[penguicon-general] where was MDLUG?

[Jer Lance]

On 5/1/07, Rob Landley <rob at landley.net> wrote:
> On Tuesday 01 May 2007 12:49 pm, Dan DeSloover wrote:
>  > Which brings up a second good point. I was already aware that MUG was
> > covered by Aaron, the vast majority of MDLUG was already sold on
> > Penguicon, and GLLUG for obvious reasons needed no wrangling. I work
> > closely with MonroeLUG and well everyone of semi-active membership there
> > was going (all three of us and one of those could be considered more of
> > a MDLUG person.
>
> I really need to do a "marketing for geeks" panel next year, don't I?
>
> 1) Just because they know you and like you doesn't mean you don't have to
> remind them that you exist, especially if something has a specific time.
>

Well, that is generally true, although, I'd suggest that it would be a
waste of effort to market ourselves to the individuals that were cited
above.  Marketing yourself to the LUG that is offering to do LUG
wrangling?  To the LUG that attended pretty much in force?  That's
what we like to call, in marketing circles, a bloody waste of time and
money.

> 2) The "rule of seven" is that people are so good at filtering out extraneous
> noise that until they've encountered a mention of your thing seven times they
> won't remember having seen it, let alone make any decision about it.  This is
> true even for things they'd really like; they'll put off thinking about it or
> not necessarily consider it real/credible.
>
> So assuming "they already know" is counterproductive.
>

See above...


> Go to one of the meetings and make liquid nitrogen ice cream.  Consider it a
> convention room party that's not taking place at a convention.
>
> (The ability to get ~30 liter quantities from a local university would be
> really nice for this sort of thing, by the way...)
>

I would question the wisdom of going to a LUG that is negative toward
Penguicon as a representative of Penguicon to make ice cream.  I would
even go one step further, and suggest that, instead, we investigate
the source of this ill-will and see what can be done about that.

I would say that our LUG Wrangler (or, from all appearances,
Wranglers) should probably spend their time in that direction...
Marketing 101:

Research THEN Initiative.  The other way ends up creating such fabled
misfires as the Intrigue launch campaign (greatest domestic automotive
marketing faux paux in history).