last week i was on the marketing 101 panel at the startupLA conference. it was
actually a lot of fun, and there were some great questions afterwards. here’s some of my favorites, and my answers:
Q. what’s the fastest way for a new company to get exposure?
A. look for existing communities that are comprised of your target demographic and approach them. if there’s already a connected group of folks that you feel will be interested in what you’ve got it’s a lot faster to generate authentic exposure through that network than trying to aggregate a community from scratch. from a completely different perspective, cliff allen of suretomeet.com who was on the panel with me, said the fastest way for a new company to get exposure is spam. so there you go. choose your own adventure.
Q. is social media, like facebook, going to be the future of advertising?
A. its impact on the process is hugely important. i think it’s certainly something that now needs to be factored into any kind of advertising plan. but i also think it’s completely foolish to altogether write off exposure media (which is what advertising has been primarily dependent on up until like yesterday). it’s not a battle between whether engagement or exposure media is better adapted to the natural selection of marketing, it’s about pursuing a symbiotic relationship between the two, and developing integrated strategies that are overall more effective. that’s the future…. or at least it ought to be.
Q. what’s one piece of marketing advice that is most important for a new company?
A. know your audience. really really understand who you’re talking to. or who you should be talking to. the danger in making a message that isn’t relevant or that isn’t approaching your audience on their own terms is not just that we, as consumers, “tune it out,” it’s that unconsciously we translate messages we don’t relate to as being “not for us.” that’s the #1 thing to avoid.
(and my #1 favorite…)
Q. if you had $10,000 to spend on advertising and you couldn’t use any of it on the internet, what would you do?
A. throw an event. and if you’re targeting people over 50, buy some print.