X-Message-Number: 23480
Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 13:50:20 -0500 (EST)
From: Charles Platt <>
Subject: reaching niche markets

Scott Badger writes, regarding the task of finding people who
match the current cryo-profile:

---

> 1) Sense of adventure
> 2) Desire to be free of "set" life
> 3) Quasi-libertarian world-view
> 4) Some knowledge or interest in science and
> technology

Well, maybe. But how do you find enough of these kind
of people to make a marketing campaign worthwhile?

---

Actually this is not such a difficult problem, since many
special interest publications exist. Liberty magazine, Reason
magazine, The Futurist, and so on. Also there are online
discussion forums and Usenet groups.

Unfortunately, so far as I know, no one has ever run a small
advertising campaign in these magazines (which do not charge
very much for ads), and no one has rented mailing lists of
their subscribers.

One of the ironies of cryonics is that hundreds of thousands
of dollars have been spent pursuing the mass audience,
unsuccessfully, but very little attention has been paid to
niche markets. The main reason may be that cryonicists are
dissatisfied with small objectives. However, if the history
of cryonics teaches us anything, it should be that progress
has been slow and incremental. The big-fix mentality has
never achieved substantial results.

---

In response to Kennita Watson's comment, I think it's not so
much a matter of how things are said, but who says them. I
doubt there is any style in which I could pose questions to
CI's CEO which would be acceptable to CI loyalists at this
point.

--CP

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=23480