Widgets

Are widgets good or bad investments in a time of marketing scarcity? Widgets—“bits of the Web” you can publish, and give people the means to put on their own sites—have those two seeming advantages usually attributed to viral marketing methods.

• They’re cheap to make.
• They’re cheap to promote.

But these actually should read:

• They might be cheap to make, especially if you don’t need them to be good.
• They’re cheap to promote, especially if you don’t care if they work.

My point is simple. After you get the idea of trying a widget, plan out the entire widget you want to create, cost it—including promotion—and estimate its effect (on traffic, leads, sales, or whatever). If you want to use it virally, make sure it’s cheap enough to make that you’re fine with it having no impact. And if it has to be too cheap to be good, scrap it.