I think John got it right. Retail distribution is expensive, and Pentax cannot win that battle fighting Canon and Nikon where their huge marketing budgets are a tremendous advantage. Guerrilla marketing tactics are called for.
The good reviews of the K-x and K7 give Pentax a rare opportunity to get some online viral marketing. The k-x cool colors can really help as well; they standout from the crowd visually.
As John said, we can all help by including Pentax k information in our Facebooks, Twitters, web photo galleries, etc... (note to self - practice what you preach)
I am always influenced by user reviews on the web stores like Amazon, Newegg, etc..., so we can all contribute with honest, positive reviews.
This forum is what sold me on the K-x. When I went to the Pentax USA website, I got almost nothing about the camera beyond the spec sheet and the short demo. The manual wasn't even available (it's there now.) So I had to dig for answers on DPreview forums and luckily found this forum and all the helpful Pentax fans.
Pentax really needs to step up the web marketing and web support. They need much more on the support and promotion side. Web marketing is very cheap compared to print, radio or TV. You pay for content once. Not for every impression.
Ned's blog and the internally produced videos are great and don't cost much at all. They need more though, and they need to be linked to the Pentax website.
I don't know about other country sites, but Pentaximaging.com (USA), needs to link to all the support material and create more. Manuals, FAQ's, tutorials (is there anything from Pentax on using their software?) At least link to all the good reviews and Pentax communities.
I agree with John about retail. No local presence is a big negative, but I think Pentax will have to live with it. Camera specific stores are getting very rare now anyway, so many people will buy over the web. Not all, but Pentax can grow immensely without covering every buyer profile. If they just do really well in the web segment, they could grow a ton.
Originally posted by johnmflores ...
Finally, I hope that everyone on here is an online ambassador for the brand. I just took the neat ad that someone else posted and posted it to my Facebook profile. It doesn't sound like much, but getting hundreds and thousands of people to do the same can help "move the needle", as it were.
I look at the number of active posts on Photo.net for Canon, Nikon, and Pentax, et. al. The Pentax activity is encouraging - far behind Canikon, understandably, but much closer than you would think considering their single-digit market share. Pentax is also way ahead of Panasonic, Sony, Olympus, and other second-tier players, so there is a lot of passion for the brand. That's encouraging...