

Marketing Your Startup. Any comments? - pepeto
http://www.entrepreneur2be.com/2007/08/06/marketing-your-startup/

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tocomment
Here's a counter-example to this idea. I made justoneclubcard.com a few years
ago. I think it's a clever idea and useful to a lot of people. I even get
emails all the time from people telling me how great they think it is.

But it is rare that people spread the word to other people i.e., very little
traffic comes from email websites, small blogs, or directly typing in the URL.
Instead almost all of the traffic comes from lifehack type websites
discovering it and linking to it.

So in my case I don't see the specific p2p type word of mouth he talks about.
I think that only applies to certain products where you actually want your
friends to use the same product as you e.g., "dude, you've got to get a
myspace account".

What do you guys think?

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pepeto
Well, isn't "traffic comes from lifehack type websites discovering it and
linking to it" the equivalent of "dude, you've got to check it out"? True, not
everybody does it in your case, but it wasn't YOU the initiator of those
links. Its pretty much the same thing concentrated in hands of few
individuals.

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wensing
Excellent article, and the illustrations do a fantastic job of visualizing
your points.

I agree with your assertion, by the way. However, it does take something
'extra' (the "if you really want to spend money" part at the bottom) to make
something into a total social phenomenon. That said, I still believe the magic
sauce could be inventing something that is just so downright amazing (ex.: a
perpetual motion machine) that people (and the news) must talk about it. That
is the dream-stricken inventor in me, at least.

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adamdoupe
Or perhaps a device that will change human transportation forever! Oh wait...

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rchambers
This is a good article with a interesting point of view. I would simply add
that sometimes a great product sitting in my development environment or hidden
from the world is worthless. You have to consider even a minimal amount of
effort in getting your viral marketing started. Hopefully the theory focused
on by the article will save you tons in marketing expenses once it gets going.

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jsjenkins168
The graphical depictions are actually very good at explaining this concept.
Great article.

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steve
I disagree that traditional marketing is useless.

Marketing is and always will be very real and very effective.

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pepeto
And may you explain why paying [traditional marketing] may makes sense when
your revenue (unlike selling TV's for example) is anywhere between 0 and $10?

