Breaking Out of the Echo Chamber - Finding the Blance Between Early Adopters and Mass Markets

September 11 2008, 11:14am

I like to take a holistic approach to marketing. Most people think that marketing is about promotion, or advertising, but that’s a misconception. Marketing encompasses everything a company does to acquire customers and maintain relationships with them. It’s about aligning a product with a market. Early adopters, or as Robert Scoble has taken to calling them, passionates are increasingly shaping and influencing the direction of online business both in terms of product development and communications strategies. There is currently a proliferation of shiny new toys that are being built for and marketed to early adopters, but is this a direction that is going to be profitable Are We Digging Our Own Chasm? Many in the industry reference Moore’s “Crossing the Chasm” as the key work in addressing the subject of transitioning from early adopters to a mass market. Two things come to mind: 1. When Moore wrote “Crossing the Chasm” in 1991, (it was revised in 1999) the frequency of new technology entering the market was much lower, therefore even among early adopters, there were significantly fewer shiny new toys to distract them. Early adopters were hungry for new technology and adopted it in hordes, their attention remained focused for significantly longer periods of time. At this point in time, supply outnumbers demand and the average early adopter’s attention is being pulled in a million new directions every day. It’s difficult to attract, let alone retain them. If your company is really intent on following Moore’s model, then you need to have a significant enough share of attention, for a long enough period of time, so that your product can transition to a mass market. 2. Crossing the Chasm is only a relevant strategy for companies that are introducing “disruptive technology.” The majority of Web 2.0 startups out there are hardly introducing disruptive technology. In fact, most of them aren’t really technology companies at all. They are simply consumer-facing products that are built on technology. The more these companies design for the early adopter crowd, and the more they integrate this crowd into their feedback loop, the further they get from their actual market. Many times, it’s not the technology that’s disruptive; it’s the way the technology is presented. And this happens as a result of designing for and marketing to those of us who are way at the top of the technographic ladder. Who Are Your Early Adopters, And How Important Are They? I’m not taking the stance that early adopters are unimportant, in many cases they are. But two things need to be taken into consideration: 1. Though early adopters may be an important step towards mass adoption, it’s vital to design your product and craft your messaging from the beginning for the market you are trying to serve, which in most cases, at least if you want to be profitable, is not the high-tech early adopter crowd. That doesn’t mean they can’t use your product, nor does it mean they won’t like your product. It just means that though you may be reaching out to them as part of your initial user group, you’ve got to always be thinking about the market that will make you profitable. 2. Let’s broaden the definition of early adopter. Who are your early adopters? They may not be the Silicon Valley echo chamber crowd, as you are most likely not in all actuality a tech company. Remember, there’s a difference between a technology company and a company that’s built on technology. My refrigerator is built using certain kinds of technology, some of it quite advanced I’m sure, but that doesn’t mean it’s a high tech product. Is Toyota a steel company, or a car company? Just because your product is built on technology, even if it’s really innovative technology, that doesn’t necessarily make it a high-tech product. There are early adopters in every market. They aren’t necessarily early adopters of technology, they are the people who are willing to try new things. Every market has its own set of early adopters, they are the people who start trends. Those are the people that are most likely the most important people to be reaching out to, to be including in your Beta, in your feedback loops, and considering in your product development and marketing plan. Running a fashion site? Who were the first guys to wear skinny jeans last year, the first girls to wear Spartacus sandals? Those are your early adopters. There are all sorts of people, within all sorts of markets, that have a propensity to try new things. According to Everett Rogers Diffusion of Innovation, which Moore modified in Crossing the Chasm, early adopters make up 13% of the total market. If you look at the process in a formulaic manner, this means that if the early adopter crowd you think you need doesn’t comprise 13% of your total market, then you’re most likely going after the wrong early adopters. Breaking Out of The Echo Chamber What I’m getting at here, is that there’s a little too much in-breeding going on. We exist inside of a very small echo chamber that to us seems like the entire world. We are a passionate group of people, to be sure. Everyone’s drinking each other’s Koolaid without thinking much about what’s going on outside of our little echo chamber. We’re all caught up in the hype, being lead by our passion for technology down a road that distances the products we create more and more from mass markets. In many cases I think we’re doing the opposite of crossing the chasm; the more we design for and market to those within the echo chamber, the further we get from products that will appeal to a mass market. Just as the innovation cycle has tightened as a result of technology, this cycle may very well become tighter and tighter as products and tools shift further and further to the left of the chasm. It’s my fear that if this cycle continues and compounds we will end up with products that will be unrecognizable to anyone outside of the echo chamber. Further Reading I’m not the only one with an opinion on this subject. There are some great posts out there discussing this issue. Here are some that I found recently: Alex Iskold Andrew Chen Paul Grahm Alexander van Elsas Stacey Higginbotham and Robert Scoble