From the Hyatt Regency in Coolum, Australia

Kangarooville, Pac Man Fever & Geek Revenge

September 1, 2004

Dear Friend & Subscriber,

Yes, this really is ‘down under’ and there really are Kangaroos roaming around all over the place. In Australia, when you say ‘Hey look, I just saw a kangaroo!’ it’s kind of like being in the US and saying ‘Guess what, I just saw a cow!’

So to Aussies, this is nothing to write home about. But for everyone else, here’s the kangaroo that was hanging out on the patio behind our condo this afternoon:

Australia really is a splendid place. And the Hyatt Coolum is a fantastic location to hold a seminar. Every single speaker is world class in his respective discipline and the attendees are in for a real treat.

Hey, do you remember a song from 20 years ago called ‘Pac Man Fever’? Well today I discovered that my friend Mike Stewart, who is here to tape the X10 seminar, played keyboards on that song. Sold a couple million records and got famous. Today I got to do a VH1-esque postmortem on Mike’s music career, which spanned five or six months of unmitigated rock & roll glory.

So what’s Mike doing now? Mike’s is the man behind www.internetaudioguy.com. Plus he’s doing web consulting with local businesses in Atlanta, with some very interesting Google stories lately.

The biggest untapped opportunity in Google right now is *local* ad placement. Google is capable of serving local ads only to people in your city, state or metro area. Well if you search for ‘storm windows’ in Atlanta, you’ll discover there aren’t very many locally targeted ads. And if you sell storm windows, most of your local competitors don’t have the beginning of a clue that it’s possible to get customers on Google.

What most Google advertisers don’t know is that locally targeted ads often get exceptionally high click thru rates. Mike’s got one customer who spends only 15 cents per click, has spent only $400 this year on advertising, and has literally gotten several hundred thousand dollars of business from these ads, no joke.

There usually isn’t a lot of traffic, but the traffic you get is quite good. The ROI on the available visitors can be insanely high.

So consider this: Right now there are Yellow Pages reps and radio reps and newspaper reps, pounding the pavement, soliciting local businesses. And there are lots of web design firms trying to sell web design as well. But if you’re a web designer or marketing consultant, you can undoubtedly bring local businesses new customers for a pennies on the dollar compared to all those ad reps.

The key to marketing these capabilities is: Sell Results, Not Procedures. Sell them new customers, not advertising media. The Internet: Revenge of the Geeks

‘Ever since the beginning, Perry knew he was different from all the other boys and girls.’

Perry was a geek.

Perry was a walking disaster in basketball and couldn’t get a girlfriend to save his life. Remember that song called ‘She Blinded Me with Science’? Same vintage as Pac Man Fever.

Well I related to that song. I knew that I *could* be blinded with science. Easily. Problem was, there was no ‘she’ who was trying to blind me with science in the first place. (Not until Laura came along, anyway.) So I only related to half of the song.

Now it occurs to me that most of my customers are geeks, too. Guys and gals that flunked out of sports and spent a lot of time in detention.

Somehow I don’t think that the folks who get my emails are ex-homecoming queens and student council presidents.

No, this is where the geeks and the people voted ‘least likely to succeed’ congregate. Guys and girls who have ugly yearbook pictures and who were outcasts in school because they could remember odd facts like the capital of Norway.

Today Internet is Revenge of the Misfits. The shoe is on the other foot now, my friends. All the pretty boys and their material girls can keep kissing up to the boss, but the entrepreneurial cowboys and cowgirls are quietly creating cult followings, catering to strange markets and occupying fascinating little niches.

For example, a few months ago I met a guy who sells a business where people paint glow in the dark stars on peoples’ bedroom ceilings. Strangest thing I ever heard of, but apparently it’s growing like gangbusters.

That’s not a high school valedictorian type of business.

That’s a ‘Breakfast Club’ business.

Seriously, that’s what the web is really like. And I’d like to give you something else to think about.

I’ve been to a dozen different countries on six continents, cities all over the world. From Sao Paulo Brazil to Changchun China, from Hannover Germany to Johannesburg and Brisbane.

And you know what?

All big cities look basically the same. With globalization happening at breakneck speed, they’re looking more and more the same with each passing year.

That’s all well and good, but the more equal we all are, the more we need to find a tribe that we can belong to that’s different from our neighbors. The more we are like our neighbors, the more we eat at the same McDonalds and live in the same apartment complex, the more we want to create a new sense of identity in something unique.

The web is the easiest place for people to find that tribe, that niche, that tiny community of like-minded people.

So always remember, especially on the web, that you’re NOT looking for everyone. You’re just looking for folks who totally and completely relate to you on a specific topic, passion or concern.

What do you call a niche that’s so narrow that you have to comb the entire world just to find a few hundred interested people? I didn’t have a name for it, so I invented one: ‘nanoniche.’

Nanoniches are very small, so narrow and spread so thin that only occasionally do people even get together in person. Our audience here at the X10 seminar is a nanoniche, a mere 150 people who are hugging the edge of the curve.

Simon Chen, the organizer, has collected the pre-conference calls for our seminar – all fresh, hot material – and is giving it away.

Stay tuned for more soundbytes in coming days…

Cheers, Mate!

Perry Marshall

Click here for the next installment, “The World’s Most Dangerous Continent”