In 1995, I started a webhosting company called “Adgrafix” with nothing more than a few hundred dollars and an elementary understanding of computers and the Internet. In 2001, I sold that company for 20 million dollars. In 2002, I started another webhosting company. This time, I had virtually unlimited funds, in-depth knowledge of computers and the Internet, and an ego the size of Manhattan. In 2004, after two years of doing everything I thought was right, the company was practically worthless. Times changed, but my thinking did not. I realized that in the current marketplace, to succeed and succeed big, it takes unconventional ways of using creativity, imagination, and energy to achieve maximum profits with minimum money, or it takes guerilla marketing.
Guerrillas Stay On Top Of The Latest Trends
When I started my first web hosting company I was fortunate enough to pick up a trend that was very obvious to me – the Internet and the “website revolution”. Even though I was well aware of the Internet bust of the early 21st century (that’s what it will be called by our grandkids, grandkids), I knew deep inside that people and companies would continue to need websites, and at an increasing rate. What I didn’t know was that the website of yesteryear was not the website of today. The old-school website of the 90’s is about as “hot” as the public pay phone. It isn’t enough to spot just one trend; you need to consider all the trends in your market.
In 2005, when I started spending more time on the Internet than my offline ventures, that elusive trend that was partly responsible for my two-year web hosting failure (I was ultimately responsible, but it feels good to share the blame), became very clear to me. People didn’t want static websites anymore; they wanted dynamic websites that use cutting edge technology, websites that give users the power to contribute content, websites that generate buzz, and of course, they wanted all this at an affordable price. They wanted web 2.0.
Trend or Fad?
One of the biggest traps in business is allowing clever marketers lead you to believe a fad is actually a trend. There is so much hype in on the Internet today and everyone is looking to act on the “latest and greatest”. Ignore the hype, use common sense business principles and identify the trends from the fads. The term “web 2.0” itself is a fad – a soon-to-be (if not already) term that holds the same wow factor as “Pentium processor” or “presented in Technicolor”. However, the concepts behind web 2.0, specifically making the most use of the latest tools the Internet has to offer, is a trend.
Never Fear Technology
I have to admit, I do get a little annoyed when people brush off technology and say something like, “Oh, I don’t understand that stuff”, and don’t make any attempt to learn it. Technology drives business today, and without a good understanding of the technologies out there, you will spend your life sitting in the back seat – in the middle, with your legs on the hump.
Certain types of technology can be a Guerilla’s best friend. It is this technology that allows your marketing efforts to return phenomenal results. Take for example e-mail marketing. Back in “the day”, a legitimate marketer could send a text-based e-mail to a qualified list and get amazing results. Today, with spam flooding every home and office inbox, your “important marketing message” is more likely to be read by your dog than a prospect. But what if you could send a “video postcard” to a prospect, with a video of you sharing your message? How much more effective do you think that would be? Even if people are not interested in your message, they are impressed with the technology, and will listen to what you have to say. By staying ahead of the technology curve, you have a huge advantage over other marketers by knowing how to use certain technologies in a creative way.
Following the Leader is for Kids, Not for Guerillas
It is interesting how so many “grown ups” still play follow the leader. It is not hard to understand why, after all, it is easy, mindless, and by logical thinking, should result in at least some of the same success of the leader. However, it rarely does. The market does not need more followers, it needs more leaders. It needs more individuals who use creativity and ingenuity to make a better product at a more affordable price.
In building iGrOOps, I knew in my head exactly what I wanted to build. It was a combination of a social network, community website, corporate Intranet, and membership site. There was nothing like it out there, so how did I know there would be a demand for it? The fact is I did not know. Leaders rarely know the outcomes of their chosen course of action ahead of time, this is why it is so much easier to follow. But there were some things I did know. I did know that the trend was moving away from static, difficult to manage, expensive to build websites to dynamic sites that were built to generate revenue for the owners. I knew that technologies such as podcasting, blogs, video chat, forums, audio/video postcards, multi-media galleries, and other similar productivity, communication, and marketing tools were on the rise and sought after by online business owners. This was all I needed to know to build my vision of the ideal membership site platform.
Viral Marketing: Get them Talkin’
When getting ready to launch iGrOOps, I started thinking about more traditional marketing – Google Adwords, press releases, ads in trade publications. But I then remembered a universal truth in marketing: if you have a product or service that is so amazing that it actually excites people to talk about it and share it with others, you will find that you have created a viral marketing campaign that costs you virtually nothing. Now, what if you also compensated people for sharing your business with others? The viral marketing effects could be explosive. This concept works extremely well for iGrOOps, so I figured, why not allow our membership site administrators to use the same great concept? We built in an affiliate program that allows administrators to compensate their members for referring other members to their site. The overall concept behind an affiliate program is to let others do the marketing for you, and you pay only for results. It is a perfect example of a true win-win situation.
In just one year, we have experienced phenomenal growth at iGrOOps. Not because of advertising or dumping a boat load of money into our business, but because of the product itself and the guerilla marketing techniques and philosophies used. Best of all, our customers are experiencing the same success using the tools we provide them though iGrOOps. We encourage our customers to continue to use unconventional ways of using creativity, imagination, and energy to achieve maximum profits with minimum money. We promote guerilla marketing.
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