Category Archives: Marketing

The Future of Funding & Marketing Documentary Films

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So… tonight I went to go see Slumdog Millionaire with a friend of mine who’s a documentary film student and a bunch of her friends, some of whom are also film students. (I’ll write more about the movie in another post.) Afterwards, we all went to a restaurant and chatted.

We got into a discussion of their thesis film projects and how they weren’t sure how they were going to raise the money they needed to fund the projects.

This got me thinking. The notion that a documentary filmmaker would go to some rich dude and beg him to write a big check seems so antiquated.

We need a Kiva-like organization for indy/documentary filmmakers.

Where are the filmmakers who are coalescing a community of people around their ideas? Seems like those are the people that could have their community members each pitch in $5… $20… even $100. I wonder how many individual donations you’d need to match that of one big donor.

If at the fundraising part of the process, you’re already starting to build up a grassroots organization around the film, when it comes time to screen the film are you more likely to sell dvds or tickets to the screening and thus move yourself closer to profitability.

Lots of documentary films seem to be advocating a certain message or stance on an issue. They’d lend themselves naturally to a community coming together.


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Love Your Customers or It’ll Bite You

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You really need to love your customers… all your customers, otherwise it can turn around and bite you in the butt.

Gary Vaynerchuk demonstrates this perfectly in his latest video about his experiences at a hotel in South Beach Miami and how he and his friends were treated poorly. The experience got tweeted by multiple people and it influenced someone enough that they decided not to stay at that hotel for an upcoming trip.  The hotel lost some $$.

(It’s funny because I was there hanging out with them at this hotel bar and must have left about 10 minutes before this happened.)

If you’re in the service industry, which is pretty much everyone because we all serve someone, you need to watch this video.

You are not in control of how people perceive you. Your community… your users are in control and there for as the guy in the video said, “you have to make every touch matter.”


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Sharing is at the Center of Discovery

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I was sitting oustide at a coffee shop this morning talking with some friends.  We were talking about restaurants in the city that we really liked.   The conversation reinforced the principle that I had seen over and over again on the Web that sharing is at the center of discovery.

We find out whats new… we identify what we need to pay attention to… we process the world through the eyes of those that we interact with and what they tell us about.

If you’re a business, event, content publisher, or just someone with a message and want to get people to discover you, get people to share you.  Get people excited enough where they want to tell their friends about you.  Also… make it easy for your users to share.

What’s the last thing that got you excited enough that you wanted to talk about it?


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“TechCrunch is not a marketing plan”

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My buddy Sunir from FreshBooks just wrote an awesome blog post entitled, “TechCrunch is not a marketing plan.” I agree with him 100%. Definitely worth a read:

I met a woman at Gnomedex this year who was recently hired to be the head of marketing for a service with 5 million customers. She was charged with expanding that to 6 million. I asked her what her strategy was, and she was adamant that all she needed was a single post on TechCrunch. She was willing to spend a million dollars to razzle and dazzle TechCrunch. I asked her why not spend that money with your existing customers, and she looked at me like I was stupid.

TechCrunch is not a marketing plan. You need to be out in the world, going after your own customers, treating them well, earning their admiration and recommendations, and continuing to build your business for the future.

Don’t get me wrong. I read TechCrunch everyday. I think it’s a great publication but you can’t depend on any one medium for reaching people. You could substitute Twitter into the title. Twitter is not a marketing plan.

Getting the Movie Out There

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So today I went with a bunch of friends to a screening of the movie Crossing (trailer above).  It told the story of a family that lived in North Korea, the hardships, and how people try however they can to flea.  It was an excellent movie.

As I was walking out, I thought to myself that I should buy it.  When I get out to the table where they were, it was already sold out.  This was definitely a bummer.  It’s something I’d definitely want to show to friends and family.

The movie was small enough that it’s not the kind of movie that you can buy on Amazon or reserve on Netflix but it was good and you really need to see it.

When you set the bar at having to pay or having to have a physical copy of something before they can enjoy the content, I think you risk not getting your content out there at all.  There are so many great movies out there that didn’t have the massive distribution deals and ended up fading into obscurity.

You could do things like sell the physical DVD but allow people to watch it online for free.  The people that watch it online and like it are the folks that are going to buy the DVD and tell then show it to their friends.  Make sure you  allow people to make donations to your cause, if they like what you’re doing.

Visit Your Users Where They’re At. Don’t Force Them to Go to Trade Shows.

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Was reading up on the latest thoughts from the great Scobleizer.  In a recent post, he wrote:

Walking around Broadcom’s booth at CES also taught me a lesson. That the CES show is going back to its roots: interactions between tech companies and the buyers. That’s something that can only efficiently happen in a tradeshow: getting all those people to visit your company’s headquarters just won’t happen.

So, tradeshows won’t disappear.

If your a company and you want to build community with and have relationships with your users, a trade show is the LAST place you should look.

I just spent the last week at MacWorld and saw a lot of cool stuff but I can tell you that no one working booths was trying to have a relationship with me.  They didn’t want to have a conversation.  They were too busy dealing with all their booth visitors.  They wanted to get their talking points out, get their demo done, maybe sell a product, and move on to the next person.  It was all 90 second interactions.  It wasn’t anything real.

At MacWorld, I doubt very many of the people that were working the booths actually worked for the companies that they represented.   There were a few exhibitors that had OBVIOUSLY hired booth babes.

Instead of spending LOTS and LOTS of money on a booth, go visit your users where they’re at.   It’s the reason that Apple decided to pull out of MacWorld.  They have their retail stores.  There the company can get to know people individually.

I’ve been really impressed by Matt Mullenweg, the creator of WordPress and founder of Automattic.  He travels around the world to WordCamp, the WordPress user conferences.

Every time gang at FreshBooks goes to a new city.  They hold a customer dinner and take their customers out to dinner.

This is how you build relationships… friendships… winning life long customers.

Random Thoughts After Day One on the MacWorld Expo Hall

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Yesterday, after I arrived in San Francisco and checked into my hotel, I headed over to Moscone South Expo hall for MacWorld Expo.  I’d never been to a MacWorld before so I wasn’t really sure what to expect.

My first thought was… WOW.  The booths were massive and the hall was even bigger.

As you walk around, you see a little bit of everything, from iPod/iPhone case manufacturers to ToDo list software developers to Brain Toniq to the biggies like Microsoft and Apple.

Now I can imagine that for the biggies like Microsoft buying a booth is kind of like paying your annual dues for being a part of the cult of Mac.   But, if you’re one of the small guys and all you have the money for is a few big marketing pushes a year,  what makes you want to buy a 10 by 10 booth?

You definitely saw every trick in the book being employed to get people to stop at a booth.  One group had the car from Back to the Future at their booth, which was cool but I’m not sure what it had to do with exhibitor.   There weren’t many women roaming the hall because they were all working the booths, which is kind of funny.  Some were passing out food.  Some were luring people with celebrities.

It just seems like it’d be hard to make an impression.  What could you do at a booth which is going to leave enough of an impression on people that they’re going to engage further with your brand?

I talked to a handful of vendors and all in all you walked away like someone had just given you a pre-recorded pitch.

For me, the more valuable time yesterday was the parties.  Those were more centered around people meeting people and exchanging ideas, plus they had drinks.

Seriously, You Need To Stay at a Kimpton Hotel. They Treat You Like Royalty.

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I know that I’ve expressed my love for the Kimpton Hotel chain before but I want to say it again… these guys get it.  They treat you like you’re guests in their house… like you’re royalty.  It just makes you excited about staying there.

I’m a member of their loyalty program.  One of the perks is that they’ll bring you a gift to thank you for your stay on the first night you’re there.  This time they brought me a half bottle of French wine and a plate of fruit.  That’s AWESOME.

This makes me think back to the experience that Jason had at JetBlue’s Terminal 5 at JFK airport.  Treat your customers right.  Give them what they want and they’ll come back for me.  They’ll tell their friends about it.

This is something that we can all take away as we look to shape the products and services that our companies provide.  Are we meeting our customers’ needs?  Are we giving them what they want?  Are we giving them a superior experience?  Are we treating them like they are guests in our house or like family?

Threadless Uses Their Prints Packaging Tube To Show Their Personality

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My new Threadless Print Instructions for what to do with the Threadless Prints Tube Packaging

I’m definitely a fan of the online community t-shirt company Threadless.

They recently launched a new product… Prints.  It’s some of the best t-shirt designs put on a thick stock poster.  I had never bought one before so I thought I’d give it a shot.  The walls of my apt need some decoration.

I puchased the ctrl + z print pictured above.

In the package was a piece of paper (pictured above) entitled “It’s Not Just a Tube.”  It goes through and shows you all the fun things you could do with the packaging tube that the print came in.  Examples are things like… ninja sword, giant spit baller, peg leg, and others.

Most of the items that they mentioned are just all out silly but what the piece of paper does is show the personality of the company.  I already felt like I had a relationship and knew the people at Threadless, through their Web site.  Getting this sense of who the company is just endears me to them more.

What kind of personality does your company have?  Do you show it?  If so, how?

Curious About the Power of Word of Mouth? Just Ask Barack Obama.

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Was reading the Washington Post this morning and found a story about Barack Obama kind of interesting. Despite mass media telling a town other wise, people still hold onto incorrect rumors spread via word of mouth.

On the television in his living room, Peterman has watched enough news and campaign advertisements to hear the truth: Sen. Barack Obama, born in Hawaii, is a Christian family man with a track record of public service. But on the Internet, in his grocery store, at his neighbor’s house, at his son’s auto shop, Peterman has also absorbed another version of the Democratic candidate’s background, one that is entirely false: Barack Obama, born in Africa, is a possibly gay Muslim racist who refuses to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

The article goes on to say:

Does he trust a local newspaper article that details Obama’s Christian faith? Or his friend Leroy Pollard, a devoted family man so convinced Obama is a radical Muslim that he threatened to stop talking to his daughter when he heard she might vote for him?

When things get out there into the open, whether they’re accurate or not, there is almost no stopping it.  People talk.  People believe what their friends say and will repeat it, regardless of the truth.

I think this shows that mass media isn’t what it used to be for starting a nation-wide personal dialogue with voters.

Politicians need to find a new way to get to know and form a relationship with the voters.