Couple of days ago, I pointed you to a product I believe in and bought with my own money. Roger Von Oech's iPhone version of his Creative Whack Pack. I've been using the real world version of the cards for years and it's only natural that I have it on my iPhone. It's actually a very practical app and I'm looking forward to flipping through them on my flight to France. What I didn't tell you was that Roger who I consider a friend approached me as his first and only "marketing vehicle". Prior sales of his new product were completely organic and he had not yet started marketing the iPhone application. This blog was the first mention. Here's what Roger had to say in his own words about the results over 2 days.
"I had been expecting Apple to take six weeks to approve my Creative Whack Pack App. When they okay'ed it in two days, I was excited, but I was also caught flat-footed because I was in Argentina — and my marketing wasn't in place.
But this created a big opportunity: to test the power of a single blog (Logic + Emotion) to get the word out about my new App. With no marketing (or product announcements) at all, the Creative Whack Pack was selling at an okay level.
When your post went up, sales have gone up by 260% over the past two days. And that's not all. Almost all of my previous sales were only in the US and Canada. Now, they are world-wide (see chart, courtesy of Apple). This — at least in my mind — shows the efficacy of social marketing."
A 260% increase in sales in two days is nothing to sneeze at (especially in a market where many iPhone apps are free—Roger's app charges a premium). So I thought I'd share some of this with you since there is so much discussion around "measuring social media"—one of the first things a business professional will ask in this area is "will it help us sell more products"? Well, the answer depends on the product, the delivery and distribution of that product and how you can measure the impact of your marketing initiatives. In Roger's case, the application and the way we chose to "test" this was very simple and easy to gauge.
Now imagine if this wasn't an individual, but a brand who developed a useful application and developed relationships with people who believed in their products enough to both use them and help market for them. Imagine if instead of just me, this was a planned and coordinated effort with others that could be sustained over time. The results would be impressive in my estimation. Roger reminded me that today's "Whack of the Day" is "slay a sacred cow". I think he did that by marketing his product in a different way than he had in the past. Or at least starting it this way. So, "social media" can actually be measured. Go Figure. :-)
