X-Message-Number: 4252
Date: 20 Apr 95 02:44:08 EDT
From: Jim Davidson <>
Subject: Marketing statistics

The information posted about actual returns from several _Omni_ magazine 
articles on cryonics sent me back to the textbooks to review some 
statistics.  Obviously, my suppositions about how much response would 
come from an article was off by an order of magnitude, which I found 
disturbing.

Chatting with one of my former professors who has already forgotten more 
about marketing than I've learned, brought up an interesting constraint.  
The response rates typical for articles or advertisements are strongly 
affected by product cycle.  Since cyronics is still very early in the 
product cycle, it is unable at present to attain typical response rates.

Here's how the product life cycle works:
A new concept or product is brought to market.  For cryonics, we can say 
that this happened about 30 years ago.  The people who first respond to 
the new product are called innovators.  This category of the total 
marketplace represents less than 5% of the population.  Innovators try 
new things, as their name implies.  They are "opinion leaders," whose 
views of a product are closely watched by another major group.  (Some
people innovate in one industry, but follow the trends in others, so
a given person might be an innovator in computers, but not in health care.)

The early adopters are about 15 to 20% of the population, with 
considerable variance by industry.  These folks watch the innovators to 
see what is new and interesting.  Depending on the product, the early 
adopters may take from 2 months to 20 years to pick up the idea and 
start buying into the product.  Cryonics has begun to move into this 
category of the market, but has not made major inroads.

A product may be said to have "peaked" when it has captured the early 
adopters and has moved into the vast majority who may be termed late 
adopters.  These more conservative folks are waiting for an idea to 
catch on, preferably so the cost will come down.  They represent about 
50% of the total marketplace.  Finally, the balance of the market is 
the very conservative group which only buys a new product once it has 
gained widespread acceptance.  A product getting a share of this last 
category may be said to be a "mature" product.

Sales tend to increase geometrically through the product life cycle, 
with a very slow start among early adopters, a major lift when early 
adopters kick in, a slope change when the late adopters kick in, a peak 
in the middle of this category, and a slow drop off after the peak.  
Here's a view:

  |    v
V |    | 
o |    |       ------
l |    |      /       \
u |    |     /           \
m |    |    /               \
e |    |   /                    \
  |    |  /                         ------
  |    | /
  |    / 
  |  / | 
   /___|______________________________________________
       |        Time>>

The vertical line market "v" above indicates the crossover from innovators
to early adopters.  Cryonics has recently reached this point in the 
product life cycle. It may be another 10 years before it reaches the next
milestone and begins to move into the late adopters market category.

With regard to the _Omni_ articles, the standard response rates apply only
to that portion of the market that is currently paying attention to the
cryonics market.  Thus, we should expect 1.5% to 2% response, but only 
from around 5% of the market.

As an increasing number of innovators sign-up, a larger number of early
adopters will become interested.  This also accounts for the long time it
takes many folks to move from first contact with a cryonics group to
actually signing up.  I, for one, have been in contact with a cryonics
group since 1990, and am only now getting my insurance paperwork
completed so I can sign up.  Five years.  I consider myself to be an
early adopter, and not an innovator; were I an innovator, I would have
signed up years ago.

Unfortunately, to show a 1.5% to 2% response rate from a magazine article,
cryonics will have to be well past the late adopters...which won't be for
many years to come.

There is good news in all this:  if we have reached the slope change
represented by the transition from innovators to early adopters, we'll
see increasing returns from all marketing efforts.

Jim


Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=4252