I remember my first kiss.
I remember my first boss.
I know I will always remember
my first fan letters
(from my first novel).
Nothing is ever quite like the first.
If you can be part of that first,
you, your product, your company
will be remembered forever.
How to do that?
Seek out the new
and then
support it.
Bill Gross, Founder of Idealab,
tells John Battelle in
The Search
“The more I [thought about it],
the more I realized that the true value
of the Internet was in its accountability.
Performance guarantees had to be
the model for paying fo media.”
That accountability has spoiled me.
Having paid for the first wave of marketing,
all internet based for the eBook launch,
I’m now looking at
print based advertising for the print launch.
With the web ads,
it is easy to track where traffic is coming from,
it is all done automatically by software.
With print,
I’m using “tricks” like special coupon codes
and even that is very unreliable.
The decrease in accountability
is painful.
Today is my one year blogoversary
on this new domain name.
(As some of my readers know,
I guest blogged for a few years
on the now defunct Road To Forbes domain.)
What have I learned over this past year?
The blog business has gotten tougher.
It used to be that you could write some posts,
ping technorati, and
watch the traffic come in.
Not any more.
Too much competition.
This is a normal part of the product cycle.
Usually around this stage,
you’ll see a clear split
between the have’s and the have not’s
traffic-wise.
Eventually the gap widens so much,
it becomes a barrier to entry.
When I’m drafting up a business plan
or trying to understand a new-to-me industry,
I often use Porter’s Five Forces as a checklist.
The five forces affecting any company or industry are;
Potential Entrants
Profitable industries draw competitors.
Are there barriers to entry such as high capital costs or government policies?
Competitive Rivalry
More competitors in a shrinking marketing will affect profitability.
Substitutes
Can and do customers switch easily between substitute products?
The Bargaining Power Of Buyers
The less buyers there are, the more control they have.
and
The Bargaining Power Of Suppliers
Again, less suppliers, more control they have.
Regardless of genre,
writers love Stephen King.
Why?
Because he is a fan.
Listen to him for more than five minutes
and he’ll mention another author.
Often in another genre.
His excitement,
his love for the written word is addictive.
So addictive that I look forward
to hearing him speak.
Being a fan,
coupled with having a great product,
has built his own fan base.
I listened to a two hour discussion
between a factory worker and his young protege.
The older man had been with the company
for over 20 years.
He knew just about everything from
the number of gallons per hour
each employee was required to produce
to
the minimum safe distance
a floor worker could stand away
from the machines.
The only piece of information he didn’t know?
What the product was.
Seriously.
He had no idea.
Yes, he could have been working
on a top secret product,
but after years spent on plant floors,
I think it more likely no one ever told him.
What a waste.
He could have spent the last two decades
coming up with product improvements.
My first novel, Breach Of Trust, launched May 1st.
My second novel, Invisible, will launch February 1st.
Because each of these products is unique,
the transition of marketing resources
between the two is easier.
Marketing the new novel
does not supercede the other.
There can even be overlap.
Marketing a replacement product
is more challenging.
What I do is
have maintenance marketing only
in the transition period.
How long should the transition period be?
It depends on the average product turnover.
I like to give it at least a month.
A month in a customer’s mind
is forever,
long enough to forget
that you marketed the old product
as being the “best ever”.
The classics will always do well on Mother’s Day,
chocolates, flowers, and cards.
However, this year,
Walmart is already seeing electronics
like digital photo frames and cameras
be the big Mom gifts.
(Rob, I was half a year too early
with the call on digital photo frames.)
Walmart is promoting the Wii Fit
as the must-have gift for Mom,
a product tapping into
the seemingly recession-proof
video spending.
An author buddy has a weekly photo feature
on her blog called “Men In Kilts.”
Readers of her Scottish Romances LOVE it.
My first instinct was
“I’d never do something like that.”
When I moved past my idea limiting pride,
I knew that a “Men In Suits” section
would be loved by
my business based romance readers also.
It would also give my author brand
the casual and fun feel
I wanted it to have.
It is now one of my most popular posts.
Have you ever seen an invention
and thought “I could have come up with that?”
Odds are,
that is untrue.
The reason no one thought of that invention before
was because that entrepreneur had the unique combination
of skills and insights
to uncover it.
On ChurchOfTheCustomer,
David Vinjamuri, author of Accidental Branding,
talks about how most successful entrepreneurs
came to realize that
“he or she was uniquely position to solve a problem.”
Does that mean you’re out of luck?
No.
Because you also are in a unique position
to solve a problem.
You simply haven’t uncovered the problem yet.