Facebook - A Great Opportunity

From the Timeline of Facebook you can see that the number of registred users has doubled from January 2009 until September 2009. The number of users has increased from 150 milliion to 300 million active users.

From the Statistics of Facebook you can read that the average active user has 130 friends on the site.

Think of these figures and how it may help you in your day to day marketing. This is a great viral marketing opportunity not to be missed.

Ideavirus Persistence

It’s amazing how things change. In year 2000, when Seth Godin wrote his book “Unleashing The Ideavirus”, one of the viruses in his examples is Palm. The handheld electronic diary which we couldn’t be without.

When writing about “Persistence” in the aforementioned book, Godin writes:

Compare this (the laser pointers) to the Palm virus. Every day, somebody else marches into your office, declaring their undying love and devotion to his new pocket wonder. And unlike laser pointers, people who love them keep using them. They persist.

I wonder how many use Palm today when you have all the same options in your cellphone.

Palm once filled a vacuum, a vacuum now filled by cellphones. I don’t see anyone uses Palm anymore, but it happens that I see someone using a laser pointer….

How do I sell ads for a hardcopy book?

Does anyone have an advice on how to do this?

Please feel free to make a comment.

Creating Evangelists

I read the blog of Creating Passionate Users on how to create Evangelists the authentic way. This is what they say about what you should have and what you should do.

1) You have a product or service or cause that helps users learn and grow and kick ass at something.
2) You give users tools to help them evangelize.
3) You do not ever, ever, ever pay users for doing this.

Creating Evangelists is about how you can get someone telling their friends about your product in a way that is truthful. Creating Evangelists has nothing to do with asking "cheaters" to go on the street telling "everybody" about your product, a product the "cheaters" may not even have seen. This is what separates the good from the evil, the true ones from the cheaters.

Then, of course, there are certain remedies which may be used to help your evangelists evangelize your product. These may be

1. Give-aways DVDs so the ones that receives the DVD may see why this product means so much to the one the got the DVD from
2. Posters and stickers to raise attention to the product. Speaking for my self, I'm a true evangelizer of the Skagen Festival , a music festival in Skagen, Denmark, and I often get posters to put up in my city just before the festival starts.
3. Free tickets to an event arranged by the manufacturer of the product
4. Friends and Families Nights; three weeks ahead of the Skagen Festival me and my wife arrange a Skagen Vorspiel where we invite the friends of ours who we will be going to Skagen together with.
5. Testimonials from credible people. Speaking once again for myself, I talk about the Skagen Festival round the year, telling all my acquaintances about what a remarkable experience it is to go to Skagen and listen to all the wonderful music, and not by least, how much it adds up to your marriage.

This is how YOU can help your true users to evangelize YOUR product of service.

The Many P's of Marketing

From my days in school - a long time ago - we learned that you should pay attention to the 4 P's of Marketing. These 4 P's were:

• Product
• Price
• Place
• Promotion

Today I have received a book telling me about a 5'th P -

Purple Cow.

The book is called Purple Cow and is written by Seth Godin. I have now started reading it, and will now and then give you my thoughts from what I have read.

Evangelizing Customers

Church of the Customer is announcing the new and revised version of Creating Customer Evangelists in paperback. What about it?

Well, this is a "new" way of thinking marketing. Take for instance the Brewtopia case. Brewtopia did not spend a dime on advertising or other strings of traditional marketing. They, deliberate or not, used the six tenets of customer evangelism, even before the book was released.

In short the six tenets are:

1. Customer plus-delta: Continuously gather customer feedback.
2. Napsterize knowledge: Make it a point to share knowledge freely.
3. Build the buzz: Expertly build word-of-mouth networks.
4. Create community: Encourage communities of customers to meet and share.
5. Make bite-size chunks: Devise specialized, smaller offerings to get customers to bite.
6. Create a cause: Focus on making the world, or your industry, better.

And what did Brewtopia accomplish?

1. From initial 140 contacts, customer base is now 20,000+ in 27 countries
2. Turnover; 2,000 cartoons per month average
3. 90% sold over the web, 10% in traditional outlets
4. First full year in sales expected to top $ 1 million
5. 64 of 100 referrals to www.blowfly.com.au register (up from 32 in 100)
6. Sales: 1 in 2.25 members buy the beer or merchandise (up from 1 in 9)
7. Licensing deals being struck in UK, US and NZ
8. Customer feedback initiates new lines of business, e.g. Corporate label beer
9. STILL never advertised, owned a brewery or had more than 4 staff

The full report "Testify" can be downloaded here.

I have read it. And what did I do next? Ordered my paperback copy of "Creating Customer Evangelists" on Amazon.com for about US$ 10 only.
Hopefully you will do so also.