I thought of this while I was thinking of ways to advertise KC GMATprep, a little side undertaking a friend and I have been working on lately… We were making some ads to put up in coffeshops.. and I thought to myself, if I saw this ad somewhere, would I actually email the person unless I REALLY *REALLY* felt like I needed a tutor? I’d probably want to find out more information, right? In fact, it seems like in the age of the educated consumer, that a trip to SOME kind of website or at bare minimum a google search that potentially yields testimonals about the product or service offered is a prerequisite to any business transaction.
So continuing on with my example. I create a slick little Craigslist ad (I realize its not amazing but hey, its not bad for a craigslist posting. Its a temporary thing.. I dont want to register for the domain name KCGMATprep.com… If I was selling a piece of furniture, I’d put it on craigslist, I wouldn’t go register “www.threeyearoldpurplesofawithanorangestainononecusion.com”. But how do I get users to GO to my quasi-content-rich site? It has pictures of the couch I’m trying to sell (or propaganda suggesting that GMAT tutoring is far superior to classroom learning), maybe some anecdotal references, etc… The point is, I can be creative about it.. more creative about it than I’d likely be in a paper-ad that I stick up on a cork board at the coffee shop. Mostly because at a coffeeshop there’s not much corkboard real estate.. I just want to make a large noticeable ad and have little papers that people can pull off if interested.
The current problem is that it places the onus on the person ripping off a piece of paper to remember and understand context around what they just pulled. so lets say i’m obsessed with buying stuff used. and I go to the store and I pull 6 sheets from 6 different flyers, with 6 different phone numbers or email addresses. I promptly throw them into the recycling bin (not trash) when I get home because they are of no use to me at all anymore without context
INSTEAD:
What if, I, as the seller of the product or service, went to an internet site with short/simple url. I see two input boxes and a button. In the first input box I copy and paste the link of the craigslist ad i created. In the second input box I write a short abbreviation (e.g. purple3)… just something that is easy for people to remember. I click the OK button and it asks me for $3 paypal. I think…hmmm…. this will drive more than $3 in revenue, so why not?
the buyer then goes to the simple url: e.g. flub.com\purple3 … easy enough to remember right? then the buyer gets redirected to the craigslist post.. and continues to do business as usual.
And it doesnt just apply to the sale of furniture or services like GMAT tutoring. It could apply to events (e.g. a band wants to let people know about a concert) as well.
I feel like the idea I just talked about probably already exists… I mean its kinda like AOL keywords I guess. I dont use AOL so I dont know if those are still actively marketed or used.. I dont think anyone has monetized it yet, but the challenge is finding a low enough price point.. and it can’t be a hassle for people to take out their credit cards to pay only $3! The good part is, costs are virtually nonexistant so any revenue at all would hit the bottom line. Anyone want to try it?
BTW FLUB.COM was just an example… the domain has a squatter currently.. I wasn’t suggesting that name necessarily!
| Edit: April 13, 2006 | 12:04pm I am totally late to
the party and completely embarassed now. I realize now thanks to Will that this has already been done (which I expected) by TinyURL.com. Pretty neat.. I tried googling for it before I posted this, but I guess my keywords were not chosen very well. So Will also pointed out that on Mefi, its not recommended that people use TinyURLs because people can post stuff that is NSFW. So maybe you could have the same concept and “certify” sites when you enter them in. When you type in “purple3″ from the example used above, maybe it would take you to an intermediate page that shows a site’s “safety rating”. Also, the bad thing about TinyURL is that the URL that is generated is a (seemingly) random sequence of letters. It’d be much better if it was a sequence of words or something that is easier to remember.. “KCGmat” or “purple3″… And they’d expire after a month or so, so that the URLs wouldn’t be completely flooded.. a logistical nightmare. Heck I dont know. Well in the meantime, go here for KC GMAT PREP: http://tinyurl.com/zvygq ! |
Man, maybe design school would do you some good, drawing pictures and whatnot… Your idea would probably work best in a place where somebody could take their laptop and look it up really fast. I know I can’t remember a URL, even an easy one, for crap–I tried to remember popurls, but I just looked up popurl.com and gave up.
You gotta remember your target audience when doing any sort of marketting. Most prospective MBAs are generally a little more serious and don’t always get attracted to “viral marketing” such as this. You are probably better off going with the traditional approach.
And why not register that domain? Just grab it, if nothing happens with the business in a year or two let it expire.
At least then people have a central place to go for info on your site. With a personal service like tutoring, you will rely on word-of-mouth referrals. So make the information easy and accessible to everyone.
Paying for a domain would be fine for most people… but its preposterous blasphemy, for I am a cheap Desi, Kar
No, but you’re probably right. James, maybe when we get a few more clients, we’ll think about this. I am already stretched way too thin between this, Dollars And Sensei, and now updating this blog bi-daily so I can win a Chipotle from Gorman… so if we create one, you’re managing it, JK.
Thanks for the suggestion though Kar, we might fork the $6 or whatever it costs these days.
–Pound foolish