UKNM: Link Dragon : problems with promotion

[Simon Tew]

Hi All,


Wondering if anyone can come up with some smart ideas to promote a web service.


I've designed and developed a FREE online bookmark manager called Link Dragon, at <http://www.linkdragon.com> - without selling the service to you guys 'n gals too hard it allows you to access your web bookmarks from anywhere on the internet - very useful if you regularly use several computers or even just to backup your links.


There are already some players in this market (they launched end of '99), with page-based services, by which I mean, if you imagine a hierarchy of folders and links, you have to jump to a new page every time you move within the hierarchy, which can be very, very slow. Their interfaces are pretty crappy too.


Link Dragon scores over these services because it isn't page-based - it's rapid and much easier-to-use. However, whereas the other services are minted with VC cash, I have very, very little - my service is better, but that means diddly because I can't promote it, nor can I get VC cash because I don't yet have the user-base.


Link Dragon has had some very positive reviews - it was Site of the Month in PC Pro magazine in the UK for November (?? - why DO computer magazines operate in a time-warp ??) - a magazine with a readership of 165,000ish. 


Rather perplexingly, the number of registrations has hardly changed - we got a much better response from an email newsletter sent out to Java developers when we won an Editor's Choice award from the JARS Java Review Service.


So the question is this - am I wasting my time trying to get (paper-based) journalists to feature Link Dragon ? - they hardly ever respond (obviously they get 1000's of emails a day), but then it occurs to me that unless somebody has the article right by their side whilst they're on the net, even a great review is unlikely to trigger the desired response, i.e. a registration.


I'm thinking that the way to go might be with targetted email, but I have a whole load of concerns about this. Firstly, I hate spam as much as the next person - I swear if I get another email for the Internet Spy I'm going to cry !! 


Whilst I can see the positive side, i.e. email seemed to produce a good response when it came from a reputable source (JARS), I'm very conscious that a campaign like this could (a) alienate large numbers of users and give Link Dragon a bad reputation, and (b) result in a tidal-wave of hate-mail descending on my poor PC.


Does anybody have experience with targetted email to promote a web service ? What was your experience - good ? bad ? indifferent ?


What about the practicalities - how can you organise something like this, and how do you have confidence that your 'targetted email' isn't being handled the same way as the dreaded Internet Spy.


Any comments, suggestions, (and registrations - Link Dragon at http://www.linkdragon.com gratefully received.


Thanks, Simon



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