It’s called the theory of the “one percenters.” Basically, 1% of any given group or community cares enough, is interested enough, and is motivated enough to “contribute content within the democratized community.”
Statistically, only 1 out of every 100 blog subscribers, customers, or group members will be “into” your culture enough to become an übermember.
The real-world example Ben and Jackie cite is Wikipedia. 72% of the articles written on Wikipedia are written by 1.8% of contributing users.
The same is true for individuals, I suspect. Out of every hundred or so interests you have, you really care about just one.
- You’ll spend nights up till 2 or 3 in the morning for no reason reading about it.
- You’ll blow hundreds of dollars to go to a convention on it.
- Whenever it comes up in a conversation, you can’t shut up.
I know for me, that thing is linguistics. I could talk your ear off about where different words come from. I break down the difference between Germanic and Latin loan words in normal conversation. I’ll tell you within 5 minutes of meeting you that most of the big words in English are basically the same in Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian. And why.
I don’t want to be snobbish, it’s just that I find that stuff fascinating. I get personal satisfaction from talking about it; it excites the hell out of me. I want to evangelize.
And you have that interest that annoys all your friends. Maybe you’re into remote control airplanes. My dad’s obsessed with ubuntu and Ron Paul right now. Maybe you LOVE heart-shaped Valentine’s day pillows. Whatever it is, you love talking about it.
From a marketing perspective, think about how extremely valuable the people who can’t shut up about your industry are. I’ve bought books, subscribed to blogs, and even funded an education to soak in everything I can about language. And I still want to know more.
In this light, cold-calling a middle-manager to tell him about your great new X345R copier seems ridiculous. What does he care about your specs? He’s got his own interests. Like peacock bass fishing.
How about seeking out the forums online built around “image reproduction” and connecting with the people who freaking love copiers already?
You could do this by sending the copier fanatics the specs for your new product and invite reviews. Or bring them into your regional office for a demonstration. Or make and mail copier T-shirts to anyone who wants them (with your logo prominently displayed, of course :-).
Even “spam” marketing transforms when you’re preaching to the choir. If you love coffee mugs, you’ll look at an email selling limited edition teddy bear mugs much differently than one hawking a product you don’t care about.
Seth calls this permission marketing. If you haven’t started looking for your 1 percenters, start now. The internet makes it really easy. Here are some places to get started:
- MySpace Forums: Take advantage of common interests on the largest social networking site.
- Facebook Groups: The fastest growing social networking site.
- Yahoo! Groups: Probably your best bet.
What are you a one percenter about?
Here’s your chance to talk our ears off about your big interest.