3 ms·

Reaching the right people

25 points by bdfh42 18y ago

baha_man 18y ago
'What if your new rock group appeals to fans of the B52s?' Then it's going to appear in the 'Customers Who Bought Items Like This Also Bought' section when I'm looking for B52s stuff on amazon. 'If you have a massage service that is the perfect complement to customers of a personal training service down the street, why not give that trainer a dozen intro gift certificates she can use to thank her best customers?' Vouchers and free gifts? Hardly a new idea.
- kleevr 18y ago
  An interesting low budget guerilla self marketing tip. It goes beyond just giving a few of X away for free, and it's really about the targeting/pre-selection of your audience to maximize your 'advertising' budget. Seems smart, and might get things done...
  - baha_man 18y ago
    It would be more interesting if he'd actually tried this himself, and was blogging about the success or otherwise after the event. I can't access the link at the moment, so I don't know if the other guy actually gave it a go or not.
    - iuguy 18y ago
      I get the impression that Seth Godin is a really smart guy. I've got a few of his books and I have to say that he makes some great points. I also think, like most (or all as he said in one book) marketers he is a liar (I mean that in the sense of the book, not in the ad hominem sense of the term). I don't believe for one second that he eats all of his own dog food. Whilst he's great at what he does (marketing), he's not great at doing what he tells others to do. Let me take the example from the article regarding the B52s as a case in point. One commenter has already mentioned that similar items are listed in Amazon. Another point is that in doing the CD giveaway, you're not making a sale (unless you sell the whole package at a profit, which may be lower than your normal profit due to differences between new and used CDs). Yet another point is that the CD giveaway is only effective if you know your target market. If you think you sound like the B52s, then great. If the buyer only likes Rock Lobster by the B52s or the Flintstones you've not really gained much (unless your 'giveaway' was profitable). My final point is this. In the example of the CD giveaway, he missed something: What you really want is dedicated fans of the B52s to talk about your music. This means that you may need to start the conversation. You'll need to get bloggers, community forums etc. to talk about you as an Amazon seller, to talk about your band and to use the opportunity to raise awareness. Giving away the CDs to people who buy B52s music on Amazon alone is not going to achieve this. As usual from Seth Godin, it's interesting advice in a kind of 'why didn't I think of that' way, but the applicability of it changes substantially once you give it some thought. On a final note, has anyone else noticed a distinct increase in the amount of Seth Godin material linked to from here? I get the feeling that not all this is strictly relevant to HN...
- RobGR 18y ago
  I think you are missing the important part of this idea, probably because Seth wrote way too many words for something that could be compressed into a paragraph with an hour or two of careful editing. Of course you can get the idea that people who like one thing also like another from Amazon -- but Seth's senario presumed you knew that already. The problem is, figuring out WHO those people are that like both bands, particularly, the people who like both bands but don't know about your band to like it yet. The fact that there is an intersection of sets is easy to come across or guess, the actual MEMBERS of the sets are hard to find. Seth's idea seems like a good one to me because it fits the general pattern, that many good computer revolution ideas allow small people to do what huge companies, institutions, or governments were already doing. Putting the "desktop" in desktop publishing, personal computers with spreadsheets replacing custom code on mainframes, ebay replacing the Sears catalog, etc. Previously, the information of who these people were who bought CDs of band A and might like band B was available only to the big distributors. But since ebay, half.com, and amazon's used section allow us small guys to be distributors also, now we on a small scale can get access to that information too. I don't have any product that I can use to make use of this idea now, but I'm going to keep it in my bag of tricks.
michael_dorfman 18y ago
So, to summarize, Slashdot style: 1) Identify the most likely consumers, and then give them the product for free. 2) ????????????? 3) Profit! It reminds me of the sales guys at one of my previous jobs-- "Sure, we'll lose $10 on each sale, but we'll make up for it in volume!"
- rsheridan6 18y ago
 >What a shame that Amazon hasn't figured out how to provide this as a useful service. Amazon knows who buys a lot, they know who reviews a lot... why not ask those people if they want a free prize now and then? An influential person would earn the right to a huge number of free samples. The idea is that people who might influence other people to buy something would get it for free.
 - baha_man 18y ago
 The good thing about reviews on Amazon is that they are by other customers who actually had to shell out for the product. If there was any suggestion that they were being written to get freebies, wouldn't they lose whatever credibility they currently have?
 - rsheridan6 18y ago
 Amazon reviews are kind of questionable anyway because anybody can write a review. If your name is, say, John Lott, you can create an account with the name Mary Rosh and write yourself some 5 star reviews. Also, Amazon has been known to scrub negative reviews. You have to read between the lines. I don't think that would really change.
- johnrob 18y ago
 He says spend 10k doing this instead of 10k on useless ads. This shouldn't change your business model, just how you might spend your advertising budget.
njharman 18y ago
Makes a big assumption that I don't think is questioned enough. That you know who the "right people" are or even what your product is. Might not be as true with products but how many times have you heard about software or website. "We started out to do X by Y is what users latched onto so we did that instead. Also why target such a niche when you can target everyone with an internet connection. His example might work it's expensive and time consuming. Better to just upload sample tracks and even let people pirate your whole album. Your real fans(if any, you might just suck) will buy your next albulm, your merchandise and go to your show. They'll also spread the word.
- RobGR 18y ago
  You say "Also why target such a niche when you can target everyone with an internet connection." The answer is, that targeting everyone with an internet connection is not targeting. It's called carpet bombing the internet, and it's expensive. Invariably, you can't carpet bomb the whole internet, so you only carpet bomb a tiny faction, which ends up being chosen not by smarts, but by chance and the nature of whatever advertising you are doing. Even if you just upload tracks and let people "pirate" your whole album, you are leaving it up to chance that the people want your music will find it. People do not download every free track out there and listen to every single one just because it's free. So putting it out there for free is not an automatic answer -- it's better than changing $15 a CD and then just waiting, but it's still a pretty basic attempt. The example given is expensive and time consuming. It doesn't have to expensive in money, you could buy used B-52 CDs and re-sell them at cost, for example, but it will be time consuming and take care and attention to detail to do it right. But seems likely to me that any success in internet marketing will take time, money (or even more time), and care and miticulous attention to detail. It's just not as easy as it was when banner ads were first invented.

25 points by bdfh42 18y ago

'What if your new rock group appeals to fans of the B52s?' Then it's going to appear in the 'Customers Who Bought Items Like This Also Bought' section when I'm looking for B52s stuff on amazon. 'If you have a massage service that is the perfect complement to customers of a personal training service down the street, why not give that trainer a dozen intro gift certificates she can use to thank her best customers?' Vouchers and free gifts? Hardly a new idea.

kleevr 18y ago
An interesting low budget guerilla self marketing tip. It goes beyond just giving a few of X away for free, and it's really about the targeting/pre-selection of your audience to maximize your 'advertising' budget. Seems smart, and might get things done...
- baha_man 18y ago
  It would be more interesting if he'd actually tried this himself, and was blogging about the success or otherwise after the event. I can't access the link at the moment, so I don't know if the other guy actually gave it a go or not.
  - iuguy 18y ago
    I get the impression that Seth Godin is a really smart guy. I've got a few of his books and I have to say that he makes some great points. I also think, like most (or all as he said in one book) marketers he is a liar (I mean that in the sense of the book, not in the ad hominem sense of the term). I don't believe for one second that he eats all of his own dog food. Whilst he's great at what he does (marketing), he's not great at doing what he tells others to do. Let me take the example from the article regarding the B52s as a case in point. One commenter has already mentioned that similar items are listed in Amazon. Another point is that in doing the CD giveaway, you're not making a sale (unless you sell the whole package at a profit, which may be lower than your normal profit due to differences between new and used CDs). Yet another point is that the CD giveaway is only effective if you know your target market. If you think you sound like the B52s, then great. If the buyer only likes Rock Lobster by the B52s or the Flintstones you've not really gained much (unless your 'giveaway' was profitable). My final point is this. In the example of the CD giveaway, he missed something: What you really want is dedicated fans of the B52s to talk about your music. This means that you may need to start the conversation. You'll need to get bloggers, community forums etc. to talk about you as an Amazon seller, to talk about your band and to use the opportunity to raise awareness. Giving away the CDs to people who buy B52s music on Amazon alone is not going to achieve this. As usual from Seth Godin, it's interesting advice in a kind of 'why didn't I think of that' way, but the applicability of it changes substantially once you give it some thought. On a final note, has anyone else noticed a distinct increase in the amount of Seth Godin material linked to from here? I get the feeling that not all this is strictly relevant to HN...
RobGR 18y ago
I think you are missing the important part of this idea, probably because Seth wrote way too many words for something that could be compressed into a paragraph with an hour or two of careful editing. Of course you can get the idea that people who like one thing also like another from Amazon -- but Seth's senario presumed you knew that already. The problem is, figuring out WHO those people are that like both bands, particularly, the people who like both bands but don't know about your band to like it yet. The fact that there is an intersection of sets is easy to come across or guess, the actual MEMBERS of the sets are hard to find. Seth's idea seems like a good one to me because it fits the general pattern, that many good computer revolution ideas allow small people to do what huge companies, institutions, or governments were already doing. Putting the "desktop" in desktop publishing, personal computers with spreadsheets replacing custom code on mainframes, ebay replacing the Sears catalog, etc. Previously, the information of who these people were who bought CDs of band A and might like band B was available only to the big distributors. But since ebay, half.com, and amazon's used section allow us small guys to be distributors also, now we on a small scale can get access to that information too. I don't have any product that I can use to make use of this idea now, but I'm going to keep it in my bag of tricks.

michael_dorfman 18y ago

So, to summarize, Slashdot style: 1) Identify the most likely consumers, and then give them the product for free. 2) ????????????? 3) Profit! It reminds me of the sales guys at one of my previous jobs-- "Sure, we'll lose $10 on each sale, but we'll make up for it in volume!"

rsheridan6 18y ago
>What a shame that Amazon hasn't figured out how to provide this as a useful service. Amazon knows who buys a lot, they know who reviews a lot... why not ask those people if they want a free prize now and then? An influential person would earn the right to a huge number of free samples. The idea is that people who might influence other people to buy something would get it for free.
- baha_man 18y ago
 The good thing about reviews on Amazon is that they are by other customers who actually had to shell out for the product. If there was any suggestion that they were being written to get freebies, wouldn't they lose whatever credibility they currently have?
 - rsheridan6 18y ago
 Amazon reviews are kind of questionable anyway because anybody can write a review. If your name is, say, John Lott, you can create an account with the name Mary Rosh and write yourself some 5 star reviews. Also, Amazon has been known to scrub negative reviews. You have to read between the lines. I don't think that would really change.
johnrob 18y ago
He says spend 10k doing this instead of 10k on useless ads. This shouldn't change your business model, just how you might spend your advertising budget.

njharman 18y ago

Makes a big assumption that I don't think is questioned enough. That you know who the "right people" are or even what your product is. Might not be as true with products but how many times have you heard about software or website. "We started out to do X by Y is what users latched onto so we did that instead. Also why target such a niche when you can target everyone with an internet connection. His example might work it's expensive and time consuming. Better to just upload sample tracks and even let people pirate your whole album. Your real fans(if any, you might just suck) will buy your next albulm, your merchandise and go to your show. They'll also spread the word.

RobGR 18y ago
You say "Also why target such a niche when you can target everyone with an internet connection." The answer is, that targeting everyone with an internet connection is not targeting. It's called carpet bombing the internet, and it's expensive. Invariably, you can't carpet bomb the whole internet, so you only carpet bomb a tiny faction, which ends up being chosen not by smarts, but by chance and the nature of whatever advertising you are doing. Even if you just upload tracks and let people "pirate" your whole album, you are leaving it up to chance that the people want your music will find it. People do not download every free track out there and listen to every single one just because it's free. So putting it out there for free is not an automatic answer -- it's better than changing $15 a CD and then just waiting, but it's still a pretty basic attempt. The example given is expensive and time consuming. It doesn't have to expensive in money, you could buy used B-52 CDs and re-sell them at cost, for example, but it will be time consuming and take care and attention to detail to do it right. But seems likely to me that any success in internet marketing will take time, money (or even more time), and care and miticulous attention to detail. It's just not as easy as it was when banner ads were first invented.