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Startups Face a Marketing Dilemma

Most startups face a similar dilemma. They need to attract attention but the right sort of attention. Back in the care free days of the last internet boom a few dot coms attacked this problem by purchasing ads for the one television broadcast they could be sure their customer was watching – the Super Bowl. During Super Bowl XXXIV, over a dozen startups including Computer.com, Epidemic.com and OurBeginning.com spent at total of $40 million for ads like this:

Ads like the one for Computers.com attracted attention alright, but mostly in the form of ridicule. One company, Pets.com, promoted a sock puppet in an expensive spot during the 2000 Super Bowl which, after millions more dollars of advertising later, was sold for $125,000 in bankruptcy court (and can still seen today as the Bar None loan spoke sock).

Today in 2012, with the rack rate for 30 seconds over Lucas Oil Stadium listing at $3.5 million this approach would seem an extensive luxury for even the most well backed new venture and in my estimation would just be another tremendous waste of money.

Social media, which is often free, and on-line media which is often next to free would seem the answer. The dilemma is to be successful requires both patience and diligence. Feast or famine, with all the things on the entrepreneurial plate getting around to creating a blog post, tweeting, or Facebooking is often the last thing that gets done. This is unfortunate since most new ventures and especially ones with solve new or complex business problems this is their most effective go-to-market strategy and dollar-for-dollar their best marketing spend. 

Collision: A Really Bad Way to Stop

When learning to ski or ride its important to keep in mind that there are good ways to stop, problematic ways to stop, and one really bad way - collision. In the context of skiing a collision can be defined as one moving person striking violently against another person or a solid object.

According to Dr. Jasper Shealy, a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, the number of collisions accidents with other skiers or snowboarders accounts for only 6.4% of reported accidents so they are thankfully rare, but disproportionally serious.  He calculated In the period between 1991 and 2005, 60% of fatalities were the result of a skier or snowboarder hitting a tree. Hitting  a man-made object, such as lift towers, was the cause of  7.6% of the fatalities.His research also concludes that alpine skiers are three times more likely to be involved in a collision with other people than snowboarders.

Colorado law presumes that the uphill skier (or rider)  is at fault in any collision, because the faster skier has a moral as well as legal obligation to avoid a skier below who may not be able to avoid him. All skiers and snowboarders, even first timers, also have a responsibility to exercise caution, to ski or ride within their ability, and to maintain control at all times. Part of being cautious is to stop in a place that is both safe for themselves and others and when starting downhill to look uphill and yield to skiers or riders already in motion.

Colliding with a tree can kill you but colliding with another person can create a law suit.  Most laws covering skiing require individuals involved in a collision to stop at the scene, aid anyone injured, and to provide their full name, address and identification. If they become involved, ski patrol will  usually compile a comprehensive report about the nature, location, and causes of the collision which can be used as evidence in litigation.

Risk is an inherent part of skiing and risk is related to uncertainty. Conditions can be highly variable so there may be a circumstance when a collision is the preferable alternative, but I can not think of one.

Learning to Ski for the First Time

Due to the variety of conditions, terrain, and techniques mastering skiing can be complex. Fortunately for the first time skier the sport can also be reduced to just a few basics. If you can get up after you fall, stop when you need to stop, and turn where you want to turn then you are a skier.

 

 

Living Up to the 20 - 1 Rule

Michael Hyatt, writing on his blog on international leadership, created a very helpful guideline for producing content for social media. He calls it The 20 - 1 Rule - for every message asking someone to respond to your content - buy your book, attend to your conference, endorse your cause - you will need to provide 20 segments of interesting content to continue the conversation.  Otherwise as he writes "they will begin ignoring you. Eventually, they will unfollow you and disconnect".  There is a lot of truth in this, although I am not sure if 20 is the exact ratio. Some of it depends on what you are asking people to do. If it is something they would like to do anyway (like come to a fun event) then I suspect the ratio may be lower, but the point is a very good one.

An collary to this rule is that you may lose followers if you never ask them to respond to any of your content. Social media is about building a relationships and at some point it becomes stale and on-sided without the deeper commitment that comes from making a contribution to a common cause. Human nature being what it is we devalue anything that comes to us too easily or for free.

Have been reading the autobiography of Jim Whittaker who is best known as the first American to reach the summit of Mt. Everest. In his book A Life on the Edge he also details his relationship with Bobby Kennedy who clearly had an enormous hold on many people. Whittaker wrote "those who know him well - and I became one of them - adored him". He also wrote "the crowds terrified me. At rally after rally, the three of us literally had to battle to get Bobby to the speaking platform, then do it all over again to get him back to the car".

Part of Bobby's appeal was that he asked the people around him to do things for him and even make personal sacrifices on behalf of the things he believed important. Whittaker ended up guiding Bobby to a first summit of Mt. Kennedy and acting as his campaign manager in Washington and Oregon. Rather than be put off by these demands Whittaker was clearly more drawn to Kennedy by them because they made Whittaker feel important both to Kennedy and himself.

In my estimation one organization that does good job of this is Consumer Reports. By subscribing to the publication's email and Facebook feeds, I not only get updates about dangerous baby strollers, I am also asked to write Congress about consumer legislation which makes me feel engaged and important. 

So with one post down, expect me to ask you to do something here in about nineteen posts from now.