Is your marketing shouting at people?
If you go into Starbucks today and start shouting at the people around you, you will definitely grab their attention. However, it’s not the kind of attention you want to attract. Many small businesses use a very similar approach with their marketing. In an effort to capture attention, they act in a way that gets them noticed, but for all the wrong reasons.
They not only fail to generate new business; they can permanently damage the reputation of their business too.
Some examples of how companies shout at people with their sales and marketing:
- Adding people to their newsletter list, without permission. It’s spam.
- Spamming people on Twitter.
- Meeting people at networking events and using that transparent crap; “tell me about your business and how I can help you.” Wake up, it’s not 1985 any more!
- Asking people to join their Linkedin network, claiming they worked with them (when both parties know it’s a lie.)
- Unwanted telemarketing calls to people’s homes at 8pm. Just what you need when getting a young child to sleep or relaxing after a hard day.
In marketing, it’s easy to confuse movement with progress. People see that they need to win more business and they know that they must do something – quickly! So, they do what they hope will generate the new business they need.
The marketing challenge here, is that just because we can do something, doesn’t mean we should. Just because we can pay someone to spam 500,000 people with a marketing email from us, doesn’t mean it will generate anything positive. Yes, you can waste half your life attending the same networking events, with the same people, all there to sell, none there to buy – but it’s massively ineffective.
Thankfully, we each have the freedom to make our own choices about the way we market our products and services. If we use our freedom of choice wisely, our success is guaranteed.