4 ms·

'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

'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.

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.