We just went and interviewed the guys above or asked thme for guest posts. You have to think how to serve their interests (traffic / exposure / relationships with a potentially cool company).
We just went and interviewed the guys above or asked thme for guest posts. You have to think how to serve their interests (traffic / exposure / relationships with a potentially cool company).
That totally makes sense. But if this is early in Mint's history then what's the benefit for them? I'm assuming it's not traffic or exposure since they already have it, right? This is a situation that applies to a lot of startups. What do they have to offer early on?
Everyone will do an interview. They want the links and possibly free traffic for minimal work. It did help that I personally knew them. Once you get interviewed, you are pretty likely to promote it if it's a good reference.
The issue is most people approach it with generic template emails and crappy questions.
I like that you shared the apathy and Excel insights. I learned this early on too. Even today in the PF space, I'd still say that's true and shouldn't inhibit anyone from trying to create something cool.
Thanks for adding the PR point too. I get tired of hearing the "Mint didn't spend money to attract users" line.
I think the domain name ( mint -vs- wesabe ) is responsible for more of the Mint victory than people want to admit. I know when I try and turn people on to new services, that seemingly petty little detail has been the primary reason whether they adopt it or not. That fact of life kills you inside when you put so much blood sweat and money into a company - only to have people talking about how to pronounce your name in blog comments rather than what cool stuff you can do.
It seems so simple. Yet I'm sure a lot of Marketing dudes get caught up in the hype that ends up being the "wrong community."
Say my customer is a bit of a laggard, What would you recommend doing to break through the traditional PR clutter in a very web 2.0 world? Is there a way to connect the two that makes sense and might provide value/ROI?
A couple of questions:
Authority. We got thought leaders in personal finance to back us.
Can you give one or two examples of how you guys accomplished this?
Dave had a the killer idea of the content network (blog) which was a HUGE traffic generator and still is to this day.
Do you mean the Mint blog or were there others? If others, how many of them?