagining it. If I launched a new business, how would I promote it save for advertising? Must I

I wonder how this would work in practice as I have a hard time imagining it. If I launched a new business, how would I promote it save for advertising? Must I only rely on word of mouth from satisfied customers? How do I let people know I even have a business if I am restricted from advertising that to them? A local bricks and mortar location might attract walk-in or walk-by traffic, but how might a new online business get found?

ghoward 5y ago
It would be hard, but word-of-mouth. Growing a business organically was never easy, and never will be. However, there are things you can do to short circuit it in good ways. My wife went to business school with a woman who started a breakfast kolaches business. Her first two weeks open, she made mini kolaches, and they were all free. In the college town, word-of-mouth about free food spread fast, and at the end of two weeks, though she had lost gobs of money, she had gobs of repeat customers because her kolaches were awesome. If you make it, they will come if you make it free for the start. There are probably other things you can do too.
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  word-of-mouth is still advertising it's just not the traditional way. What will happen is businesses will just pay people to run around talking about how awesome their business is.
  - ghoward 5y ago
    That's true, but the word-of-mouth I am talking about is different. I'm talking about word-of-mouth where actual customers of the business decide of their own free will to tell people how good it is. I don't think that's advertising in the sense that we understand it.
    - CountDrewku 5y ago
      I mean if I'm a business I will just give free stuff to someone with more clout and then they'll give me all sorts of praise. Exactly the same as social media influencers. On the surface your idea seems good but it'll easily get corrupted.
      - ghoward 5y ago
        I think you are correct, but I also hope people still have good detectors for such underhanded tactics. I could be wrong, though. But even if they do it, and it turns out the product is not good, customers won't come back. That's why the kolaches thing worked. I love those kolaches, by the way, and I never got a free one. My wife introduced me to them.
  - BiteCode_dev 5y ago
    You can always take something organic and pay for it, but the impact is so much lower than what we currently have it's ok to go full pareto.
BiteCode_dev 5y ago
- you create valuable content so that search engines bring people to you. - you have a real activity in social networks, so that the community know you for you actual benefits, and will follow up on your work. - you go to IRL meetup to create relationships with people and tell them about your products. - you register your app to listings that let people search for things. - you create open source software so that people will learn about what you do. - you participate in the ecosystem you want to flourish, like being involved in not-for-profit groups related to your activity. - world of mouth. - partnership with complementary services. - free samples, sales, etc. Of courses those are only a few ideas. I'm sure people will get creatives; give a problem for humans to solve, and they come up with plenty of stuff. The idea is that you can't just blast society with screams for you product. But you can have positives actions into the world that will make you known.
JohnFen 5y ago
Personally, I have little problem with most advertising. The thing that makes online ads toxic is the data collection that goes along with them. It is entirely possible to do advertising without all the spying, so I differentiate between the two things.

ghoward 5y ago

It would be hard, but word-of-mouth. Growing a business organically was never easy, and never will be. However, there are things you can do to short circuit it in good ways. My wife went to business school with a woman who started a breakfast kolaches business. Her first two weeks open, she made mini kolaches, and they were all free. In the college town, word-of-mouth about free food spread fast, and at the end of two weeks, though she had lost gobs of money, she had gobs of repeat customers because her kolaches were awesome. If you make it, they will come if you make it free for the start. There are probably other things you can do too.

CountDrewku 5y ago
word-of-mouth is still advertising it's just not the traditional way. What will happen is businesses will just pay people to run around talking about how awesome their business is.
- ghoward 5y ago
  That's true, but the word-of-mouth I am talking about is different. I'm talking about word-of-mouth where actual customers of the business decide of their own free will to tell people how good it is. I don't think that's advertising in the sense that we understand it.
  - CountDrewku 5y ago
    I mean if I'm a business I will just give free stuff to someone with more clout and then they'll give me all sorts of praise. Exactly the same as social media influencers. On the surface your idea seems good but it'll easily get corrupted.
    - ghoward 5y ago
      I think you are correct, but I also hope people still have good detectors for such underhanded tactics. I could be wrong, though. But even if they do it, and it turns out the product is not good, customers won't come back. That's why the kolaches thing worked. I love those kolaches, by the way, and I never got a free one. My wife introduced me to them.
- BiteCode_dev 5y ago
  You can always take something organic and pay for it, but the impact is so much lower than what we currently have it's ok to go full pareto.

BiteCode_dev 5y ago

- you create valuable content so that search engines bring people to you. - you have a real activity in social networks, so that the community know you for you actual benefits, and will follow up on your work. - you go to IRL meetup to create relationships with people and tell them about your products. - you register your app to listings that let people search for things. - you create open source software so that people will learn about what you do. - you participate in the ecosystem you want to flourish, like being involved in not-for-profit groups related to your activity. - world of mouth. - partnership with complementary services. - free samples, sales, etc. Of courses those are only a few ideas. I'm sure people will get creatives; give a problem for humans to solve, and they come up with plenty of stuff. The idea is that you can't just blast society with screams for you product. But you can have positives actions into the world that will make you known.

JohnFen 5y ago

Personally, I have little problem with most advertising. The thing that makes online ads toxic is the data collection that goes along with them. It is entirely possible to do advertising without all the spying, so I differentiate between the two things.