<i>It took me five years to figure out (a) I needed a story and (b) what the story was. It's hard. But one story beats a pile of AdWords A/B tests.</i><p>I have found that there are 2 kinds of stories: classes and instances...<p>Class: "X can solve problem Y using our product."<p>Instances:<p>"Acme saved $30,000 per month by figuring out how to better load their trucks using our optimization software."<p>"The Smith family had their first ever reunion when John and Linda Smith realized how easy our family organizing software was."<p>"Jones Gifts doubled their sales in 3 months using our bolt-on e-commerce solution."<p>The class is good. The instance is better. People love stories and the instance is a real story, while the class is the framework for a potential story. The class is a commercial; the instance is a testimonial. Also, an example cuts through all the clutter right to the reader's reptilian brain. Naturally, the closer the instance is to the reader's situation, the better.<p>OP's story was a class. I would have loved to hear a few instances of that class: some real stories about people who got real benefit from his product. People naturally want to know about other people.
Maybe I'm old school, but I think it comes down to work.<p>When I was the publicity directory of a college radio station at a small school, I'd put up 300-400 letter-sized posters to promote a dance with maybe 7-8 distinct designs. This would change the appearance of the campus and pack the house.<p>A lot of people, doing the same job, would put up 10 or 20 posters of the same design and waste more energy vociferously defending their right to be lazy and that "everybody will see them" than it would take to just make all the designs and walk around putting the signs up.<p>The main reason people fail at SEO and SMO is that they radically underestimate how much work is required to succeed. That's good news for people who do work hard, because out of 20 potential competitors, 18 of them are easy to beat.
"Yes, you're going to do those things, but since millions of other people are doing that too, you're still invisible. Visibility-fail. Anyone-gives-a-crap-fail."<p>Hmmm..., I think we can say millions of people do (or will do in the near future) the methods you describe. I don't see why are those methods harder to do than the methods you categorize as default stuff.<p>I think what is hard is product market fit. You say:<p>"Ask a technical founder about his startup, and he'll proudly describe his stunning software — simple, compelling, useful, fun."<p>I think mostly this is the most important stuff unless someone is really incompetent at marketing. I think a really good product cannot win without any marketing, but a really good product can win with 'routine' marketing.<p>Product market fit is always important. Whether even technical merits are very important depends on how hard the problem technically is. Why there are no other machine tranlators than Google Translate? Because they have bad marketing? No, because the problem is incredibly hard technically.
Or, if you're not VC-funded, just start small and grow organically by word of mouth, if it's truly a good idea? Rather than try to hit a home run at launch? That also gives you more time to ramp up for demand, as you learn how to do it.<p>That's certainly the approach I plan to take...
<i>While everyone else is mucking about with a new blog...we're years ahead in the marketing war.</i><p>So, we should "tell [our] story" but we'll really just be "mucking about"?
The greater lesson in here is to stay on top of the times, to differentiate yoursef:<p>> The obvious problem is that every new startup on Earth says exactly these things. Nowadays the "strategy" above sounds the same as:<p>>> "We'll have a website so people can read about us."<p>>> "We'll have an email address so people can communicate with us without picking up the phone."<p>> Yes, you're going to do those things, but since millions of other people are doing that too, you're still invisible. Visibility-fail. Anyone-gives-a-crap-fail.<p>I've certainly been guilty of thinking this way, but that example certainly casts such 'strategies' in a different light...