The Pareto Principle

So, once again I encounter my friend Pareto. It seems my response rate for all my promotion comfortably rests around 20 percent. This means a good 80 percent of the people I try to lure to KungFuGrip either are just passing by or not interested at all. That, my friend is very maddening.

The weird thing is that no matter how much I promote (spam), I rarely get above this 20 percent. This is even more discouraging because I recently saw an interview on Donnie Deutsch where the guy who started myyearbook stated he really did not have to do any promotion at all. To top that, he claims a majority of his users are in the highly desirable teenage group.

What could I be doing so wrong? Why is it so much work to move the numbers just a little bit? These are questions I hope to answer for both you and I in due time. And rest assured I am not one to quit. Also, the whole point of this blog is so that we all learn something. Especially about how to promote on the internet.

Can I create demand?

That was the question I asked myself the other day. After a month of trying to market KungFuGrip, I wanted to see if I could increase the number of users just a little bit.

Now, up until yesterday I would find a video, post it on KungFuGrip, and then leave a nice message on the message board. We all know what that got me. That magic number of about 50 users per day. Boor-ring.

So, I decided to do something radical and crazy. I chose a very popular video on YouTube. Why YouTube? Well, that is the exact user base I am trying to attract. Anyway, I chose Barats and Bereta’s video So Smooth. I then posted a link to the video on KungFuGrip. Finally I began the arduous task of sending a direct message to each person on the So Smooth message board. Just so you get an idea of the level of task, there were over 900 messages.

My stroke of genius was to create a form message that promoted both KungFuGrip and Barats and Bereta. I told everyone to vote for So Smooth on KungFuGrip. But I also told people to send me ideas about how to make Barats and Bereta more popular. The crazy thing is I instantly got messages back.

So, I wasn’t a surprised when I checked the numbers today and saw a large spike. Yeah – finally!

But the one thing that did surprise me was I learned Barats and Bereta are already famous. It seems NBC gave them a 6 figure contract. Which is ironic, because I was going to have all of the people on the message board ask for an NBC appearance. You see, I wanted 900 people to email SNL to see if I could get these guys on the show. That would have been cool, but I think it is even cooler they already have a contract.