All About the Marketing

I was driving down the street in my neighborhood the other day. There were two girls on the side of the road. They must have been selling something. They tried to get my attention and successed. One girl was waving. The other one did a kind of backflip. Seemed like some gymnastics move. Impressive. You don't see that enthusiasm often.

So these girls get an A for grabbing my attention. Where they failed was their signage. They both had signs which they made by hand. However they must have been written on 8 1/2 by 11 paper. There is no way I can read anything on such small paper when I am driving by in a car.

I actually thought about stopping, but I had no clue what they were selling. I did not want to stop if what they were selling was of no value to me. I would have wasted precious time. My recommendation? Grab a big cardboard box and write "Carwash $5" in big letters so they guy in an airplane can see what is going down.

Marketing. It is really tough. Capture your customers' attention, and communicate clearly for a win.

Advertising Gamble

I was reading some trade press rag. Spotted this weird ad from InstallAware. There was a superhero with his head falling off. This was an ad for an installation development platform. The top reason listed for buying the program was that the industry leader copied their features!

Another weird feature of the ad was that there was no information on how to get more info. There was no URL listed. No phone numbers. Nothing. I guess they figure I would Google them if I was interest. I did Google them.

I was happy that their web site was very transparent about how my costs would be computed. Factors such as using the competitors product, having previos versions of their product, and assorted options were all clearly marked.

Now this is some pricey software. Pricey as is in the cheapest version with no frills costs over $1000. If you add some bells and whistles like support, roving licenses, and consutling, the total bill might come out to $20k or so. Very gutsy advertising for such an expensive proposition.

The Value of Marketing

I was recently reading the transcript from a speech by Patrick McKenzie. It was a talk he gave at the MicroConf 2012 convention. He talks about a lot of things. But mainly he describes how he has gone on to do consulting for people who sell over the web. Previously his weekly consulting rate was $20k to $25k a week. But I think the price has gone up.

That's not the real kicker. He did so well for one customer that the CEO was talking about hiring him on full time for around $750k a year. Here is the shocker. He turned it down. LOLwut? Does he love working for himself? Maybe he wants to give all companies a chance to receive his advice. Or perhaps there is only so much he can do for any given company before the returns flatten out.

Whatever the reason, this seems odd on the surface. Wouldn't every developer love making $750k a year? I sure would. From a sheer economic perspective, Patrick has a good thing going with his consulting gigs. He appears to be making more and more money per week with that. Maybe this is not so crazy after all.

All I know is that you have to love a guy who can make money marketing a program called Bingo Card Creator.