SmashingRed™ Web & Marketing

I was just reading Robert Scoble who had pointed me to this post by Eric Sink who writes one of the best Marketing articles I have read in a while. In it, he explores how a business can get people talking about their product.

Where Sink’s article really wins is that it explains the benefits of market specialization in with a clarity that takes it from the abstract to the concrete. He takes you through an example of satisfying all members of a small group can be more effective than a small group of a large segment. This completely jives with all the talk of the Long Tail—the theory that suggests that the sum of the small segments can be more profitable than the single large segment.

One of the observations I have made working with small business is that almost every one of them relies on word-of-mouth as a business strategy. They say that they work mostly on referrals. But their marketing begins long before that. It relates to how the sales process works. It relates to the results of the product or service. It relates to the follow-up and customer service. It relates to how all that delivery meshes with the promotional activities work.

Let me know how you are marketing? Are you relying on word of mouth as a strategy? Have you been brainwashed into splatter marketing by throwing your product or service into the marketplace and hoping it will stick?

Tags: Robert Scoble, Eric Sink, Long Tail, word of mouth, marketing, small business, marketing how to

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 24th, 2006 at 11:12 pm and is filed under Advertising, Marketing, Marketing Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.