Lesson Six
Doing Well by Doing Good.
Now that billions will soon have hand-held Iphones and similar ways to connect to the Internet and each other, the age of M-commerce is upon us. Mobile Ecommerce – in Europe already over $88 billion worth of goods are purchased via cellphones each year, and the volume is growing dramatically.
One individual has a ringtone which brings him over $10,000 a month. Not unlike the pet rock, which was a weird business success story years ago, this person’s clever ringtone is called IFart and you can guess how much effort it took to create. Over two billion a year in ringtones are sold, and more and more additional products will soon create millionaires via cellphone purchases. Googles free tools for M-commerce are at http://mobile.google.com
But, back to making $10,000 a month by farting into a microphone. The real key to his success is understanding the business of marketing ringtones. And, like the pet rock, this clever idea has already been done so you will not be able to replicate it, (you wish!) but it serves as an example of how rapidly one can make money IF you understand E-marketing. You can google “Top Ten Tips for E-marketing” and will find dozens of top ten lists.
Going Viral:
The British lady that won the British American Idol show has a youtube video which has been viewed 200 million times in 7 weeks. As mentioned in a prior lesson, MySpace “went viral” by word of mouth, called “buzz” attracting 100 million people, mostly teenagers in 18th months, and sold for $2.6 billion.
The point here is that anything that people really like, they share, and can “go viral” instantly and if you are positioned correctly, you can be making more money faster than has ever before been possible. Facebook is on the upswing and has focused on “social activism” as the source of “buzz” to keep people on Facebook. Dozens, hundreds of other web 2.0 sites are trying hard to be the next big thing.
The Navajo Chocolate success story is an example of “cause marketing.” On their web page they say “help us reduce poverty” as a mission for the chocolate business. Attaching YOUR business to socially responsible causes is a popular trend. “Doing Well by Doing Good.”
The fact so many people are online (by 2010 two billion people will be online) means that big, big things can happen very, very quickly. YOUR ability to think outside the bun, as Taco Bell’s clever marketing suggests, is your challenge to be wildly imaginative, innovative, and to take initiative trying new things.
“Winging it” used to be considered reckless, but now it is considered a wise strategy – just to see what might create “buzz” and interest –noting your peers may be your prime market as they are the ones on youtube, downloading Iphone apps, and exploring all these new communications capabilities.
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