Leapfroggers

Traditionally, marketers for tech gadgets ignore late adopters such as me. The standard practice is to lure the early adopters who in turn create buzz, eventually persuading the masses. The recent Wired article, Clive Thompson on Why Gadget Makers Should Target Late Adopters, makes a case for why marketers may want to rethink this strategy and show people like me a little love.

Marketing academic Jacob Goldenberg’s recent work suggests that laggards, which make up about 16% of the population, are a crucial high tech demographic for marketers because of their “leapfrogging” tendencies. Laggards may hold out on buying every new product on the market, but when they get around to buying they often skip several generations of products and end up leapfrogging ahead to the latest and greatest version.

According to Goldenberg, the economic impact of converting leapfrogging laggards is huge and can really drive profits. Also, word-of-mouth endorsements from these late adopters are especially powerful (i.e. “If Erin is using this thing, it must be easy and accessible”)!

Thinking about this potential shift in marketing strategy, I wonder what it may take for tech marketers to effectively reach me. They would have to meet me where I am, which until recently was not tech blogs. More mainstream avenues, perhaps my favorite New York or Lucky magazines, might be more effective. The message would have to be simple, emphasizing how the new product or service would add value to my life—I won’t be sold on cool, new features, because I likely won’t understand how I benefit from them. Speak my language.

Many late adopters like me have the motto, “if it ain’t broke…” and the lens “is this worth my while?”—show us that it is worthwhile, give us a fair price and you may win us over after all.