Start-up companies are aware that in-your-face marketing is a good way to scare off the kinds of people who go to South by Southwest.  JagTag, a company based in Princeton, N.J., that incorporates barcodes into marketing campaigns for the benefit of camera-phone users, decided not to attend the conference. Instead, the company sent a single employee loaded with several thousand promotional postcards bearing barcodes. “We didn’t want to do a hard sell,” said Dudley Fitzpatrick, the chief executive. “We just wanted to show it to them.”

This is interestingly taking a page out of the old revlon playbook- give a customer a free sample, and count on a certain buzz and response from those free samples.  If there is quality behind the product, this will be a sustainable strategy for acquiring new business.  In more competitive fields, however, it may not be a thoughtful one.  If there were milk companies giving away samples of their milk, for you to try – unless there was a substantial taste difference – would you really care? There are other differentiation points and marketing opportunities that are essential for moving a product into the mind of that audience (even if you use a soft sell approach).

Posted via web from OverLinked