Re: Print advertising

May have misunderstood me a bit, though Gavin's idea
is a good one and needed.

I would never suggest advertising. In my mind it is
contra to "the movement". I'm suggesting a press
release that is really a - What it is & Why you need
it, letter. Small village (<50,000 people) papers
are hungry for news. Most have 2 or 3 part-time
reporters that write about the local football team's
performance and assorted local tidbits.
I think they would run an article as a press
release. Not email --- just a regular old piece of
paper with a stamp. Hand addressed with a real
signature. The release should be non-tech; write a
bit about "us vs them" (small vs big) AND make a
call for the local PC fixer + the school admin and
even the local government to come to the site.....
this is where Gavin's idea would fit in nicely.

Personalized printing is a large part of my
business. I don't have a problem sending out 10 K
of these over the course of a year on my nickel,
including postage.

Just need a good letter and content Gavin mentioned
--- kind of a STARTER'S KIT.

But I agree --- no advertising. Waste of money.

After all, the release would be from one community
to another.

Thanks,
Mike

----- Original Message -----
From: Gavin Sherry <swm(at)linuxworld(dot)com(dot)au>
Date: Sunday, November 20, 2005 6:59 pm
Subject: Re: [pgsql-advocacy] Print advertising

> Hi all,
>
> On Sun, 20 Nov 2005, Josh Berkus wrote:
>
> > Mike,
> >
> > I'm taking this back on-list because I think
it's a critical
> discussion.>
> > > I have a fuzzy feeling that there are a few people
> > > in the world that do not sit around reading
> > > Information Week as part of their daily
routine. A
> > > CEO of a 20 person company in Oneonta, NY may not
> > > even know that there IS such a thing as
PG..... but
> > > he sure knows that he has needs and 1 of them is
> > > saving money. He probably DOES read the local
> > > paper... because he may be in it. And if he reads
> > > some plain talk about PG, he may grab his
"computer
> > > guy" by the stacking swivel and say... "Why
wasn't I
> > > told about this?"
> >
> > I think you're absolutely right. However, I'm
personally at a
> loss on how to
> > reach these people without spending a fortune on
print
> advertising. The
> > problem is that small businesses simply don't
read any national
> publications> consistently. There are some key
ones we could take
> on -- ComputerWorld,
> > Philanthropy Journal -- but on the whole it
would be hit-or-miss.
> And for
> > small local papers, there are probably 25,000 of
them in the US.
>
> I second your scepticism here. I've had some
experience of IT
> marketingand marketing/advertising in general.
Effective
> advertising, especially to
> small business, requires a broad and long running
campaign -- read:
> expensive. In my opinion, the ad placed by the
mozilla guys in a
> major US
> daily was good for morale bit not an effective way
of marketing the
> project.
>
> The thing that we're good at is attracting people
to the project
> for its
> technical features. This is our strength. One of
the things that
> companiessurrounding PostgreSQL -- particularly
the big ones -- are
> good at is
> sales and marketing. I think most of the work
involved in
> attracting small
> businesses not looking specifically for an open
source database can be
> left to them.
>
> That being said, I think there are some key areas
we need to take
> care of:
> case studies on the web site, testimonials on the
web site and a
> kind of
> 'Why PostgreSQL' check list, which blends
testimonials with a list of
> features. I'm currently sitting on a bunch of case
studies for the Web
> site. Unfortunately, I have very little time to
work on them. The
> first of
> these should come through very soon.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Gavin
>
> ---------------------------(end of
broadcast)-----------------------
> ----
> TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend
>