Marketing 2015

[pauland]

I've just realised something today - something that has been a trend that's sneaked up on me over the last couple of years and to my mind (at least) it marks a changing behaviour about how I buy things. It would probably be more accurate to say it marks a changing behaviour about how I find things to buy.

The traditional thing (which I and all of us do) is to want something and we go out and find it on the internet, choose the best for our purpose and budget and buy it from whoever came up lucky in the search engine stakes. Or Amazon. Or Ebay.

In the good old days, we'd wander around the physical shops to find something new, but I rarely do that now.

I don't read newspapers much, nor magazines. Much of what I want in life doesn't appear on TV advertising.

I've realised that my main source of buying inspiration is coming from three places. Amazon. Ebay and blogs of one kind or another.

Virtually all my new software purchases has come from a blog mentioning the product.

It's really sneaked up on me how blogs and even kickstarter are introducing me to NEW products in particular and fuelling the ability for small companies to gain traction without massive advertising dollars.

It made me wonder when I ever saw a blog mentioning Xara products and I don't think I ever have.

I realise that the blog world is rapidly being infiltrated by established advertising players, but I like the way that Blogs are still the route to getting the message out there without massive money changing hands, or even any money.

Another trend I've noticed is 'favour me and I'll favour you' kind of selling - often through blogs with someone selling training, for example, mentioning another training product at a discount, often with the favour returned later.

It's amazing how fast this landscape is mutating. SEO is just so old black hat these days..

I can't help but feel Xara is losing out in this new 2015 landscape.

[gwpriester]

Xara is on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/XaraGroup?fref=ts and sends out the Outsider once a month.

But yes, I agree the entire way we learn about and purchase products today is very very different than 15-20 years ago.

Mom and Pop shops have been replaced by "Big Box Stores", Costco, Wal-Mart, Office Max/Depot, etc. Book stores still exist but they were hurt tremendously by large book sellers like Borders and Barns & Noble who in turn have been hurt tremendously by Amazon and other on-line book sellers.

The advertising business when I was in it in the 70-90s was primarily a business of specialists. As an art director I ordered type to be set by skilled typesetters who learned their trade via working as apprentices and working their way into skilled positions. The 8 x 10 film shot by professional photographers was sent to labs where expert printmakers created Dye Transfer and other high quality prints for retouching. Photos were sent to expert photo retouchers who were skilled artists and could perform miracles. Pasteup artists working in the agency would take the typography and paste it up. These artists wielding #11 X-Acto knives could cut apart words and sentences so perfectly you could hardly see the cut lines. I had one pasteup artist once cut an entire block of text apart and word for word reassemble the text to a thinner margin.

The pasteup was stent with the retouched photos to a photo engraver who created the printing plates for various magazines based on the printing specs for each publication, rotogravure, web, letterpress, etc.

We viewed printed samples of the ads before approval and the engravers were capable of altering the color and other aspects of the ad.

Today the art director sends a PDF/X file to the publication and hopes for the best.

[pauland]

I think the key here is that (mostly) I am not responding to marketing fired at me by some advertiser, but learning about the product from someone who I think has something interesting to say. I am finding new product this way by accident.

I am not naive enough to not recognise the guiding hand of an advertiser, on times, but mostly it's very low key.

I am really disappointed by the way 'Before And After' is increasingly monetising it's subscribers through direct endorsement. It feels like most of the mail I get from B&A is about getting me to hand over my credit card in return for a free trial of a stock library.

Xara is on FB but new people need to know about them to find them. That's what's happening in the blog world.

Paul

[gwpriester]

Xara's FB page shows 54,143 Likes. That's a fair amount. Serif Software has 6,076. Inkscape if I am looking at the right page has about 13,000.

[angelize]

I learned about Xara in 2006 from a post on another product forum. The post caught my interest and I Googled to find out more. The rest as they say is history☺ The fact that they chose an unusual name for the company also made it stick in my mind.

[pauland]

Facebook is certainly important. It's an interesting point since I don't really use FB and so I don't receive or generate FB likes in the way avid FB users do.

Would I be more likely to find a new product via FB than a blog if I was a 'proper' FB user? The answer could be yes. Interesting point, Gary.

[gwpriester]

I'm not sure about blogs, but FB is also addicting and some members are on FB most of the time. It is a very powerful draw.

[pauland]

I don't like the way family and personal life is exposed to a very wide audience - far wider than would naturally occur otherwise.

I have several FB accounts - to try and separate family from everything else.

I know people are addicted - it provides much amusement and surprise sometimes to hear what people are up to.

I've tried to warn my children that FB is now one of the first places to call for people wanting to check you out. What's funny for you and your friends might not be so appealing to an employer.

A friend of ours has an adult child who has disclosed some pretty personal stuff about the family online via FB. If the family knew they'd be shocked.

[Gamerprinter]

I would say I use FB and G+ extensively to promote and sell products I create with better results than any other online marketing platform I've ever used. That said, the reverse hasn't been true - I never make purchases based on information gained on social media. On the same hand, I've been involved in 2 Kickstarters, one as an associate creator (another person was the named creator, even though it was my project) and my recent, very successful Map Tutorials Guide KS, which I did completely on my own. Despite having created/been involved in 2 Kickstarters, I have never particapted as a Kickstarter backer - and doing so is not attractive to me from a buyer point of view. Over the last 20 years, I've made about 6 purchases (mostly used books) from Amazon, and although I participated in one bidding situation on EBay which did not come to fruition - I didn't have the best bid, I have never actually purchased anything from EBay ever. Honestly, I hate auctions in general, whether live estate sale auctions or online auctions - the auction concept does not appeal to me. I am sure that no ad, nor blog article ever pointed me to a product purchase.

Both my FB and G+ communities are designated for product promotion only. I never post personal information, beyond the normal (where I'm at, where I worked, where I lived, etc.) Personal information that could possibly defame me before possible employers is something I never do. I avoid friending people I actually consider friends, most of my "friends" are potential clients or other people in my fields of interest (game cartography, illustration, RPG gaming, etc.) I never post personal anecdotes on my social media. I use social media for business, not for anything actually "social".

I can honestly say, if I'm looking for information on a given product, I will Google it first, then because I run a physical small business (graphic design/digital print shop), I prefer to support local business. I have ordered items that a given store doesn't normally carry, but can order through their company website - so I most often purchase products from a physical store I enter. While I do order stuff from online sources, this mostly applies to supplies and media needs for my business, as well as ordered through vendor catalogs, but this only applies to business purchases. Home purchases are mostly relegated to local shops.

So, I see, that my buying habits are nothing like yours and hasn't really changed in 20 years. The way I market is different, but the way I buy things hasn't changed at all.

[pauland]

Today I would say that you are atypical, Gameprinter. I'm atypical from being less than enthusiastic about FB.