This is Capra

Last week, I tweeted out about a new app that I saw called Skills App.  I don’t tweet about every app that comes my way, but I really liked the landing page design, and the idea itself sounded good.

Their follow-up email, though, was what made me promote it.  In it, they were thankful that I signed up, and offered to help me promote any of the projects I had on the go (I’m not ready to promote any of my apps so I’ll save that favour for later). So out went the tweet: skills: a tool for identifying expertise and passion in developers – http://skillsapp.com – Sounds interesting

Today, @smashingmagazine retweeted my message, and I received a thank you from the team at Skills.  Then, they showed me their traffic.  As you could imagine, Smashing Magazine, with their 300k+ followers could make a real impact on traffic, even if only 1% click through.  As you can see, Smashing Magazine did a good number on their servers. Good thing they had aggressive caching!

It’s who you know…

(Disclosure: I am lucky enough to write for Smashing Magazine occasionally.  It’s not very good money, but I learn a lot, get someone to edit my writing, and, let’s be honest, get a great deal of  traffic to my blog and portfolio.  They are also really nice people that I feel fortunate to know them. )

Making an effort to become friends with some bigger players in the industry can substantially increase your standing too.  When you’re promoting new products, having someone with thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of active followers endorse it can initiate a snowball effect.  Just ask the lovely folks at Alfredapp, who got picked up by some big names in the web design community even when they planned to release quietly.  Now they are one of the top 10 apps in the Mac App store.

How do you get to know these people?  A few tips:

1. Start slow.  Don’t go straight in and ask them to help you.
2. Try and be helpful to them.
3. Relate to things they’re talking about.
4. Be multifaceted. Your business isn’t everything, so be human and interesting.
5. Go to social events and meet the person.
6. Make time for social media every day.  You are not an island!
7. Don’t be pushy.  If they’re not looking for a new contact, there’s nothing you can do about it.
8. Don’t expect overnight success. If it was easy, everyone would do it. Remember, these people are busy!

It’s still a lot of work

Okay, you’ve managed to get someone to promote your product.  Yay!  Great!  In that case make sure that you have something at the other end to entice the traffic to click through.

Some tips on better retention:

1. Make it gorgeous.  People should be delighted, salivating, surprised or something.  Spend the time to make it better than just good.
2. Let them know something.  What is it about?  Is it for them?
3. If you’re collecting emails, make the form as short as possible.
4. Follow up (by email)!  Make yourself seem human, generous and professional. Give them something.
5. Launch within a reasonable timeframe.  No one will remember you in a year.
6. Make sure your servers can handle a spike in traffic. Optimize accordingly.

But then what?

In my experience, traffic from twitter is short lived.  So, while big names may spike your traffic for today, it’s just one day.  How about tomorrow?  What are your plans?

Marketing is absolutely mind numbingly boring and takes a lot more effort than anyone realizes.  Throwing marketing hours at a mediocre product, or trying to get the big names to promote something that doesn’t impress is a huge waste of a great resource.  You need to make both your product and your marketing efforts stellar.  So, take care with your marketing, grow your network, and you’re… er, halfway there!

In the ever-changing world of marketing and branding, companies need to develop new ideas to keep people interested. Matterbox offers a great way to do this. It’s a box filled with various products that is delivered to the address you provide when you sign up. By relying on word of mouth, it’s becoming very popular.

“Matter is a box full of interesting stuff – a way for companies to talk to people by giving them things,” states the company’s website.

The Different Kinds of Matterboxes

Mix it up or keep it the same?

The previous two Matterboxes – the pilot and first edition – contained a mixture of products from different companies such as an O2 SIM pack, Original Source shower gel, BBC Audiobooks, a Cadbury chocolate bar, LOVEFILM, alcoholic mixes, and books published by Harper Collins. In this new edition, Cadbury has gone solo in promoting itself as London’s 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games’ Official Treats Provider. Their aim is to get a friendly competitive spirit going by having people pick Spots or Stripes and play games online and in person.

Which is better?

While companies may prefer to have only their products inside the Matterbox, I would enjoy the surprise of the first type – a mixture of random products that don’t seem to match. Not only is the sense of unknown more exciting, it also lets you get your hands on products from different companies that you might not even think of supporting. (Plus, free shower gel means one less thing to buy at the shop!)

Stuart Gray wrote about the surprise factor of receiving his first Matterbox here. He goes one step further and suggests that Matter should increase the intrigue factor by providing cryptic clues about the contents of the upcoming boxes.

Cadbury’s Matterbox

The Cadbury Matterbox came with a postcard, a chocolate bar and two pocketgames. Cadbury asks those who receive the box to play, evaluate the games, and vote for the best one.  Since we are serious about our work, we gave it a go!

Flick Racer Game: After drawing a 10-15cm-wide racetrack on a surface that you find yourself, you place the “race cars” on your track and flick them along the surface until your car crosses the finish line and wins the race! This one kept us entertained for a good half-hour with car crashes, flips and laughter.

Egg-a thon Game: Definitely a “pocketgame”: What you need to play is all in the box. The goal is to move your two eggs across the board to the finish line according to the number rolled on the dice. Mischievous players are very welcome to block the opponent instead of heading straight to the finish line. Though not as fun as Flick Racer, competitive spirits can play this anywhere – standing, sitting and, if coordinated enough, even walking.

Our winner: Flick Racer – We definitely had more fun playing this one!

Matterbox customer service – We signed Capra up to get our very own Matterbox, but received an email that demand was too high this round. @kassy4 tweeted about her disappointment and immediately received a tweet response telling her that she could request one of the last few special boxes. How special did we feel when it finally arrived on the doorstep?

Matterbox is free – All you have to do is sign up and provide information of your preferred forms of advertising, your interests and the media types you support. Since Matterbox works through word of mouth, it might not be as useful as traditional marketing campaigns.  But in today’s market, word of mouth seems to be powerful if the product is worthwhile.

I would highly recommend you sign up for the next one. It’s free. Why not enjoy the surprise?