The most effective overall form of marketing is word of mouth. You can't buy it. You can't really control it. Sometimes, irritatingly, some minor aspect of something you're building gets all the buzz while the whole point of your project gets missed. But this is your best indication of what your market is looking for. Or at least, what the market that found you is looking ... [Read More]
Affiliate Marketing
Creating personas that say yes
I was reading this piece by Holly Buchanan on creating personas when I realized this is a huge stumbling block for me. First, if you're not familiar with the concept of personas: marketers try to imagine the sort of person who would buy their products. Then they write copy and come up with campaigns that will sell the product to that person. The big pitfall with this ... [Read More]
Who Is Your Audience?
Understanding the type of people who visit your site is a very important task because you can use that information to enhance your site to suit them. As a result, you will gain more loyal returning visitors that come back again and again for more. What is the age level and what kind of knowledge does your audience have? A layman might linger around a general site on ... [Read More]
The value of gut instinct in marketing
Conventional marketing research - polls, surveys and number crunches about what's sold in the past and how and where it sold and to whom and by whom - can tell you what, among all the stuff that's already out there, people are likely to buy again. It can't really tell you much about that product no one knows they want yet. I'm not necessarily talking about a new invention or ... [Read More]