# Is this wrong?



## dmm26 (Mar 21, 2007)

In doing some market research I have signed up on a few forums that are in the market niche i want to get into. I have done searches to see whether anyone has posted similar questions and not found anything. Most people are receptive to my inquires but some people get ticked. Is it wrong for me to join some of these forums in a quest for knowledge? I do have input for the forums but some members see me as some jerk who wants ideas/inspiration. This is not the case at all. Some of the questions i have asked are: What attracts you to a certain brand? what color shirts do you buy the most? I don't think that these questions a harmful or offensive in the least. I mean how else am I going to pin point my target market without asking them questions? Is this wrong of me or not?


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## Jasonda (Aug 16, 2006)

dmm26 said:


> Some of the questions i have asked are: What attracts you to a certain brand? what color shirts do you buy the most? I don't think that these questions a harmful or offensive in the least. I mean how else am I going to pin point my target market without asking them questions? Is this wrong of me or not?


It's not wrong, it just doesn't make sense. Forums (like this one at least) are generally not the best place to look for customers, they're more of a place to look for information about the industry.

For example, if you want to do market research, we can point you in the direction of some threads that discuss resources for market research, and good articles on the subject, but most of us wouldn't be willing to become actual _participants_ in your research. Many, many, many people here are in the business of selling t-shirts, so imagine what kind of forum this would be if all we did was do market research on each other?


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## highstyleinc (Apr 4, 2007)

Although I see Jasonda's point, I have to disagree. When you sell a t-shirt, you have to market. They kind of go hand in hand. I understand what you are trying to do, which seems to be asking ccertain marketing questions to those who are more experienced in selling. It doesn't sem to me that you are looking for or are expecting customers from here. 

Maybe you can make it a little more known what you expect for your answers. Maybe mention that you understand that you are asking other sellers for their input. Although I think you already made this clear??

And.... I thought the marketing threads were for these questions.... ?? 

Just make sure you share your experiences and knowledge as well every now and then. In forums, people just want to see that you are contributing, that's all.

Asking other sellers for their input is great, and I think this is a great helpful community, but you should also do customer surveys to your target market.

Kris


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

The original poster isn't talking about here, he's talking about other forums. For example if the shirts are about Apples, going to an Apple Farmer Co-Op Forum and asking what kind of t-shirts they like to wear, do they like red shirts, etc.

People (myself included) tend to have a hair trigger reaction to commerce in certain contexts these days. Spammers have ruined it for everyone: now even relatively innocent discussions can look like the lead-up to spam.

It's important that you know the forum you're posting in, so you know how people will react. Unfortunately a common interest won't always be enough: you need to actually have some experience with that particular forum to know how people will feel. Forums are a safehaven, so people can get very defensive if they suspect that you are going to break the rules - even before you break them (and even if you actually have no intention of breaking them).


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## dmm26 (Mar 21, 2007)

Thank you solmu. Your right i wasn't talking about posting here at all. Thanks for the feedback. For the most part things have gone relatively well for me posting on forums with the customers I'm trying to reach. There's only a few that get really defensive like i have ulterior motives for being on that forum which simply isn't true.


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## Eyerish (Mar 20, 2007)

If they get defenseive....F%$# em...they are douchebags. That is pretty much how I view the situation. Your questions are perfectly tactful and not offensive at all. Anyone who might view otherwise needs to get a life.  

Just my .04 cents


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

Eyerish said:


> That is pretty much how I view the situation.


I really don't think that's a productive way of looking at the situation (or particularly professional). The aim isn't to piss off your potential customers or information sources and then say "oh well, **** 'em, I don't need 'em!"... because we *do* need them


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## Eyerish (Mar 20, 2007)

Solmu said:


> I really don't think that's a productive way of looking at the situation (or particularly professional). The aim isn't to piss off your potential customers or information sources and then say "oh well, **** 'em, I don't need 'em!"... because we *do* need them


Well notice I didn't tell him to post verbal tirades at these fine douchebag folks on the message board.  Ignoring them is obviously best. I don't think he was doing anything anything wrong that would tarnish his reputation or lose customers over.....and frankly....we can't please everyone.


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

Eyerish said:


> Ignoring them is obviously best.


True.



Eyerish said:


> we can't please everyone.


Again, true - but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Granted I don't really have any bright ideas either, but I certainly don't think people are necessarily being unreasonable either.

Telemarketing and spam is evil. That kind of invasion into people's lives shows a heinous disregard for your fellow human beings. Asking market research questions in a forum is *not* the same thing, but it's not hard to see how it hits people's buttons because they don't give it a chance to realise it's not the same thing.

Personally I'm quite sympathetic. I think our job/challenge is to try and work out how to approach them so that we get what we want, without hurting them. It doesn't go without saying that we have the right to harass people in forums for information, so I don't think it's reasonable to think people are just assholes if they react badly.


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## Eyerish (Mar 20, 2007)

I dunno....I think as a society we are overly sympathetic to every poor miserable sap that walks the face of the earth. If someone gets bothered by market research questions on a message board..and they get bent out of shape about that...they dont't have to read it...and they certainly don't have to respond. Those people just don't count in my world. If they want to be shielded from every possible scenario that may ruffle their precious feathers...they really just don't matter..and NOTHING should be adjusted to accomodate those people. I agree with the golden rule and I live my life that way...it seems to do the trick...but I won't bend over backwards to accomodate the unreasonable. Never...and it makes me want to make life harder on them. But I have always been a bit ornery when provoked and someone is viewed as unreasonable  

Telemarketing and spam are EVIL?  Yeah true...I think someone must be going straight to hell for trying to offer a good or service to someone that hasn't directly requested to be contacted. Come on man...All forms of advertising could be looked at as an intrusion. I think telemarketing sucks...but spam is the least intrusive form of advertising out there. Billboards, commercials, radio....it is all an intrusion. There is certainly nothing evil about spam (unless it is the porn kind and I am unkowingly opening an email with a king kong sized dong in it)...I never get spam...because I am smart enough to sign up for crap to win the free t-shirt or ipod . I am not sympathetic to the horrendous possibility that some poor sap needs to use his delete button. 

Yes...I do have an issue with companies that continuously bombard people with ads after they request to be removed...I agree that those people suck and though they may not be evil in the bibical sense of the word..they certainly are naughty. It is easy to block spam...and it is easy to stop telemarketing. I never get either...why is that? 

I agree with your general premise that we should be reasonable and try not to make life difficult for anyone. But forums are/were created for the sharing of opinions and information. You simply cannot please everyone....assholes are in abundance. Unless this particular forum he is mentioning specifically outlawed these types of questions...then yah...the people have a problem with it are complete and utter douchebags and I have zero tolerance for them. We need to set our sights on the general reasonable person...and not the crazed person that hates their life so much that they will p.iss and moan so much that they actually forget why they were mad...they are upset so often. 

A reasonable person does NOT get upset about a man trying to make a living...and learning what his market wants. They can choose to read the question...and move on...or read the question and offer some useful advice. There is no acceptable middle ground in my mind...and I think I am a reasonable guy...unless I am ranting on a message board about douchebags


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## MIZZY (Apr 10, 2007)

i dont think you wrong bye along shot.cause this is the business you choice and thats how you eating and taking of you.just remeber a close mouth will never get fed so you doing rite by saying and asking ? for your certain reasonjust keep pushing cause you got to feed yourself


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> but spam is the least intrusive form of advertising out there


I have to disagree with that in a big way, but this isn't a thread about email spam. But it's definitely not a professional way to conducct business and will do more harm to your business than good.


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## Eyerish (Mar 20, 2007)

I agree that it is not viewed as professional and is a POOR choice to grow a business, but it does convert...otherwise people wouldn't be doing it. Of course the companies that DO convert spam are usuing throwaway companies that don't matter in order to sell products.....they have no real ability to build a company, customer loyalty, or brand recognition. It is a short term fix to dump product....a hit and run way to make profits.

But as for intrusiveness...I guess we will just have to agree to disagree....it isn't very hard to avoid spam, block spam, and it certainly isnt hard to delete the few that slip through the spam filters.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> But as for intrusiveness...I guess we will just have to agree to disagree....it isn't very hard to avoid spam, block spam, and it certainly isnt hard to delete the few that slip through the spam filters.


You just have to remember that just because you have a "few", doesn't mean that everyone does  Your idea of "hard" is also different than others (and can be based on how much time in their day is spend dealing with spam).



> but it does convert...otherwise people wouldn't be doing it.


It's true that email marketing works though, but you don't have to spam to send use email marketing successfully.


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## Eyerish (Mar 20, 2007)

Rodney said:


> You just have to remember that just because you have a "few", doesn't mean that everyone does  Your idea of "hard" is also different than others (and can be based on how much time in their day is spend dealing with spam).
> 
> 
> 
> It's true that email marketing works though, but you don't have to spam to send use email marketing successfully.


 
Spam is used because the cost of true opt-in email lists is prohibitive compared to the amount of conversions it will produce. Some opt-in campaigns can work...IF it is on a commission per sale basis, but even then....it is usually pretty bad. Spam conversions are terrible, but they keep sending to the same lists thousands of times for the same general cost.....which increases the sales more than the overhead.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> Spam is used because the cost of true opt-in email lists is prohibitive compared to the amount of conversions it will produce.


What figures are you looking at for that? The cost for building and opt-in list and managing it is VERY minimal.


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## Eyerish (Mar 20, 2007)

Rodney said:


> What figures are you looking at for that? The cost for building and opt-in list and managing it is VERY minimal.


The cost of building a significant opt-in base of your actual target market is quite costly. My figures come from experience as I have been in e-commerce (specifically opt-in email and affiliate marketing management) ever since I decided that I wanted to waste my law degree...lol 

If you are talking about building a small ezine/blog subscriber base and marketing to them....the cost is minimal I guess....but so is the reward unless the product being sold is high profit margin. If you want to use a big opt-in email firm....and pay them to send your ad to your target market...it is very costly....and the conversions will rarely justify the expense. The things that convert the best via opt-in email is leads...such as mortgage/finacial type programs that dont cost the subscriber anything to fill out. These leads are valuable and fetch high dollar from the financial institutions. Opt-in email works if you have the real budget to support it...true opt-in email firms that have clout...charge big bucks.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

Eyerish said:


> The cost of building a significant opt-in base of your actual target market is quite costly. My figures come from experience as I have been in e-commerce (specifically opt-in email and affiliate marketing management) ever since I decided that I wanted to waste my law degree...lol
> 
> If you are talking about building a small ezine/blog subscriber base and marketing to them....the cost is minimal I guess....but so is the reward unless the product being sold is high profit margin. If you want to use a big opt-in email firm....and pay them to send your ad to your target market...it is very costly....and the conversions will rarely justify the expense. The things that convert the best via opt-in email is leads...such as mortgage/finacial type programs that dont cost the subscriber anything to fill out. These leads are valuable and fetch high dollar from the financial institutions. Opt-in email works if you have the real budget to support it...true opt-in email firms that have clout...charge big bucks.


I'm speaking from experience as well  

Building a list from your website can take time, but the costs aren't high at all.

You can use a service like vertical response which has no monthly fees. Building your list may take some time, but it doesn't take lots of money to build up a targeted list of prospects from your website traffic and any other marketing you may do.

I'm not talking about buying lists from any third party. I don't think I would trust any list I didn't build myself. But just building and sending to your own list isn't hard or expensive at all. There are even scripts out there like dadamail that allow you to do it for free.


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## dmm26 (Mar 21, 2007)

Well after all this I found, that most people didn't mind being asked what their preferences are and I even made a couple sales for a product I'm not even producing yet. So I would say all in all this was a good experience for me, and YES there are people that get some what offended by this form of target research. But I know once is ship out those shirts to the people that bought them the same people that were offended before will be asking..."Can I buy one of those shirts" So i think this has been quite effective.


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## Eyerish (Mar 20, 2007)

Rodney said:


> I'm speaking from experience as well
> 
> Building a list from your website can take time, but the costs aren't high at all.
> 
> ...


 
Of course it isn't hard to build a list...but how long will it take to build a list of 100k+? I am not talking about the kind of targeted email marketing to your list of 2000-5000 subscribers.....yes, a company like threadless has a very loyal community that buys from their emails but most can;t show significant sales volume from a past customer targeted list---is it worth the effort--yes, but it won;t make you rich. My experience lies in very high numbers and mass emails...the conversion on 1 million opt-in emails, would likely not justify the cost of doing so...when hiring a "aquality" third party opt-in email company to mail to their lists....and if it was justified, the up front costs would be significant and not guaranteed. My price comments dealt with large scale operations and list building which is quite costly if you want to build large lists and customer bases.


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