"You know what's wrong with this commercial? It's too commercial."
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It's a familiar problem one that's faced by every company, every product, every TV show: How do you get the word out? The challenge is no different for web sites. "You should treat your web site the way you'd treat any other kind of destination point in the marketing process," says online marketing expert Hunter Madsen. That said, the old rules don't always apply. First of all, the best place to promote a web site is on the web itself or at least through email. Online, no one is more than a click away from your site. So the barriers to entry are astonishingly low, and memory isn't an obstacle. But other media like direct mail or print ads are less immediate, and therefore less effective. Second, the role of the news media is diminished. A bad review can make or break some products, like packaged software, for example. But news coverage and reviews have little impact on the fate of web sites. "Peer-to-peer recommendations drive popularity on the web," says Adam Berliant of Microsoft. "[Wall Street Journal columnist] Walt Mossberg had nothing to do with the success of eBay." And if reviews mean little to web sites, celebrity endorsements mean even less. "When we were first raising money for BlackPlanet, we had an opportunity to bring on some celebrity investors," says Omar Wasow, the site's founder. "But it was clear to me that the way to win was by delivering a better customer experience, not by having a celebrity spokesperson. This wasn't going to be a conventional marketing war." The key to winning this war, it seems, is to take advantage of the web's user-centered properties, rather than fighting them. Many traditional promotional techniques try to change consumers' behavior by interrupting them, distracting them, or changing their minds. But people are singularly focused online. A promotion scheme that goes head-to-head with the user's own intentions will almost always lose. However, when marketers work with users instead of against them, the results can be spectacular. If you find users when they're already looking for you; if you help them accomplish their task at hand; if you let them help you spread the word you can reap remarkable results.
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