purple cow

Great Products Need Little Marketing

Do truly great products need a lot of advertising help? Will lots of advertising expense overcome a bad product?  I intend to find out, at least in one vertical: video games.

The presentation below is a presentation I gave which outlines my research goal and motivation around how products succeed in the marketplace.  Specifically Product Conception Quality, or how well a product is conceived during the Fuzzy Front End of product development, is a moderator on product success controlling for advertising expenditure.

What do you think will be the answer of my research?   Will products that were better conceived perform better in the marketplace when we control for ad spend?  Or is it purely a factor of how hard companies ‘push’ their bad products?

Do you have a Purple Cow?  Or are you shoving a Normal Cow down peoples throats?

Getting more Twitter Followers does NOT magically lead to sales

So, you have a lot of new Twitter Followers eh?  You may have gotten them by running a Karmaback Social Sweepstakes, or maybe you just been collecting them a while?  Well, here’s a news-flash, just having twitter followers is NOT enough to get you sales.  You have to do something else, 2 things actually, and one of them has to be “extraordinary”.

First, and foremost, you have to offer a product or service that is TRULY valuable to the target market.  It won’t have value for everyone.. but to those that it was built for, it has to be THE most valuable solution they can think of.  Your product/service has to be “extraordinary” to the target market.

Example: You make Caramel Ice Cream, with Caramel Swirls, and Caramel Candy inside, with Caramel topping.   You make the “Quadruple Caramel Ice-cream”.  *** THIS is PERFECT for me (Harlan) the target customer and people who: 1.) wants ice-cream, 2.) loves caramel, and 3.) can order the ice-cream (either lives nearby or can get it delivered).

Example 2:  You fix Small Business Tax Problems, by training small business owners the “simple steps to managing your books and filing taxes” and provide backup tax help hourly at just $40 per hour.  *** THIS is the PERFECT solution for me, and People who: 1.) have a small business, 2.) have tax headaches and fears, 3.) want to do as much as we can ourselves to save money, but 4.) need to have backup ready instantly, and 5.) can order/use the service (either via Web or in the same city).

NOTICE: These examples are VERY specific products, and NOT built for everyone in the whole world.  (some fools actually don’t like Caramel!)

Now, you’ve got an EXCEPTIONAL PRODUCT… you’ve got to make an EXCEPTIONAL DEAL to the PEOPLE THAT NEED IT, and then, and only then, will you get sales from Twitter.

EXAMPLE;   @QuadrupleCaramelIceCream  live in Austin?  Try a Quad Caramel Ice-cream from #QCIC for just $2 with this code: bit.ly/34f6

or

EXAMPLE: @SMBTaxHelp get a $250+ training and tax consultation for just $40 with this code: bit.ly/554d

….

Are you getting it?
To me, (who wants/needs both of those things already)… I’m DEFINITELY going to get the icecream.. and I am GOING to check out SMBTaxHelp and see if it really is $250+ in value.

…
Engineering Formula:
(ExceptionalTargetedProduct + SpecialOffer) * TwitterFollowersThatNeedYourStuff = Win Sales with Twitter

Let Karmaback help you win: http://karmaback.com/platform

*photo from: http://slurplog.blogspot.com/2005/10/food-fanny-ice-cream-vietnam-hcmc.html

Karmaback, my Seth Godin inspired company.

Sometimes, we forget where inspiration comes from.  I am a Seth Godin fan.  If you don’t believe me, read my blog… check out the movie I made… or consider my company: Karmaback.  Yes, almost everything about Karmaback is inspired by Seth Godin’s principles.  Permission Marketing is really the core of Karmaback.  We’re trying to match up companies that care about their customers with customers who appreciate permission marketing.  We want to leverage peoples social networks, WITH their permission, and help companies create great end user stories.  And the really exciting part: Karmaback is working GREAT for a bunch of really happy companies.

Here are a few “Seth” principles we live by:
Permission Marketing? (Very much so… we give points for permission!)
Purple Cow? (We think so, although our colors are green, we are unique in several key ways)
Linchpin Commitment to Service? (our customers think so, and I work dang hard to keep it).
Meatball Sundae?  (We’re different and we’re getting our word out “the right way”.)
Giving? (Yes, we frequently go above and beyond for our customers.  Plus, we have some amazing free programs, and frequently give our services to others at little to no cost).

Also, At last night’s Austin Seth Godin Linchpin meetup, I met Pace from FreakRevolution.com.  Pace is building a company to try to “change the world”.  She’s got a Linchpin factory that turns people with world-changing ideas into world-chagers.   It was speaking with Pace that got me re-jazzed about permission marketing.

Stay tuned for some “little tweaks” to Karmaback to get us back in line with Seth Godin’s principles.  We want to be the BEST place for Permission based Marketing on the Planet.