Internet Marketing … Go Ahead … Experiment
I like to try different things and see what sticks.
Most marketing tactics don’t give you rapid viral results. Those little gems are always found sparingly, and a lot of times “going viral” just happens by chance … you reach a few key influencers and everything rockets up from there. Zoom!
The only way to force a campaign to go viral is to target key influencers with it. That’s easily done if you know them already. If they’re part of your network. Otherwise, like I said, you throw it out there, and hopefully a couple of influencers come across it.
But as long as your costs are not exhorbitant, lots of experimenting is always good. The more you do, the more you see what sticks, and the more influential people you add to your network along the way.
Stumbling
I did a little marketing experiment this week after reading Collis’ Internet marketing post on North x East. I picked 3 of my best posts and threw 50 bucks at them via StumbleUpon.
StumbleUpon has a really nice and easy advertising model. For 5 cents a click, 50 bucks will bring you 1000 people. And maybe more … I’ve had over 1200 of you swing by from Stumble Upon so far, and although the results didn’t match the “viralosity” that Collis achieved, I’m very happy with them.
The Results Of The Stumble
Increased daily traffic. Up about a 20% since the beginning of the week.
Increased RSS subscribers. Up 10% and growing.
It’s also given Zoomstart some exposure to a wider audience. I think the benefits of that are longer term which is what I like to see; strong, steady growth.
The Technorati Faves Train
What a crazy, brilliant idea.
Dosh Dosh built the train. Mr. Gary Lee fired up his own engine with coal and sent her on her way. And Nate Whitehill was kind enough to buy me a ticket.
I didn’t jump on board because I wasn’t sure it was my thing. And I was pretty busy writing other posts because my main focus is to write stuff that’s fit to be a Post of the Week.
The Results Of Missing The Train
Technorati Faves. It took me for a ride anyway. Faves have Jumped from 5 to over 50 and still climbing. This is something I’m going to pay regular attention to in the future. Want to get my attention? Add Zoomstart to your Technorati Faves.
Although Gary reports that he hasn’t seen a huge increase in traffic, I see this as something that adds more long term value as well. Potentially a lot of value. It’s just a matter of some key influencers coming across his status on the Technorati top faves list and loving his content.
Always Experiment With Your Marketing
One of the things I’ve wanted to do is add some free downloadables to Zoomstart. It’s something that I know works. So my first Ebook is something I’ll be working on over the next few weeks and I thank all of you for your input. It’s been invaluable.
Whether the Ebook goes viral or not, is not a concern. It’s one of many fronts to wage a campaign on and a diverse investment in different marketing strategies always works the best.
Experiment. Try something tried. And try something not yet tried.
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19 Comments
Alan
April 27th, 2007
at 5:28 am
You have been favorited. 🙂
http://technorati.com/faves?add=http://hackedgadgets.com
collis
April 27th, 2007
at 6:17 am
heya! Great to hear you had some success with StumbleUpon, I’ve been really curious to know if it works for others. I think like with all these things if you have the content to back it up then it’ll do the job.
Anyhow keep it up!
Shane
April 27th, 2007
at 6:22 am
Alan! You got my attention!
I love your site. It’s a little ad intense 🙂 … but I have a soft spot for cool and crazy workshop gadgets.
Toast art … who woulda thunk it?!
Shane
April 27th, 2007
at 6:27 am
Collis,
Thanks for dropping by. I think you’re exactly right. In the end, content is the gold at the end of every marketing rainbow.
I got great value from StumbleUpon. I’ll definitely be playing with it some more.
Martin Reed
April 27th, 2007
at 1:38 pm
I tired StumbleUpon for my community website, with mediocre results. I am considering giving it a go for my blog though.
Your insistence of the importance of experimentation is bang on the money. If you don’t keep trying new things, you miss out on many opportunities.
Deborah
April 27th, 2007
at 3:18 pm
Hi there,
I’ve already added you to my favs.
My username is fastfastlane, and link to my fav is
http://technorati.com/faves?sub=addfavbtn&add=http://www.fastlanetransport.ca/blog
Cheers!
Jonathan-C. Philllips
April 27th, 2007
at 6:25 pm
Hey Shane, it’s nice to know your site is growing! 🙂
One thing about the technorati faves thing, i read on engtech.wordpress.com that he has this nice lil software that adds to your faves the people that faved you 🙂
Also a good way to add people to your favorites is by downloading the OPML file of doshdosh and upload it to your technorati, this way i faved 1379 blogs, easy and fast 🙂
Shane
April 27th, 2007
at 7:31 pm
Martin,
Everything has an opportunity inside it somewhere. It’s just about going in and pulling it out. That’s why I like to experiment with diffeent things. And these little experiments always open up new opportunities that I might not have thought of otherwise.
Deborah,
Welcome. You’ve got some very interesting posts. I enjoyed browsing through some of them a lot.
Jon,
I’ll have to check out the engtech thing. I’ve stayed away from the OPML because I want to go and visit the blogs that fave me.
I couldn’t do that with a sudden burst of a couple thousand! 🙂
Jonathan-C. Phillips
April 27th, 2007
at 7:58 pm
stumbleupon, giving it a try right now, we’ll see how it does 🙂
Shane
April 27th, 2007
at 8:47 pm
Jon,
It’s a great site as far as ease of use to set up a campaign. Let me know how it goes.
coopreme internet marketing
April 29th, 2007
at 5:48 pm
I think so many people try to duplicate others success, and it works to an extent. overall though I believe it is the early adopters of new marketing ideas that get the bulk of the benefits (as true with all things). Im doing a little experiment with my new internet marketing blog, http://www.coopreme.com . Im trying a little facebook marketing using two techniques.
anyway love your blog man.
Shane
April 29th, 2007
at 7:02 pm
I agree Coop,
The two great things about these new and innovative marketing ideas are that you can always:
1. Wait till the hype dies down and then do it yourself
2. Take the idea to a whole new circle of people and let ‘er loose!
So there’s always new opportunity. The best part is that the idea has already been tested and you know all the how’s, why’s, and what-not-to-do’s.
And thanks!
Gregg
April 30th, 2007
at 11:38 pm
That $50 dollar investment definitely was worth it…The technorati fav train also helped me out as well. I had like 5 favs and now i’m up to 40+ I think.
Shane
April 30th, 2007
at 11:52 pm
Good to hear it Gregg.
I thought StumbleUpon was really good and well worth the 50 bucks to me to walk up to 1200 people and say “Hi, my name’s Zoomstart”
Jonathan-C. Phillips
May 1st, 2007
at 6:04 pm
My campaign started today, i thought i could start with just 25$, and seriously so far it’s awesome! 🙂
i’ll definitely put another 25 bucks on stumbleupon soon!
Hi my name’s Jonathan from SmartWealthyRich!
Shane
May 1st, 2007
at 7:20 pm
Hey Jon,
Can’t wait to hear how it all turns out! 🙂
The StumbleUpon Effect - Definitely Worth It | SmartWealthyRich .com
May 4th, 2007
at 8:23 pm
[…] been experimenting with StumbleUpon for about 3 or 4 days, since Shane from Zoomstart wrote a post about that. Honeslty, the resulsts so far are amazing. I’ve used stumbleupon in […]
Market Your Website and Share Interesting Finds Using StumbleUpon — Antbag.com
January 9th, 2008
at 3:27 pm
[…] feature. Personally, I haven’t tried this feature out for myself as of yet, but several other bloggers I’m familiar with have done so with great results. So, as I get more familiar with […]
social media and green horses » The value of StumbleUpon
January 9th, 2008
at 4:54 pm
[…] (after a week) it was an increase of only 7 subscribers. A much lower percentage, which agrees with Shane’s results (a 10% subscribers increase and a 20% traffic […]
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