Business Solutions

Many times it’s good to find cases and stories of real Entrepreneurs that were able to create a little marketing magic in their quest to build modest business success, but the quest turns wildly successful, something they could never have envisioned before starting the entrepreneurial adventure, and we want to learn from how they were able to achieve their great success.

Having said that, there are two technology executives named Justin and Dave that had absolutely no experience in the food industry between them, and no budget for marketing, but they decide to launch a product they called “Bacon Salt.”

To understand the market they begin their search for people who profess a great love for bacon on social networking sites, and then friend them of course, and begin to inject information about “Bacon Salt” into the vast social networking echo chamber, and awareness  starts to build with a small percentage of the bacon lovers, and their enthusiasm begins to spread about “Bacon Salt,” and what began as a small group or tribe of bacon enthusiasts quickly begins to multiply as the word spreads throughout the many small silos of networks that make up the fabric of larger social networking sites, and turns into approximately 37,000 fans between Facebook and MySpace.

Time passes, and months later, the buzz that has been building starts to spill over into other media in newspaper articles, television interviews, until finally they reach the pinnacle of public relations, with an appearance on Oprah. Okay, so Justin and Dave with no knowledge of the food business and with no marketing budget, that find themselves in the unique position of having what some would call a cult hit, and feeling the inspiration, they create several other bacon-flavored products, which finally gives birth to the “Bacon Salt” brand.

Their wild ride to success began with a very small group of self-indentified fans of a category of food and spice, and even when social networks have millions of members, the odds are great against the group being able to transform into a larger group of millions of active buzz-spreading fans. Now Justin and Dave’s Bacon Salt success story serves to illustrate how what is typically a very small percentage of the tribe of fans who find it important enough to spread the word, and this small inner tribe of actively vocal fans normally makes up one percent or less of the larger tribe of fans, and reaching them should your targeted objective.

This extremely small percentage of the market is difficult to define, since they are not your typical name-brand bloggers, mommy and daddy bloggers, or even business bloggers, and they are scattered throughout all market segments  and niches, yet you have to understand in no uncertain terms their importance to your immediate and long-term business success, because they are where word-of-mouth begins, the roots of word-of-mouth, and should be at the very top of every Entrepreneur’s list to not only find them, but attract and connect with them as well.