Skip to main content

Simple PR-Based Marketing Program

In general, PR is the best way to build a brand. Here is an example of phases (in chronological order) of a simple PR-based marketing program:

  1. Establish a group of evangelists. Recruit a small group of "people with megaphones" (influencers such as bloggers, newspaper and TV reporters, and respected people in the field). Do everything you can do (e.g. training, etc.) to get them to use your product for free and become excited about it.
  2. Target key events. If possible, identify events at which attendees would find your product useful. For example, if your product is a cold beverage, supply it free at a small event that takes place in the hot sun. Try to provide them with something or some idea they will share with their friends after they get home.
  3. Focus on selling to a narrow subset of your market that will "drink the Kool-Aid". Start selling your product instead of giving it away for free. Target a location or demographic with a low barrier to entry, i.e. that contains people who it will be easy to convince to buy your product and to become excited about it.
  4. Get the media to do stories on your product. Call the local TV news stations. Call newspaper reporters. See if you can get Slashdot to publish a blurb about your product. The buzz you've already generated should already have gotten the attention of the media, so it should be relatively easy to get media coverage. Arm reporters with interesting usage stories from your product evangelists.

The idea is to tightly control the marketing rollout of your product in such a way as to maximize the positive word of mouth. Rather than try to blast your message to as many people as possible right off the bat, start small.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What Product Managers Can Learn from the Apple iPod

The Story When Apple unveiled its iPod digital music player back in October 2001, I dismissed it as a  parity product . I already owned the Cowon iAUDIO CW100 MP3 player, loaded with my favorite tunes. There was Apple, generating great hype over the iPod as if it were a breakthrough product. The idea of a portable digital music player was nothing new. The first mass-produced MP3 players came out in 1998. In late 2001, the concept may have been new to a lot of Apple customers, but it wasn't new to me. I proudly showed my MP3 player to friends when they gushed about the iPod. Thus Apple's iPod was not an innovative product in and of itself. Years later, however, I realized the significance of ecosystem of which the iPod was a part. Apple had released iTunes (with technology purchased from  SoundJam MP ) and created the iTunes Store for finding and downloading music. Unlike Napster , it was a safe and legal way of distributing and acquiring music. The prior way of playing

Why Spreadsheets Suck for Prioritizing

The Goal As a company executive, you want confidence that your product team (which includes all the people, from all departments, responsible for product success) has a sound basis for deciding which items are on the product roadmap. You also want confidence the team is prioritizing the items in a smart way. What Should We Prioritize? The items the team prioritizes could be features, user stories, epics, market problems, themes, or experiments. Melissa Perri  makes an excellent case for a " problem roadmap ", and, in general, I recommend focusing on the latter types of items. However, the topic of what types of items you should prioritize - and in what situations - is interesting and important but beyond the scope of this blog entry. A Sad but Familiar Story If there is significant controversy about priorities, then almost inevitably, a product manager or other member of the team decides to put together The Spreadsheet. I've done it. Some of the mos

Interaction Design: the Neglected Skill

Your product development organization has a big, gaping hole in it. (Be prepared to feel defensive as you continue reading.) One of the most important roles in product development is the role of interaction designer. An interaction designer designs how the users will interact with the product and conceptualize the tasks they perform. He decides whether, for example, the user interface will be command driven, object oriented (clicking on objects then specifying what to do with them), or wizard based. The interaction designer decides the individual steps in the use cases. Every company has one or more people that play the interaction designer role. Usually, those people have little or no expertise in interaction design. Sadly, they typically don't even realize how unqualified they are. Let's see who typically plays the role at companies. Engineer . An engineer is an expert on building what is designed. Yes, an engineer may know how to design the internal structure of the hardware