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Marketing 101: Stop pushing people for attention

By Jim Connolly | November 2, 2013

marketing tips, marketing ideas, sales

Here’s a quick piece of advice, to help you massively improve your marketing results.

Drum roll please…

Stop pushing people to get their attention!

If you are walking down the street and a stranger deliberately pushes you, they WILL get your attention. Of course, the attention you are giving them is 100% negative, because people don’t like being pushed.

If your marketing is based on pushing people, you can expect the same negative attention from the marketplace. Yes, prospective clients or customers will notice you, but for all the wrong reasons.

Common types of pushy marketing include:

  • Adding you, without your permission, to their newsletter list.
  • Sending you unwanted email offers, which you never asked for.
  • Cold calling you, because they don’t give a crap how busy you are.
  • Pestering you to follow them on social networks.

Effective marketing is about attracting targeted sales and inquiries from interested people. Pushing causes the exact opposite to happen. It looks needy too!

Your industry is filled with people offering the same type of service, making the same kind of promises, for the same kind of fees… to the same prospective customers. Little wonder then, that they have to battle to get people’s attention.

Here’s what we know works

Give people a story about your product or service, which they will want to share. {My story gets shared daily, by people who think that the way I deliver my service is unique enough to talk about}.

Each of the initial people who feel compelled to talk about your business, will spread the word. If your story is interesting enough, those new people will also share it too. Soon, everyone in your marketplace is talking about you.

Here’s what doesn’t work

Relentlessly pushing a predictable product or service, which fails to inspire people… hoping to pester your way to their hearts.

In short: If we have to keep pushing our message, because too few people are sharing it, it’s time to make what we’re doing more attractive – not make our marketing more annoying.

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Hi! I'm Jim Connolly and I help small business owners to increase sales, boost their profits and build amazing businesses. Read more here.

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