You have a geek or semi-geek product and you think the time has come to market it to the masses, how do you do it?
One way to do it is throw money into promotions on resources which don’t exactly or don’t at all correlate to your product and hope that the masses will pick it up. It won’t work because even if people notice it - they won’t get it, they won’t understand that it’s important or interesting because they won’t spend their time on your product, even if they can try it before they buy.
Another way is to sit and hope that your existing customers, the “geeks” will spread good news about your product to the masses. It works to some extent but only some, for example the “mass” wants to buy a digital camera, they make a search based on their criteria, find some variants and go to ask their friends which one to choose. Or they may visit the forums and ask geeks whom they don’t know. The geeks will give them opinion, but this opinion won’t be just about your product, because there are some many competitors and as a result - so many goods and bads as regards to your product, so the chances are that the mass will buy your product is 50% if you have one competitor, 30% if you have 2 etc. what if you have 5 or 10 competitors?
The way which might just work is to make a very simple version of your geeky product, which will work without fail and which a 2 year old can master - a click of a mouse and the job’s done. Make this version free or extremely cheap, again so that anyone can get it. Then empathize that you don’t charge money for the idea of your product, but you charge for all those geeky interesting extras that are there for the full price, some won’t need it but others who like what you give them and who are interested in those extras or just want more - these guys will buy and become the geeks of your product.
How many times have I used the word “geek”? I think too many=) but a **** product is unfortunately only for ****, and either you turn the mass into them, or your niche of the market will be very limited.