4 ms·

If you stick with families, you should position towards an individual niche like military families, grand parents, or someone along those lines. Marketing it w

If you stick with families, you should position towards an individual niche like military families, grand parents, or someone along those lines. Marketing it would be pretty easy - take the military example; there are dozens of magazines that hit that demographic and you could very easily change your layout and focus and brand yourself towards military families. Once this was done I could imagine one of those magazines covering Ramamia for an article or 'site suggestion of the week' etc... just my 2 cents.

markbao 17y ago
Huh, interesting idea, thanks! Is there any kind of data on niche vs. general (and bigger) audience? The press thing has actually happened twice, even though we haven't done any marketing nor have we press-launched yet. http://screenshots.markbao.com/articles-20091104-162137.png http://screenshots.markbao.com/articles-20091104-162137.png
- skmurphy 17y ago
  Targeting a niche doesn't preclude you from later targeting another niche and ultimately "general (and bigger) audiences." It intensifies word of mouth effects because people in a niche are more likely to reference each other's buy decisions than in a general market (e.g. if you reach out to military families saying that other military families use it--provided, obviously that this is true--you are more likely to get signup than telling a general population that "families use it."). If you can't target a niche, at least initially, you may need to raise a lot of money to cover your customer acquisition costs. The two press clippings you cite actually address two distinct niches: global families (families with members widely geographically separated who want to stay in touch), and scrap bookers, people who want to commemorate family events and milestones and pass them along. You don't have general press coverage, you have two distinct use cases. Pay attention to what you early customers do, in particular the words that they use to describe the benefits of your offering. It will often give you a recipe for a niche. I note that neither "stay in touch with overseas relatives" or "on-line scrapbook to keep in touch" appear on your home page. You might spin it to incorporate one or both and reduce the generic language you are currently using.

markbao 17y ago

Huh, interesting idea, thanks! Is there any kind of data on niche vs. general (and bigger) audience? The press thing has actually happened twice, even though we haven't done any marketing nor have we press-launched yet. http://screenshots.markbao.com/articles-20091104-162137.png http://screenshots.markbao.com/articles-20091104-162137.png

skmurphy 17y ago
Targeting a niche doesn't preclude you from later targeting another niche and ultimately "general (and bigger) audiences." It intensifies word of mouth effects because people in a niche are more likely to reference each other's buy decisions than in a general market (e.g. if you reach out to military families saying that other military families use it--provided, obviously that this is true--you are more likely to get signup than telling a general population that "families use it."). If you can't target a niche, at least initially, you may need to raise a lot of money to cover your customer acquisition costs. The two press clippings you cite actually address two distinct niches: global families (families with members widely geographically separated who want to stay in touch), and scrap bookers, people who want to commemorate family events and milestones and pass them along. You don't have general press coverage, you have two distinct use cases. Pay attention to what you early customers do, in particular the words that they use to describe the benefits of your offering. It will often give you a recipe for a niche. I note that neither "stay in touch with overseas relatives" or "on-line scrapbook to keep in touch" appear on your home page. You might spin it to incorporate one or both and reduce the generic language you are currently using.