If you’ve never experienced the brilliance of Matthew Inman then please drop everything and check out the Oatmeal now.
In case you’re not familiar with Matthew, he’s the former CTO of SEOmoz and an all around tech nerd who’s been building websites for over a decade.
…But most people know him for producing ridiculous comics with titles like ‘How a Web Design Goes Straight to Hell‘.
Not Just Comics…We’re Talking About Epiphanies
I’m obsessed with online guerrilla marketing, so when I first started reading the Oatmeal I got a laugh out of it, but then I started wondering how this guy Matthew managed to build such a massive following using simple web tools like Adobe Fireworks.
Turns out to be a pretty simple formula that we can all emulate in our own special way. Inman just figured out that we all get pissed by the same types of things, like people who speak too loud at the movie theater or freelance clients who make unrealistic demands of our time and talent. Simple, right?
The thing is, Matthew has done this before. He founded and built dating site called Mingle2 in 66.5 hours from start to finish (the amount of coding this requires and small amount of time to completion is mind blowing). That’s not the cool part.
No, the cool part is how he marketed the site using a spoof called ‘Zombie Harmony‘. It’s a funny gag on traditional online dating that attracted a huge amount of viral traffic and boosted the parent site up the Google rankings.
So what’s the point of this story?
Grabbing website views isn’t simply a function of optimizing a post with lots of keywords, it requires solving a problem that your targeted demographic have in common.
Stress is a Niche Market
I read a solid article on Copyblogger today that focused on reasons people don’t visit your website, including marketing to a demographic, not a niche. This is a reason Inman succeeds so fabulously. It doesn’t matter if you’re a techie or a middle aged housewife — people who find humor in stressful situations is a niche.
So how can you target a niche using the same tools Matthew does? Well, maybe you don’t want to. It might be a better idea to create YouTube videos or have some fun being a smart ass like Maddox. Find the best way to communicate for you, something that can turn into an enjoyable hobby.
But what if you really, truly and passionately want to publish your own comic?
- Download a free copy of Adobe Fireworks or just use Photoshop
- Invest time story boarding before you waste hours with photo technology
- Share your creation on Digg, Reddit, your blog and social networks like Facebook
I hope you enjoyed a look into the world of guerrilla marketing created by Matthew Inman. Love him or hate him, his work has gained him enough attention to turn a hobby into a profitable career. Gotta respect that!