The Archives

07.29.08

WrapMail: Making Email More Viral
Brands and Marketing
I don’t often review companies anymore. However WrapMail is a company worth talking about, especially in light of my recent focus on effective methods for marketing early-stage companies. I initially encountered WrapMail in the latest section of Techcrunch’s new section Elevator Pitches. After writing a post calling into question the marketing copy used by WrapMail, the founder Rolv exchanged a few comments with me on this blog and then offered to walk me through a product demonstration (Incidentally, this is also a great example of a CEO going the extra mile to win some businesses). Concept: WrapMail allows emails to be ...
07.22.08

Premium Means You Should Envy Them
Brands and Marketing
My last post talked about Rene Girard and the concept of mimetic desire. I want to continue with some additional thoughts… Premium products are often marketed via some aesthetic base, often using visual cues (logos, design, premium materials, etc) to make others consumers ‘envious’ to the point that they feel they must have it too. The value is obvious to all who see it. It seems most web services forget that making other users ‘envious’ of the premium features they could have is a necessary step to monetization. For example, the reason that car models change design ever year or two is ...
07.11.08

Can You Afford Not to Be Funny?
Brands and Marketing
In the past when Heights Media Group launched products for ourselves or on behalf of clients, a common debate was whether or not we should use humor as a marketing component. Generally when a client is launching a “serious product” there is misnomer (IMO) that the product or company will not be taken seriously if humor is used. It’s a misnomer because most clients assume that humor-based marketing is an all or nothing affair. It’s my belief that in today’s market, video is a necessary component for any campaign: it’s low cost, viral, engaging and trackable. Because video is necessary, so ...
06.15.08

Get Your Viral On
Brands and Marketing
So you want to make your product or company go viral. The first thing to know is you don’t choose viral; viral chooses you. The best you can do as a marketer is position something to have viral potential. This is accomplished by positioning your product in three ways: Psychological Undercurrent Social Value Proposition Maneuverability Psychological Undercurrent. Sounds almost military, doesn’t it? That’s because it is. Psyops and captology relate to the art of influence. If you want something to become viral you need to appeal to that which is cool, unique, novel, sexy, exclusive or shocking. These are the things that make an ...
06.11.08

Startup Marketing: Starting from the Inside, Out
Brands and Marketing
You are about to launch a new product or service and you *think* you’ve decided on a key demographic to target: say the 18-34 crowd. However, instead of focusing on marketing to a theoretical audience based on attributes such as age, sex, income, etc (standard acquisition marketing) first priority should be developing a strategy driven by user life-cycle. Specifically, life-cycle related to product engagement. If this sounds confusing, don't worry, it's not. Acquisition marketing is important, but should initially take a back seat to retention marketing. And to get the most out of a retention marketing strategy, it’s best to ...
06.11.08

Real-World Value Litmus Test for Startups
Brands and Marketing
Maybe it’s because I studied a decent amount of economics in school, but I think the first step in marketing anything on a large scale is to know the economic conditions and trends you’re selling into. The best products will address gaps and problems being actively discussed on the public record. While a valuable product will sell regardless of economic conditions, strategic positioning can still be influenced by astute economic observations. The best place to get a quick overview of macro trends and conditions is by paying attention to quality newspapers. As an example, here are paraphrased quotes lifted ...
06.05.08

Startup Marketing: Metrics and Strategy
Social Media
At Workstreamer I’m in charge of marketing and strategy. As I have begun developing our marketing, I have become deeply bothered by the lack of resources available to marketing strategists of early early-stage companies. Aside from the awesome work and insights of Dave McClure and Andrew Chen there seems to be a real lack of resources. Distribution of a new company is maybe more important than the product itself. Yet, everywhere you look online, all you find are blogs about web-design, venture capital and branding. Yes, there are generic marketing blogs, but how you market a new web service is a ...
03.26.08

What Schwag Has the Best ROI?
Brands and Marketing
All startups seem to feel an obligatory pressure to produce schwag: T-shirts, stickers, pens, etc. My question is what schwag has the best ROI and why?

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