Marksonland

Many industries have hit-making down to a science. Hollywood is a good example - from the script to the the cast to the production to the testing to the release to the marketing to the distribution - every step of the way, calculated decisions are made that are designed to maximize a movies success. Same can be said for cheeseburgers, toothpaste, autos, etc. They know what it takes to make a hit and they pursue it. They might not always get it right, but there is some research and science to the choices that are made.

Notice all of those examples I gave are offline. What about online? As far as I can tell there are only three real online hitmaking "strategies": SEM/ SEO, viral and syphoning (taking your existing traffic and using promotion on your site to "syphon" it off to a new product (ex. Checkout links on the home page of Google.) I put "strategies" in quotes above, because, aside from SEM, it's hard to build a science around any of these.

Not much help offline for the online world either. Offline campaigns seem to be better suited for brand maintenance than initial hitmaking. Maybe a Superbowl ad will lead to a spike in traffic, but what's the what's the CPC? Or more importantly, what's the CPM (factoring in return user count)?

Even traditional hitmakers can't figure this out. Newspapers and record companies use to tell us who the rich and famous were - the folks we were supposed to fear and envy. Now these behemoth's have less say online than some random bloggers.

So how do you make a hit? Unless you can put science around viral, or can find yourself in the good graces of the Google Star Chamber, as far as I can tell TBD for now. And SEM/ SEO become mandatory marketing classes in business school....

Update: like I said, it's hard to put science around viral....