As noted in my blog entry of several months ago, I hate “viral” marketing and love “word of mouth” marketing.

Why?

Viral marketing is parasitical. It attaches a message to my communication to friends. “See this email I’m sending you? It’s from a free service!”. The message may have nothing to do with my content or recipient… it just hooks on. Like a flea or tick… or virus.

Word of mouth marketing is significantly better because it’s more targeted. When a friend sends me a note about an article or company they found, they’ve done the pre-filtering for me. I’m glad to get that message, as it’s more likely to be useful.

The extension of word of mouth marketing is community marketing. For example, I consider myself part of the marketing community – specifically, these days, the Silicon Valley Enterprise Software Startup (SVESS) marketing community. So I’d love to get email or literature targeted (note that emphasis) to my specific needs.

Communities allow targeted marketing: A company can create a specific offering for my needs if they have an email list of SVESS folks. That offering would consider the lower budget, higher technical knowledge, and time sensitivity of the audience, and offer something in a form and method that we’d consume. For example, the folks at Rymatech* sent an offer to SVESS folks on a specific Yahoo list that was immensely compelling, because it was so targeted.

This is good: good marketing is about delivering information about the items I could use, in the way I would like to get information, and not bothering me with inappropriate offers (eg, someone sending a “Disney on Ice” ad to SVESS folks)

Of course, community marketing is subject to abuse – the existence of targeted communities encourages lazy marketers to sin, by stating “oh yeah, just hit these fifty email lists with the same ad”. To you, I say “may your campaigns yield many complaints, lawsuits, and end with your being forced to serve in the front lines of the customer service call center”. You’re the ones who make marketing a bad word.

So what’s the point of this blog?

  + Again, avoid parasitic marketing, aim for targeted / word of mouth marketing

  + A proxy or starting point for word of mouth is targeted communities of interest

  + Key to accessing these is to choose wisely and personalize your message accordingly

So go to it. I look forward to seeing your messages in my community soon.

[ps: Please buy my book. http://buynow.stupidmarketing.com -- and tell your friends!]
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*Note & Disclaimer: Russell Foy, a great guy and my counterpart at Rymatech.com asked me if I would be willing to mention them as an example of Community Marketing. I’m happy to do that – as I believe what I’ve seen of their approach, specifically their appeals to the softwareproductmarketing lists in Silicon Valley is an example of the “good marketing” practices mentioned above. That said, I am appearing on one of their webinar broadcasts… so perhaps I’m just blinded by the fame and glory they’re offering. (!) Whichever, please note the potential bias.