Notes from the Field: Marketing

Hate to say it but this is a necessary evil for anyone wanting to sell a product to more than your Mom. It's how you use your dollars and time to do it is what matters most.

We are trained monkeys who can spot marketing a mile away.

We have built up defense mechanisms to ignore said marketing. Yet billions of dollars a year are spent to break you. I'm not a marketing expert, nor do I know exactly how to get people to notice what I'm selling. It's difficult to say the least. I did read a book: The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. It's a great book on how epidemics spread, weather it's disease, marketing or cultural. But even in that book it was never made entirely clear.

Viral Marketing is a big buzz word of the 21st century. It comes in all forms and gets people talking about the product. With The Overman, we're doing our best to find ways to get to the retailers who know their customer base. I tried joing CBIA, but for some reason even after getting my password, I couldn't get into the forums. The CBIA is apparently where the retailers have lengthy discussions about their business. There's also two retailer shows where you may be able to make contact. But there again, I'm not privy to the show. But I will investigate.

Suffice it to say, out of pocket is a partial way to go. I couldn't afford t-shirts just yet so I printed stickers, which cost enough on their own. I also printed info cards that have the cover of Book 2 as well as a short thing on the back that states what the book is about and who is publishing it and when it'll come out. It's all I can really do to make contact at this point at the shows. Oh yeah, and our website is on the back as well.

We'll try to do a few more conventions to help promote the book. But considering it's only 5 issues we don't have that kind of budget and time or even resources to pull a heavy campaign. We just hope our connections to media both on and offline will help in our efforts.

=s=