How to Do Marketing Your Audience Will Love
It seems to be a universal fact that everyone hates telemarketers. That includes telemarketers. While the sheer doggedness of telemarketing generates a certain level of sales, it is not the foundation atop which you will want to build your business. What you want is a marketing model that does not annoy and alienate your audience.
When it comes to marketing, there are more ways to do it wrong than to do it right. You are already familiar with many of the worst ways to market your product or service. There is stiff competition for the worst marketing ideas ever. Here are just a few you should avoid at all cost:
- Email spam
- Text spam
- Campaigns tied to controversial people or topics
- Pop-up ads
- Auto-play video
Every one of these methods is transparently desperate. You don’t want to be anywhere near ad campaigns that use these methods. The first reaction your audience will have to these methods is frustration, with outright anger soon to follow. They will become highly motivated to retaliate by installing an ad blocker and producing negative word of mouth about your offerings. No positive benefits you get from these methods are worth the blowback.
What you need are marketing ideas that do not enrage the audience. It is a mistake to assume that people do not like advertising. The best marketing campaigns become sought-after content against which other advertising is placed. If you want your marketing efforts to be the ones people look forward to, try the following:
Trade Shows
There are a number of trade shows, conventions, and expos that are open to the public. Those are places where people are hoping to find well-marketed products and services that grab their attention. This is the moment for your creative team to shine. A custom canopy can make the difference between being noticed and sinking into trade show obscurity.
Any quality guides to audience engagement will tell you that high-quality content is key. What you may not realize is that quality content begins with your signage. A sign is more than a splash of color and a logo. It can also contain short, scannable bites of information that convert a casual glance to a profitable conversation. Remember, at trade shows, your audience is looking for you.
Contests and Giveaways
A lot of people will be drawn to your company for no better reason than you gave something away for free. Promotional giveaways don’t even have to be your product. It can be someone else’s. What you are buying with the contest is good will and positive feelings associated with your company. You are also gaining audience, at least for a while. What you do with that short-term attention is entirely up to you.
Giveaways do not have to be expensive. To draw attention to your YouTube channel or blog, you can give away a popular iPhone case. That’s $40 worth of marketing that you can parlay into something else. A contest can be a writing contest with a grand prize of being published on your site. You don’t have to give away a new car or offer a million dollars to get a bit of positive attention for what you are doing. Best of all, your audience will love you for it.
Followup
What people love even more than a good contest is a sense that someone cares about them after the sale. This can be done by a simple followup email that thanks the customer for their business. In the followup email, you can offer to answer any questions they might have. And before signing off, you can mention another product that they might also like.
This is also a good time to offer a discount on the next purchase, one that can also be passed on to family and friends. That is one corporate email your customers will be happy to see in the inbox.
Marketing is hard. and marketers are often not the most beloved in our society. But some manage to break through by doing the kind of marketing people actually enjoy. That includes trade show marketing, giveaways, and thoughtful followup after a sale. The same ideas can help keep you on the positive side of the marketing equation.