Marketing by communities and relationships
One of the best things that’s come out of starting a blog and a project of my own, is that I’ve started to take an wider interest in matters related to the development of a worthwhile service. One such area is marketing - something I’ve typically regarded with an element of distaste, despite working in an industry that’s all about brand perception.
What I, in my uneducated view, see as throwing lots of mud and seeing what sticks isn’t what I want to do. That way is talking at the user, rather than with them.
My NetNewsWire is becoming very busy of late! I’ve recently discovered writers Seth Godin and Tara Hunt.
Some of their writings that may be of interest:
Seth Godin
Seth’s Blog - personal blog
How to get referrals
“First, marketers often forget to look at this from the consumer’s point of view. Why on earth should I give you a referral? Yes, I know it’s important to you, but why is it important to me?”
Tara Hunt
HorsePigCow - personal blog
Why 50% isn’t good enough - a Vitamin article
“Today’s smart businesses can build stronger relationships with customers by unlocking the potential of communities…”
The rules of engagement - a Vitamin article
“Be involved in your community and transform everything from the quality of your product to the audience it receives…”
I’m not about to reduce this blog to a collection of links, but I’m going to add a category for writers whose feeds I regularly read.
Recent Posts RSS
November 29th, 2006 at 3:01 pm
Only read Seth Godin’s entry and to be honest, it is an exercise in the bleedin’ obvious.
There’s nothing there that will be new to anyone who’s ever done any marketing.
Referals are hard precisely because of the reasons he lays out, namely that the person’s reputation is on the line.
‘You need a web designer? I know this guy…’
Instead, build your own relationships with the client’s associates. Be the one to approach them, kindly ask your client if there are people who they think might be interested in your services and create your own line of communication with them.
Then, if it goes tits up (and there’s always projects that do, despite your own best efforts, like a recent one that failed simply because the client wasn’t willing to address any of the issues and made the project undeliverable) it doesn’t impact that original client.
Marketing is still something that I do unnaturally, it doesn’t feel right and there’s 101 things I’d rather be doing, but good, honest marketing works well and is a benefit not only to you, but also to your clients, something easily visible when it is done right.
November 29th, 2006 at 3:06 pm
It is indeed an exercise in the obvious if you know a little something about marketing. Sometimes a thing can be so obvious that it doesn’t occur to you in your ignorance or haste.
I’m finding reading the thoughts of writers like Godin interesting because I’ve yet to even realise the enormity of what I don’t know when it comes to marketing a product.
November 29th, 2006 at 3:20 pm
There’s a sweet little link posted on the comments to Tara’s log:
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/participation_inequality.html
Running FurtherDown and having experience with a number of other simliar themed boards I know that’s a common complaint of all community webmasters.
‘I’ve got thousands of users, but only 10 post regularly’
The majority sign up and either never return or do so occasionally and never post.
There’s a real problem I see in turning every product and service into a community.
While I appreciate opening the doors to feedback enable you to better customise and tailor your product and service, that’s just common sense. If feedback shows your users using what you offer in an unintended way, then you can apt and maybe offer support for that. That’s been good business sense from the day dot, that’s nothing to do with the buzz of having this ’social engineering’ crap attached everywhere you can.
Most people don’t WANT a conversation about your product. I don’t care who made my toaster, my shoes or the clothes I wear. I’m not about to join some blogg or board to raise my desires for the next version.
I don’t buy from communities. Write down a list of the communities you belong to. I mean the really good ones, the ones where you are that 1% posting regularly and contributing.
Ok, now sum up the complete value of all the merchandise that community has to offer… most have t-shirts, mugs, etc.
Now, in your participation with that community, the one that is everything you desire… how much have you ever spent?
It just sounds all too much like the rallying cries for ‘Sticky content’ from years ago, where adding a message board and regular updates was the key to having customers buy your product by the truck full.
It still remains that the key to selling is to fill a customers need, one they may not even be aware they have, and supporting them through that product/service’s lifespan.
There are also, possibly, going to be many cases where you DONT want your customers interacting together…
‘hey mine cost $400′
‘why did mine cost $600… rant, rant, rant’
Opening the flood gates for comments isn’t a stock answer… there aren’t any. That’s part of the problem with that industry, cutting through the bullcrap and identifying what will work for YOU and what is just hype.