With no money for marketing, but a passion for technology, Nicholas launched Epic Beer online in May 2006. Today, through online-word-of-mouth alone, his turnover is more than $1 million a year, up a massive 200% in the last 12 months, and climbing. “It’s just been insane,” he says. When the online community find you and like you, he explains, they are not only loyal customers, they are your best salespeople.

There’s a lot of trial and error involved in establishing which online communication methods work best, says Nicholas. “And different audiences, using different channels, want different types of updates at different frequencies.” For example, whenever he adds a new supermarket to his stock list, usually at the request of a customer, he publicises it through a Twitter micro-blog, which lets users flick followers short messages and photos. Fans of the beer follow his movements and pass the word on to friends.

“It’s just bizarre. I always get a response from someone new saying, ‘That’s my local, thanks very much,’” says Nicholas. He keeps in touch with his growing band of online fans as often as four to five times a week on Twitter, updates his blog a few times a month, and sends to his email database about four to five times a year.

But he shuns traditional marketing practices: he ran an advert in the Ponsonby News once and got zero return from what he says was a pretty costly outlay. It just doesn’t suit his product, he says. A six-pack of Epic Beer costs between $18 and $20, so the price point is at the high end of the market. “Most people won’t put that sort of money into trialling something they don’t know. So I’m all about word-of-mouth and trial.”

He let his online community know he would be testing a new beer at the Auckland Food Show, but would only give it to those who asked for it by name – Armageddon. Having run websites before, he was surprised about a dozen people turned up requesting a taste of the new beer. Usually a 1% to 2% response is good, so to have a dozen people make their way to the Food Show for a 30ml slurp of beer was pretty amazing, he says.

David Seaman, a self-proclaimed “promotional stunt-planner” in the US and author of Dirty Little Secrets of Buzz, says marketing yourself online is all about getting yourself noticed. “In order for something to take off, it has to be something you want your friends to talk about. Unless you are offering something really unique, you have to advertise, you have to spend those millions of dollars, because there’s no way people will talk about you unless you do. What’s so interesting about a bank, for example?”

A nifty way for businesses to get themselves talked about online is through offering free stuff, says Seaman. Take authors, for example. Traditionally they offer a page or two of their book, but that’s not enough: they should offer 40 pages so people get hooked. “You have to be smart about it. It’s not about size, it’s about who you are hitting.” You want to reach people who understand what your business is about and will buy into it.