December 5, 2006

Selling Online is Not About Sales, but Marketing and Buzz

The $30 Picco Z helicopter is a mini-helicopter that's on track to have sales of 150,000 units this holiday season. HUGE. The $70 Micro Mosquito is on track for sales of 100,000 units. A lot of the buzz was because of Youtubes online videos.

CNN Money writes how you can leverage the Internet - bypassing traditional advertising to create buzz for your product. There's a few lessons to be learned:

1. Find where your customers are. Not just your customers but those who are wildly successful. Youtube and other sites might just have videos of your product in action

2. See how you can leverage, non "main stream media" to get publicity about your business. I'm sure it's nice to be on CNN but you might get more publicity and SALES on a hot blog.

CNN writes Word of mouth - amplified by the Internet - has never been bigger for the $21.3 billion toy industry. Before the Web explosion, toymakers followed the Tickle-Me-Elmo formula: Unveil a holiday gizmo at a spring trade fair, run endless TV ads during cartoon prime time to hook the tykes, watch their parents duke it out in the aisles of Toys R Us, and wait for the resulting media coverage to drive more sales.

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