Category: Marketing

If you wait until your product is complete to start promoting it, I’m afraid you’ve missed an incredible opportunity. Several of them, actually:

1. Determining if people actually care about what you’re doing
2. Finding out if the idea you’ve selected is your best one, based on feedback
3. Building up an army of people interested in promoting and buying your product
4. Seeing if your idea shows signs of being able to survive first contact with the marketplace

I think it’s possible to both over-prepare (often a form of procrastination and succumbing to Resistance) and under-prepare, but obscurity is an enemy regardless.

Tell us what’s in the oven unless your kitchen’s already crowded.

Actually, tell us regardless.

For many (many…) years, I drove a 1991 Honda Accord.

It’s the car I used to get picked up from elementary school in, the car I inherited when I was old enough to drive, and the car that saw me off to Atlanta when I started my career. It gave me little trouble in the 475 years that I owned it.

During this same time, I saw many of my peers graduating to more expensive vehicles that were decidedly sexier than my charcoal sedan.

You probably know where this is going: many of them quickly learned about a pesky little concept called the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Premium gas, expensive oil changes, and expensive maintenance.

Bummer. Fast-forward to last month, and an unrelated story:

When the Dollar Shave Club tore through the Twitternets with its brilliant and viral video, I signed up. I sprung for “The Executive” since it’s scientifically proven that women like men who shave with more blades ^tm.

Judge me, I don’t care.

As it turns out, the Executive razor is wonderful…but a terrible fit for how I shave and currently wear my facial hair. So I’d be better off with the cheapest one or sticking with the overpriced (but simple) blades I buy from CVS.

Following networking events, conferences, and meetups, there are usually well-intentioned followups that take place electronically as a result of business card exchanges.

Sometimes, however, people will add you to their mailing list without your consent. In addition to being slimy and ensuring that your spam newsletter does not get read, it dehumanizes the previous interaction.

If I get a newsletter from someone whose mailing list I didn’t sign up for, I opt for one of the following approaches, depending on how I feel:

1. Reporting the email as spam
2. Unsubscribing from the newsletter, indicating in the process (if it allows for feedback) that I didn’t sign up for it in the first place
3. Replying to the sender and asking if they added me to their list without my consent

The last one might be a little surprising, but I think it’s a teachable moment, and a little discomfort never hurt anyone (much). I once inquired of a spammer sender (who fit the profile of someone who I might have crossed paths with) if he and I had met. His reply? “No, but I would like to.”

ಠ_ಠ

Sometimes people will be offended if you request removal from their list, and I think that’s fine. Spam is a problem, and I have no problem aggressively guarding my inbox against unsolicited mail from dishonest marketers. It’s tactics like those that give people a general distaste of marketing in the first place.

And if someone I don’t know adds me to a mailing list I didn’t sign up for and provides no mechanism for unsubscribing (which is illegal, of course), I just report the message as spam, occasionally letting the sender know this by replying to the message.

/rant

Anyway…

I have a small mailing list for this blog, and I currently publish content every day. If someone wants to subscribe, it’s not very difficult. Could I push my list more aggressively, litter my site with calls to action, and proactively add friends to the list manually (with their consent)? Of course.

But that doesn’t match the tone I’m going for here. I’m trying to build a sustainable home for valuable ideas as they’re published. I’d like for the people coming along for the ride to be delighted to join, and I’d like to work for each and every signup.

So if you’re reading this post via email because you found my site or heard about me and opted into my daily musings, I’d like to thank you. You’re why I’m doing this.

The Air Jordan line of sneakers is one of the most successful and widely-recognized in the industry. Collectors frequently shell out large sums of money (thousands, in some cases) to obtain rare colorways and original releases.

Last night, at midnight, one of the rarest and most popular Air Jordan models went on sale across the country. The XI “Concords” were worn by Jordan during the 1995-1996 NBA Championship season, on the silver screen in Space Jam.

I love the story behind their initial introduction to the market:

The most interesting part of these sneakers is that they were “sampled” during the playoffs of the year of Jordan’s first return (1995). Designer Tinker Hatfield and Nike did not want Michael Jordan playing in them, however, when the sample was completed, Jordan saw it, took it, and said he wanted to wear the shoe.

Nike and Hatfield hoped that he would not wear it during the playoffs against Orlando, however, when they tuned in for the game, Ahmad Rashad was holding the shoe for the cameras explaining that they were the “newest” Air Jordan. Hatfield and Nike were highly upset as the shoe was not even in production, and now they would be forced to produce it for the masses.

The decision turned out to be a good one, as it can be considered one of the most valuable and sought after Air Jordans of the line. [source]

The excitement surrounding this re-release was akin to a new iPhone model for Apple fans, and with Christmas upon us, the demand is tremendous.

In addition to traditional shoe stores, Nike also made the Jordans available through their website, and took to Twitter with customer support. Notably, there is a bug with iOS 5 that prevents customers from completing an online purchase if the first digit of their zip code is a zero.

The Twitter account was also used to answer questions about shipping, order details, and to share the link to the order page at the stroke of midnight.

Throughout the process, frequent updates were made about the email confirmations being slow, the site experiencing heavy load, sizes that ran out, and responses to demanding customers, and the inevitable sold out update (which came just 57 minutes after they were announced).

Well done, Nike.

One of my goals is to write every day, even if it’s only a few lines.

I’m also traveling right now. In addition to the benefits that writing regularly provides, writing under these circumstances is giving me the following insights:

1. It is positively asinine to wait until the night before a post needs to go live to write it
2. The daily habit of writing really does keep the subconscious churning away on ideas
3. Being in the posture of writing regularly turns you into a keen observer of everything
4. When you read less, the frequency of insight drops dramatically
5. When your body needs sleep, writing something of substance is incredibly challenging
6. Staring at a blank WordPress post screen is at times terrifying
7. Lists are always the right answer (I think)
8. It’s worth it

In marketing: establishing trust is critical if you want to convert strangers into customers and raving fans. So if you pitch a sub-par product as the greatest invention ever created and people are continuously disappointed before the product catches up to the hype, you’re in trouble.

In relationships: no one wants to feel like they need to sign paperwork (e.g., FrieNDA) before sharing something with you. Using discretion with respect to what’s public information and what’s to be kept secret will save everyone involved a world of pain and embarrassment.

In web applications: if a user signs up for your application using a new (or rarely used) email address and there’s an influx of spam to that email address in the days that follow, they’ll probably deduce (correctly) that their information has been sold.

There are of course less malicious mistakes that can be made in web applications, but the ramifications are no less dire.

I think there is a balance to be struck when marketing.

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A balance between providing the tools for your tribe to spread your message…and instilling in people a sense of obligation to spam others with it.

Have you ever neglected to tweet or share or forward something compelling because the author neglected to request this?

Think about it, I’ll wait.

Giving your message “wings” should not come at the expense of making frequent asks.

Giving your best every day (requesting and expecting nothing in return) appears to be the most effective path to building a long term following.

The Chris Brogans and John Grubers of the world act as social and journalistic flight traffic controllers, pointing out interesting things that provide value to their tribe.

If you are doing something worth sharing, your tribe will do the rest.

Uber is a service that’s halfway between a personal driver and a taxi.

It’s more expensive than a cab, but it’s magic when it works. You start by registering for an account and putting your credit card on file (the brilliance of this comes to light in a moment). You then download the Uber app onto your iOS or Android device and sign in.

Once launched, the app gives you a realtime view of the cars available in the area. Once you position the marker on your location (it does its best to locate you with GPS, and gives you the option to place the marker manually or type in the address), you select “Set Pickup Location” and then “Request pickup here” to call for a vehicle.

Depending on a few factors such as time of day, your location, and how busy they are, your vehicle generally arrives in 5 to 30 minutes. I’ve been picked up in luxury sedans, SUVs, and coupes. The driver verifies who you are, asks you where you’re headed, and then you’re off to the races.

The experience

Uber doesn’t own vehicles itself, just the software powering the app, so they contract with companies that provide the drivers. Some drivers are more enjoyable to ride with and are more familiar with Uber “culture” than others of course, depending on how long they’ve been working with the company.

Some vehicles are equipped with wifi, computers, iPads that control the stereo, and all manner of madness. Others are just regular Town Cars.

When you reach your destination — and here’s what seals the deal for me — there’s no friction. The distance has been logged via GPS, and your credit card is on file, so you just hop out and get charged automatically.

Here’s what I would do if I ran Uber

• I would have a special vehicle in the lineup on Saturday nights only. Maybe a Bentley, a Ferrari, or a Hummer. The excitement, scarcity, and marketing are baked in.
• There would be some data analysis around what people are saying, and figure out how to delight them in the event that they are disappointed. It could be with a free ride, a service credit, or simply a tweet expressing sympathy. Something.
• An algorithm for identifying customer experiences that fall below an excellence threshold: if a certain number of failed requests (Uber can’t always locate you a vehicle) take place by a single user, someone’s internally needs to be notified.
• For customers who spend over $1,000 per month or more on Uber, I would offer a greater level of personalization: what car they like, what driver they prefer, and even what they like playing on the radio. There’s no rule against that.

And then I would update the homepage. It does the service no justice.

Twitter has launched an effort to highlight amazing stories contained in a single tweet.

Today we’re launching the first in a series of Twitter stories. Read about a single Tweet that helped save a bookstore from going out of business; an athlete who took a hundred of his followers out to a crab dinner; and, Japanese fishermen who use Twitter to sell their catch before returning to shore. Each story reminds us of the humanity behind Tweets that make the world smaller.

The brilliance is that it’s so easy to participate (and more importantly, to spread the remarkable ones), and the one-tweet format is in line with the Twitter ethos.

One of the first contributions in my timeline was from a friend:

@jessicalawrence: In the past year, a job, an apartment, and the amazing man in my life have all come from Twitter. #TwitterStories

I can relate.

I’ve met dozens of great friends, solved many problems, secured many clients, and witnessed many small miracles through the power of Twitter over the past year or two.

This isn’t just about Twitter of course, it’s how our ever-connected society is interacting in new ways. The significance of geographic location is quickly fading, and giving way to an era in which we are all instantly connected across a variety of platforms.

The challenge is to do something with this that’s more substantial than learning what a friend in Brussels is having for lunch.

…or, “not really.”

It looks like Nike tried to emulate the magic of Apple product videos and fell short in a major way. It’s almost painful to hear the cliches being dropped, and it doesn’t help that there’s not much in the way of actual shoe science being discussed at all.

I’m a bit disappointed with Nike’s efforts here. Not sure they tried very hard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=D8YbNCPZxXQ

[Email and RSS subscribers: here’s a link to the video embedded in the post]