Category: Distribution

Don’t believe what you heard

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Cold Calling – is the hardest part of being an entrepreneur. A skill which is game winning.* Don’t believe what you’ve heard, the truth is very few businesses can grow without getting on the phone.

    

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* We’re not talking about selling insurance to unsolicited numbers…no.

We’re talking about contacting people in our world, our place of business, our industry, our corner of technology. Contacting people where a relationship could be valuable to both parties. We’re not selling either, we’re collaborating. But have no doubt, we are still cold calling.  

The experiment – Joseph Jaffe

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

JJ of Jaffe Juice is running an experiment to test the theory of his new book – Join the conversation. And it’s this:

Use new marketing to prove new marketing (or UNM2PNM for short)

The underlying thinking is that he use the approaches discussed in the book to promote it – hence providing a proof of concept.

So he’s given 150 books to bloggers and the like (me included) who’ll review it and ‘start the conversation’ – good bad or ugly. So when I get it, I’ll review it right here on start up blog.

  

It’ll be an interesting experiment to see how the book does in market.

Big Ideas

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

There is no such thing as a big idea.

All ideas are the same size.

Because ideas only exist metaphysically.

An idea that really works, becomes a big idea (after we proved it).To find a big idea, first we need lots of ideas (of which all are the same size). The ideas that worked didn’t have an advantage over the other ideas. They we’re all equal, but maybe other stuff happened to that idea.

Maybe we nurtured it,

maybe we believed in it,

maybe we developed it better,

maybe we tried a bit harder,

maybe kept pushing it,

maybe we modified it slightly,

maybe we resisted the temptation to modify it…

 

….maybe that idea had an advantage because of the way we treated it?

15.4%

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Only 15.4% of the worlds population have ever accessed the internet.

If we think the internet is ‘world changing’, then let’s imagine what would be possible if ‘the world’ actually had access to it? The idea sharing, the education, the cultural understandings….

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Maybe start ups should be thinking of how to give the remaining 84.6% of the world access to the net rather than working out a new social paradigm to leverage.

Top 10 viral marketing campaigns ever

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

The factors we’ve considered:

There needs to be an actual business or brand behind it

Not just something funny

The idea or product was primarily spread by others.

Not ‘driven’ by paid media.

Based on effectiveness only, (ignores insensitivities / political / religious views)

A little explanation is next to each

 In order. 

  1. The story of Jesus Christ (before digital technology or even the printing press, this ‘story’ crossed borders and oceans)
  2. 911 ‘Al Queda’ launch (3 weeks free media coverage on every media channel in every country)
  3. Polaroid Instamatic Cameras (product usage = product demonstration)
  4. Hotmail (the first viral product of the internet age)
  5. In Rainbows album by Radiohead. (true brand handover to passionate users, fan chooses price – even free, resulting in massive free media & blogosphere coverage, then goes to number 1 on US charts on physical album release)
  6. Google (usability & effectiveness which led to absolute domination)
  7. Youtube (was the ultimate user experience and so won the game. There were 240 other video sharing sites when it launched!)
  8. OK Go – Ok Here it goes film clip. (first to leverage youtube commercially. 27 million views and counting. No 2 on the charts to boot)
  9. Blair Witch Project (set a new paradigm for movie promotion & brand hijacking)
  10. Mini Cooper S Campaign (first ‘real’ personalized campaign message)

Add to, agree, disagree, complain and disdain in comments below!