17 May, 2013
Where Have We Met?
by Annette
Every so often we review where our marketing dollars should go, or not.
We avoid the topic for weeks, then we're suddenly facing a deadline. I rail equally against print media and web ads, which I never ever click on unless my finger slips. I moan that in the good old days (2006) all we needed was the VO Blog as our main advertising vehicle, since there weren't as many bike blogs then as there are now. And also in the good old days, under our old ecommerce platform, every order was linked to a point of entry (e.g., if you came to Velo Orange from, say, a lingerie site, we knew it.) Then we again table discussion and move on to how our new coffee maker is performing.
And so we repair to our focus group, you, because I don't think we've ever asked you before: Where did you first encounter Velo Orange? Did you look for a specific item on the web? Pass a VO frame on the trail? Peruse a style blog? We'd greatly appreciate your taking the poll below; if you choose "other," please tell us in the comments what that "other" is.
I was walking down West Street one day and saw the Orange door.
ReplyDeleteIt may have been through Gypsy Nick but who knows? The general osmosis factor of the web creates such a staggering mind meld that I would be hard-pressed to pinpoint where I first learned about ANYTHING.
ReplyDeleteBut as a relative newbie to bike culture (3-4 years) it was a long desperate time before I figured out what a black hole the forums can be. By then I had found the thirty or so cycling Blogs that I follow to this day and hearing about stuff from them is like learning it from a friend. I ignore the ads on the blogs that have them, though.
The glossies are fun, too, and the ads are a big part of that fun. I only see year-old issues at the VA Clinic but I always steal them and take them home for the reading room. (The one with the porcelain easy chair)I wonder what would happen if you placed ads in non-cycling magazines. I'm thinking New Yorker, Mother Jones, Cosmo, Plowboy, (Wooden Boat?), Esquire...you get the picture...people who haven't thought of bicycles since middle school might take one look at a drillium crank or a plume alaire chain guard and want one so bad that they run out and by a bicycle to put it on. The magic of desire.
Glad I could help.
tj
Easy, a friend sent me your link. Then, I bought a bike from you ... and a bunch of other stuff, too. Now I check in regularly and suggest to others seeking bike related things that they should do so as well.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't pretend to know what your expectations are regarding "reach" but if you really think about it for a minute, what more can you hope for from your customer base than that?
I can't remember exactly how I first found you, but it was in conjunction with researching rando-type bikes and I came across information about your Johnny Coast semi-custom V-O Randos. I didn't buy one right away 'cause you were just this little one-off place that I didn't know much about, but I kept looking at them and was leaning more and more toward getting one, then poof! they were gone---you stopped taking orders for them. Since then you've grown, I know a lot more about you, I like what you do (excluding the move to threadless!), and have bought 3 bikes and scads of components and accessories. But the first time?---probably a web browser during my initial Rando research.
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth, I see your ads in Bicycle Quarterly and Adventure Magazine.
The BOB-list on google groups.
ReplyDeletebike review and ads in Bicycle Quarterly.
ReplyDeleteHmmm, good one, not really sure... what came first, the chicken or the egg? Guess I'll have to go with websearch as about 2 or 3 or 4 years ago I began doing more of my own bike maintenance and started doing a lot of web searching for parts and other bike info... I am also now a subscriber to Bicycle Times after picking up my first issue from a mag stand around the same time but I honestly cannot recall whether a print ad or blog ad or google search first prompted a visit to the VO site.
ReplyDeleteNot sure, but I reckon it came up in a forum where I was researching fenders or dyno-hubs or racks. I suspect I read about your products more than once before looking for your site in a Google search.
ReplyDelete