How to Reach ANYONE
Quick - what's the one thing that every person does? Regardless of age, gender, race, fame, wealth, or just about any other quantitative measurement you can come up with we all Google ourselves (and if by some off chance you don't Google yourself, I guarantee that your friends and family have Googled your ass). Personally, I Google myself about once a month, usually to check if this blog has surpassed the weirdo who owns Adam-McFarland.com (still not yet unfortunately).
So how do you reach that VC/Angel/Competitor/Celebrity that you've been emailing and mailing constantly to no avail? Buy an AdWords ad for their name. Believe it or not, hardly anyone has thought of this technique so you can buy an ad for nearly anyone for next to nothing. Seriously - even Bill Gates only has a few ads show up. You could bid the minimum and still end up on the first page (and those ads are horrible and generic so a personalized well written ad would definitely stand out).
As cool as this idea is, I can't completely take credit for it. Mark Cuban mentioned it last year on Blog Maverick and called it "the best sales idea I have seen in a long time". Ever since I read that I've been keeping it in my back pocket until I had a use for it, and now that time has come.
With our Price Guide having exceeded expectations in the first 40 or so days, I'm starting to look to ideas to take it to the next level. We've worked out the kinks (as with any new app there were a ton) and added a few minor but necessary features, and now I'm ready to let the whole world know about it. That includes the big boys in our industry - maybe they'll want to acquire us, maybe they'll want to partner with us, or maybe they'll just make note of what we're doing - either way I want them to know we exist.
Unfortunately, the sports card and collectible industry is very old school and many of the large companies in the industry would have a hard time seeing the value in what we offer. The same old school companies are also ridiculously hard to reach. So I gave up on them, and instead decided to target two very progressive companies in a very non-progressive industry - McFarlane Toys and NAXCOM. I'll spare the details, but let's just say that each has the type of track record that impresses me and makes me want to develop a long term relationship with them.
So a few hours ago I purchased AdWords ads for Todd McFarlane and Eric Beckerman (the founders of each company) and directed the ad to the Price Guide home page with a "special" message for them. Here's a shot of the ad for Todd McFarlane:
...and the special page he'll see when he lands on the Price Guide home page...
I'll keep you posted on how it goes!
So how do you reach that VC/Angel/Competitor/Celebrity that you've been emailing and mailing constantly to no avail? Buy an AdWords ad for their name. Believe it or not, hardly anyone has thought of this technique so you can buy an ad for nearly anyone for next to nothing. Seriously - even Bill Gates only has a few ads show up. You could bid the minimum and still end up on the first page (and those ads are horrible and generic so a personalized well written ad would definitely stand out).
As cool as this idea is, I can't completely take credit for it. Mark Cuban mentioned it last year on Blog Maverick and called it "the best sales idea I have seen in a long time". Ever since I read that I've been keeping it in my back pocket until I had a use for it, and now that time has come.
With our Price Guide having exceeded expectations in the first 40 or so days, I'm starting to look to ideas to take it to the next level. We've worked out the kinks (as with any new app there were a ton) and added a few minor but necessary features, and now I'm ready to let the whole world know about it. That includes the big boys in our industry - maybe they'll want to acquire us, maybe they'll want to partner with us, or maybe they'll just make note of what we're doing - either way I want them to know we exist.
Unfortunately, the sports card and collectible industry is very old school and many of the large companies in the industry would have a hard time seeing the value in what we offer. The same old school companies are also ridiculously hard to reach. So I gave up on them, and instead decided to target two very progressive companies in a very non-progressive industry - McFarlane Toys and NAXCOM. I'll spare the details, but let's just say that each has the type of track record that impresses me and makes me want to develop a long term relationship with them.
So a few hours ago I purchased AdWords ads for Todd McFarlane and Eric Beckerman (the founders of each company) and directed the ad to the Price Guide home page with a "special" message for them. Here's a shot of the ad for Todd McFarlane:
...and the special page he'll see when he lands on the Price Guide home page...
I'll keep you posted on how it goes!
posted by Adam McFarland at
6/26/2007 12:57:00 PM
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home