Poser Marketing
If you’re of a certain age group, and by certain age group I mean “impossibly hip and tragically cool people who were entering adolescence around 1982 or 1983 or 1984 and were therefore steeping in the pop culture offerings of Duran Duran, Van Halen, time-traveling De Loreans, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Steven Spielberg generally, and mucho mas” then the headline of this blog post is pretty self evident.
Seriously, how many posers did you meet in junior and senior high? How many of us were accused by our peers of being posers of one kind or another? Right? Right? You know what I’m talking about, oh members of my ungreatest generation.
There was always that klutzy kid, par example, who couldn’t stay on a skateboard to save his life dressing up as a skate rat, complete with the haircut and the anarchist symbol around his neck.
Oh, the scorn heaped upon this kid’s head by the real skate rats. Until, that is, the kid learned how to skate, maybe starting with kickflips and moving on to vert ramps, et cetera, et cetera. But even after that, it may have taken a while for the scorn levels to descend to non-lethal levels.
Same thing happens when you, the running dog capitalist, enter a niche that isn’t inside your normal sphere of knowledge or influence. Think computerphobe trying to market to the enterprise software space. You have to really really really really work your butt off to get there. Not so much if you’re marketing to other computerphobes. If you’re a computerphobe trying to market to other computerphobes, suddenly you’re no longer a poser.
You’re the real deal! You can talk about your frustration with this or that, your common hatred for technology, your workarounds for stalled software or junky hardware. You’re able to make sound and useful recommendations for this or that product, nudging people towards microsites or affiliate products that will help them.
In fact, you’re not really marketing any more, not really, right? You’re helping. You’re informing. You’re educating. You’re empowering. And if you do it right, you’re making some money in the bargain, and there isn’t anything wrong with that.
Bottom line is, there are millions of opportunities out there for the niche marketer. Why spend time and energy in places where you’ll lose all credibility? Why be that kid with the clothes and haircut but no actual skills or props?
Now, there is a way to actually become a viable part of any community, but I’ll talk about that a little later. But only if you promise to use your knowledge for good and not evil.
