Marketing should be driven off of a core consumer insight. But that insight also has to be differentiating, and ownable. If not, you are just advertising your category online, and all it takes is someone with a bigger budget and better creative to co-opt your position.
 
That insight has been one of the sufferings between online brands and brands that have gone online. When you interact with a traditional brand, say your coffee, the smell, the taste, the warmth of the cup, the crinkle of the cup holder... all of those are assaults on your senses that contribute to your experience, and assist in branding that product. Online brands are devoid of such visceral experiences and thus bow more to the whims of your advertising.
 
Don't just go and parrot back what people say about the effectiveness of this type of marketing program or another. Don't even listen to me. Your strategy should be just that-- strategy. I am tired of people repeating internet tactic after tactic to me and calling it strategy. That is reactionary. This is the internet. We are supposed to be revolutionary, or at least evolutionary.

And please don't just throw around marketing terms and buzzwords without understanding. First seek to understand; then seek to be understood. Otherwise, you might as well just go ahead and start a viral marketing program on a social networking site that targets the technical influencer…

Let me know how it all works out.