I've been reading a book on buzz, and it's help me gain a better understanding on "the" most effective marketing tools, "word of mouth". It's not something you can buy, and often times, it's free. However, there's no way to control such things. The only thing a marketer can do is plant the seeds, and hope it'll grow all over.

I've been working on ways that we could generate word of mouth. Obviously, blogging is one way, however, it only serves as a small cluster. I know most likely, if the shirts we make are good, my friends will probably buy some. That's about half my readers. The other half, half of those people probably isn't interested in graphic tees. Then there are those who aren't even active readers at all.

I talked to Mike on Monday about the idea of using agents. These agents of course, would be people we know who have a huge social circle and be the type to engage others about our product. We'd give them a few free shirts of course. Yum came to mind when I was thinking about characteristics for these agents. Someone who loves to talk to people about just anythign and everything. It sounded like a great idea, both Mike and I agreed.

However, today, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it might not be as effective as I had first thought. Perhaps these agents would tell their friends about these cool looking shirts that they're wearing. However, that would soon wear off because there's no incentive for them to keep telling their friends about it. Plus, they're not going to be wearing pseudochop shirts 24/7 in full view of the public.

That got me thinking, perhaps what we need is a system where these "agents" receive an incentive for every shirt they help us sell. It's like the oldest trick in the book with salespeople and commissions. Equip these agents with discount cards with a specific code. When these codes are used on the site, the buyer gets a few dollars off, and the agents gets a dollar per shirt that person buys. This will keep these agents talking about shirts with every new person they come in contact with. The people who buy, could also potentially tell their friends about the site, given that they like the shirts, and tell those people the coupon code. This would start dwindling down somewhere down the line, but it would be the type of thing we need to give us that initial push. We'd probably want to employ youngin's for this job, seeing how the slighly older people probably all have jobs and these few extra dollars wouldn't mean much. However, it would still be free money. Who doesn't want free money?

This also means less profit, but I feel that the most important thing is to generate traffic to the site, to let people know that we exist, to have brand recognition. Plus, everyone involved gains from this process. Mike and I would also have to spread these agents out. We can't have 6 agents from Chapel Hill or something. That's one thing the book talked about, and that's to spread your seed all over, don't do it all in one place. It's like the primal mission of man. Seed it all in one place, and the plant that sprouts begin competing with each other for soil nutrients, people get angry, plants whither, and all Hell breaks loose.

There was one concern that came to my mind at the end of all this thinking. If these agents are getting paid, doesn't that mean it is no longer word of mouth? Since in a sense, they've become more like workers than anythign else. Then their actions might be perceived as insincere. But I guess that's not a big deal, since the point of this strategy is to break into new clusters, different social groups, ones that Mike and I cannot physically reach ourselves. Spread our seed to enhance the chance for pseudochop's survival. That is what's at stake here ladies and gents.

So, anyone potentially interested in some free shirts and being an agent and earning some free ?

Update on shirt design progress: going well. We shall have at least 4 designs to show to the public in exactly 7 days.

----------------
edit: Just had another thought while I was in the shower. Why stop with agents. That's still limiting. Why not... give out these coded coupons to customers who purchase these shirts and let them know what it's for. So they can hand it to their friends, or use it themselves, it wouldn't matter. That way, the thing cycle will perpetuate until such time we deem this system no longer necessary. More to think about.

Posted by yuhoo7 at 11:35 PM.

4 dared say