Now that's what I call...

Here's the thing:

If you want to sell something, people that might buy it need to know about it. Which automatically wipes out a good chunk of the population: them to poor to purchase it.

Granted, I've seen people starve themselves for things they felt they "couldn't live without," but that decreases the likelihood that your customer will stick around, and I feel pretty certain that, within the confines of this argument, I won't advocate starvation.

What to do with this significant portion of the populace, one that has a section of it that isn't always poor (see also: college students, temporarily unemployed... etc). You want to market to them, obviously. Keep them hooked if they already are, get them if they aren't.

But you don't want to waste alot of resources doing so... what do you do?

Well, college students are pretty easy. They've got special vectors you can address (do a show at the student center, giveaways for signing, departmental deals (such as HP supplying the computer labs), etc)

The remaining poor, well, there's pamphlets and such, but that kinda sucks. How about giving serious discounts to goverment agencies to distribute your goods to the poor? Maybe even a loss?

Tried that, hunh?

Well, what about dealers on the corner, and give the first one away? I've heard that works.