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The power of blog marketing and word of mouth

02 Dec 2004 by Jason Fried

We’re currently running a survey (with SurveyMonkey) for current Basecamp customers, and one of the questions is:

If you can remember, how did you first hear about Basecamp?

And here’s the response chart so far:

results

Pretty cool to see that the top two ways people have heard about Basecamp is via blogs and word of mouth. People enjoy talking about the things they love — and hate — which is why you need to work so hard on making the customer experience the number one thing you focus your development energy and resources on.

It’s never been easier to spread the word, so if you have an idea for something (a business, product, service, book, whatever) get out there and do it. Make it great, keep your team small, keep your overhead low, treat your customers with respect, get it in front of the right people, and the market will take care of most of the marketing for you.

11 comments so far (Post a Comment)

02 Dec 2004 | Mark said...

That is cool, but aren't the results going to be weighted toward blogs anyway?

I mean, you pretty much announced BaseCamp right here, on a blog. Then, there were banner ads - again, on blogs.

Did you do a balanced campaign consisting of traditional advertising as well?

02 Dec 2004 | Mark said...

BTW:

I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiments in the last paragraph.

I think we're on the edge of another boom (albeit this one a bit more reasonable), so now's the time to go out there and get it.

02 Dec 2004 | Paul said...

I was just reading something similar in Flickr's Fast 50 entry at fastcompany.com (disclaimer: I work for fastcompany.com).

The experience they've had with their app parallels BaseCamp in a way. Both products were introduced in an established field, and without making a huge (or any) marketing effort and by placing their focus on customer experience, they've both made an enormous impact and have had tremendous results.

02 Dec 2004 | JF said...

Hey Paul, can ya fit us in the Fast 51? I mean, hey, we're profitable (unlike a nice chunk of the list ;)

02 Dec 2004 | Paul said...

We've extended the deadline....we'll be expecting your submission :)

03 Dec 2004 | Raul said...

Interesting.

Although it would not have to surprise to us. Its good knowing that in spite of all technology available the mouth in mouth recommendation still works.

03 Dec 2004 | JF said...

We've extended the deadline....we'll be expecting your submission

Coming tomorrow. Thanks for letting us know about the extended deadline.

03 Dec 2004 | Matthew Oliphant said...

I think 52 is a better number. We are all cards anyway.

03 Dec 2004 | JF said...

Our Fast 50 entry is in. If ya dig what we're doing with Basecamp, we'd love if you'd post your comments and rating at the bottom.

03 Dec 2004 | Elaine said...

I'd be curious to know if there were any commonalities in the "Other" category....

08 Dec 2004 | Benjamin Gundgaard said...


Hi Jason.

This is really interesting - I went to a conference yesterday at which Microsoft gave some insight about how more than 1.000 of their employees blog (in accordance with 10 major guidelines) about new product releases, development tools, etc.

I seems the big companies understand the power of blog marketing as well :-)

Best, Benjamin


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