Needle in a Haystack marketing

So, why bother everyone with a blog post about iPhone voice mail?

It used to be that marketing to the masses cost a fortune, or sometimes, two fortunes.

With a blog or CraigsList or Squidoo, you can enter your information into the vast online database for free.

No, doing that won't reach everyone. In fact, it will reach almost no one.

But that's fine if the few people you do reach are the people who are looking for you. My iPhone post will get seen by the hundred or thousand people who do the precise Google search that turns it up. And they'll be glad they did.

If you're using a tool that supports this sort of deep search (this blog is a poor example of that, of course) and you've got the time, go ahead and solve very specific problems, realizing that you won't reach everyone, just the people who care a great deal.

The two tips I have for you:

1. Be sure to really and truly solve the searcher's problem. Boilerplate and selfish redirection of attention are bogus strategies that don't pay off. I like this solution to the search for "Michelle Obama pictures," and it's no surprise it comes up first.

2. Make it a habit. Solve five or ten or fifty problems a day and soon you'll have thousands of solutions, which ought to be enough.