Chapter 78
Chapter 78 Originator
For a new product, whether it is powerful or not is only one aspect. The key is to be stable, so that users can use it with confidence, and there will be no phenomena such as lost emails, freezes, or garbled characters, so that users can use it.
Song Yang looked at the Hotmail e-mail in front of him. When he came last time, there were some changes in appearance, and there were more functions such as calendar and email search, but overall it was an improvement from the previous version.
Different from the double-click company, Hotmail e-mail is completely oriented to the general public. It is an Internet product like Netscape and Yahoo. Only users and traffic can prove the success of Hotmail e-mail!
In the small conference room of the Hotmail project department, Song Yang, Greg, Irene, Wesley and other executives from the original double-click company gathered here.
Although the signs are different, in fact, the executives on both sides of the double-click and Hotmail email boxes are basically the same group of people.
To put it mildly, this is nostalgia. To put it bluntly, it is a lack of talents. Apart from these few people, there is Ryan who is far away in New York. Song Yang has no one available under his command.
In the conference room, except for Wesley who was excited, thinking about the feat of Hotmail email box being born and sweeping the mailbox market, Greke and Irene had calm faces. Their expectations for Hotmail email box were not to be honest. too high.
This project is also led by Song Yang, but no one has ever tried whether the free mailbox can make a profit, so naturally there is some concern.
Compared with the double-click company, which relied on digital advertising to make money from the start, no one can tell what the Hotmail e-mail box will become under the banner of free, not to mention trying to attract users. Take a look at Netscape , Yahoo, AOL, etc., in order to attract new users, you can know how difficult it is by how much advertising costs are spent!
"Are you sure you can open the public beta and open registration on time?"
As soon as he came up, Song Yang asked Wesley first, whether he could go online on time is the key, otherwise, it would be a waste of effort to be blinded by hype.
Wesley gritted his teeth, "No problem, Hotmail email can go online first, and then update the version to improve functions and loopholes!"
This is because the development is not working, and updates are needed to make up for it. However, the people who play this set are not the Hotmail e-mail family. It is still the same sentence, as the world's first web mail, you can use Hotmail e-mail on any computer in the world. Mailbox, instead of sending emails only at home or in the company through a specially installed computer client as before.
Hotmail e-mail is the only one that can do this among all the e-mail products in the world. This is a seller's market, and users have no choice but to obediently enter the Hotmail e-mail plate.
"From now on, we will start to fully promote Hotmail e-mail. We want to make Hotmail the largest e-mail in America in the shortest possible time!" Song Yang said to the crowd.
After the voice fell, Irene was the first to speak, "How much money do we need to invest in promotion? The server cost of Hotmail email is very high. If we promote it on a large scale, we need to rent more servers."
This time, Greg didn't have a hard time with Irene. On the contrary, he agreed with Irene's words. The main funding for the Hotmail email project is the five million dollars from Wang An's company.
It may seem like a lot, but after the development costs, labor costs, leasing servers, and purchasing patents and technologies from other companies, basically two-fifths of the funds have been burned, and the remaining money, if only If it develops steadily, it will definitely be fine, but if it burns money to promote it, it may not be able to last for a month.
"Promotion doesn't have to cost a lot of money!"
Hearing that Irene and Greg had doubts about the promotion funds, Song Yang thought for a while and said that he was going to let Hotmail email play tricks this time.
Greg, Irene, and Wesley all looked at Song Yang with the same puzzled face. They didn't know what Song Yang meant, let alone the Internet industry was burning money to advertise, and they didn't look at those cars, TVs, luxury goods, etc. The product is also desperately advertising.
"Now Internet users are all over the world, it is impossible for us to put advertisements in every place in the world!
Instead of trying our best to find those people, let users find them themselves! "
Song Yang first looked at Wesley, "Can you give Hotmail an e-mail address, every e-mail you send will have a link attached, and add a sentence, "This e-mail is from Hotmail, now you can use your free Hotmail e-mail ", through this link, go directly to the Hotmail e-mail page?"
This sentence and the link seem inconspicuous and useless, but for users who have not been exposed to Internet routines and have not been severely beaten by the Internet industry, they will never doubt this link.
This is the primary way of viral marketing. As long as a user uses a Hotmail email address, the person who receives the email sent by the user can receive the email with the link, allowing the user to send the email to relatives and friends for the Hotmail email address. publicity!
Wesley hesitated for a moment. Attaching a link at the end of the user's email may be suspected of playing around with privacy.
It is still a reckless era, and the speed of Internet development far exceeds the speed of federal law formulation.
Just like e-mail, in regions all over the world including America, there is no official statement on whether e-mail is recognized, whether documents, contracts, notification documents, etc. sent by e-mail have legal effect, let alone these side Trifles.
"Technically no problem!"
Wesley gritted his teeth and said to Song Yang, at worst, he would be caught and sued in the federal court, but it was just a formality, and at most he would be fined some money. It is basically impossible to expect him to be imprisoned by this!
Song Yang nodded to Wesley, and then said to Irene and the others, "In addition to attaching a link at the end of the email, the Hotmail email box implements an invitation system this time, that is, it does not directly open registration to users. Users who successfully register for Hotmail e-mail will have five invitation quotas, and can invite others to register for Hotmail e-mail, and this invitation system will be adopted until the end of the year!"
This is to tantalise. On the surface, it seems that it is not open to the outside world. In fact, it is not up to Hotmail to decide how many invitation codes to put in, but if you say that a routine is a routine, it does not depend on the depth. Anyway, the half-covered in the early stage This kind of behavior has never appeared on the Internet before, and it will definitely attract a lot of people to flock to it, and the less you get it, the more commotion...
At this moment, Greg really felt that he was out of step with the times. The two propaganda methods Song Yang mentioned completely subverted his imagination.
But looking at Irene and Wesley who were also stunned, Greg suddenly felt that it was not only him, but the two of them were not much better.
After a while, Irene finally fully understood Song Yang's routine. Behind the thick glasses, she looked at Song Yang's face with strange eyes. Originally, Irene felt that Song Yang might have the talent for the Internet. But Irene had to admit now that there might really be geniuses in the world.
Whether it is the link attached to the email or the so-called invitation system, it is all about the control of human nature. Irene, who has learned countless routines in the business school of the University of Houston, also has to admit that this brand-new, human-oriented routine, Maybe it will create a miracle. If Hotmail e-mail becomes successful, then these two publicity methods will also enter the classic case of MBA.
Looking at Song Yang who was explaining to the crowd, Irene had an inexplicable look in her eyes. It wasn't until she heard her name that Irene suddenly came back to her senses.
Song Yang didn't know what happened to Irene who was looking straight at him. Irene used to be very calm, let alone bring up things about God.
"Irene, go talk to all the partners of Double-Click Company, and use Hotmail for all business dealings in the future!"
Irene, who was mentioned by Song Yang, bowed her head and hurriedly ran out. After leaving the small conference room, Irene felt her face was hot and her heart was beating more violently than usual. She turned her head to the conference room After taking a look, Irene didn't dare to stay any longer, and ran away in a hurry.
Although it is necessary to use routine marketing, the resources that should be used must be used naturally. Customers like Double-Click Company, whether they are advertising companies or Internet companies, can become the first users of Hotmail e-mail. business market.
If Hotmail e-mail can develop this time, then Hotmail can be regarded as the originator of routine marketing accounts!
After the meeting, all the people started to get busy. Song Yang also called Jotus and told him that the Hotmail e-mail box will be launched soon, and Wang An's company will also cooperate with the promotion.
Then they called the two trumpet players, Kevin Kelly of Wired Magazine and Professor Tristan, and asked them to become the first batch of internal test users of Hotmail email, and then began to praise Hotmail email!
Because of the need to adopt a routine, the Hotmail e-mail was not promoted in the media with great fanfare on the day it was launched, but this does not mean that Hotmail's publicity is weak. Indirect or direct contact with it!
(end of this chapter)