Technology has revolutionized the way people make purchase decisions. Thanks to the Internet, affordable computers, the constant evolution of search engine technology and the revolution of peer reviews and communication; consumers (not companies) have an information advantage in just about every purchase decision that gets made.
Some big marketers have dropped millions of dollars in building flashy viral campaigns and web strategies, thinking what once worked on television might be the thing to do on the web as well. Unfortunately, it isn't. And by the time many of those projects came to life, the idea and/or technology had already become irrelevant.
It a) isn't about creating flashy viral campaigns and b) there is plenty of open-source technology that companies can make use of. And since that technology usually comes without a hefty price tag, companies, small and large, can leverage it.
Here are some examples.
Building a compelling website can be done under $500 these days. Install a free copy of wordpress on your server, brainstorm a domain name and buy it on GoDaddy, get a copy of the Thesis theme (or any other great Wordpress theme), have a designer create a custom banner for you, plug-in the copy and voila, you're ready to go. This can be done in one day, one week or one month at the most. I am not a designer or a developer, but I built ScrappyMarketing.com in less than a week.
Do you have a messaging strategy that you want to test? Build a quick website (see above), plug it into a lead-capture or e-commerce technology and drive some paid search to see if it gains any traction. If you make sales or capture leads effectively, scale it. No focus groups needed.
If you do need some focus group learning, use one of the many online focus group providers available nowadays for a fraction of the price.
If you're selling on Amazon, why not offer your products for review through Amazon's Vine program. My ProWash Detergent has done so with great success.
Need to build a forum to communicate with customers? Maybe start with a Facebook fan site. Or have a company like Grupthink help you implement a smart forum technology on your website.
Want to publish a book? We had the Complain For Fun And Profit book published in less than a month via Amazon's CreateSpace program.
Need peer reviews on your site. According to a 2007 comScore study, consumers noted that reviews generated by fellow consumers had a great influence than those generated by professionals. So check out Bazaarvoice?
Want to start an email newsletter. I use Campaign Monitor and it took me less than an hour to set-up.
Need to drive traffic. Google Adwords will drive instant results.
My point is that there's a plethora of really smart and cheap technology solutions available to you. Use them to your advantage. Don't overthink an idea, test it. Think you have a product that will sell online, launch it. Technology has leveled the playing field and you'd be silly to not capitalize on such.
My point is not that you should stop thinking and just do everything. Spend plenty of time coming up with great ideas, and then leverage technology to bring it to life.
[ratings]
...I hate it when you are always right....
Lakes, you've done some awesome stuff in this space. I would love for you to do a guest editorial about your work with skimoviemusic.com. There's a ton of learning there that I'd like to expose the Scrappy community. Interested?
Honored!
While we are on this subject let me share a few more...
Want to serve ads? The Open X platform is free/open source, easy to use ad server and its easy to set up. So far it has done better then most of my other advertisers platforms.
Build a community?I am very pleased with MediaWiki, the same software that Wikipedia runs off of. It's also open source/free. Its a bit of a challenge to learn but there are a ton of online learning resources.
No community is complete with out a forum and the folks down at MyBB Group have a great product that is also free and easy to set up and administer.