From a pragmatic point of view, most small business owners are in the game of trying to peddle our wares to new frontiers every once in a while. Yet, how many of you actually enjoy receiving those bulk emails, often via proxies such as "infusion soft", inviting us to look at this product, click on this link, waste our time being told what wonderful things will happen if we spend our money here. How many of us like being called in the middle of the working day to listen to the dulcet tones of someone reading off a card (and often getting upset if they are not allowed to finish reading their card)?
Personally, I've got to the point where I am contemplating filtering the word "infusion" out of my mailbox (which will be a double downer for anyone trying to sell me herbal teas!). As a case example, there is a US based teacher whom I used to follow via her weekly newsletters. She then got in with marketing professionals who obviously told her to push, push, push. The emails went over to infusion soft and within a month I unsubscribed because I was sick of being told what wonderful products I could buy. As a more close to hand case study, most of you will know I run a little music on the side. Everytime I make a pushy announcement on facebook that I have a new album on sale or that I've got new tour dates, my friend list goes down, by just a few.
So as I do not end in a sea of despair, where does this leave us? Daniel Priestley is correct to point out that Key People do not often need to advertise - work, influence, flows in and out of them without any seeming effort. This is true of a certain mastering engineer I know who did my albums - £000,000s of studio and I don't even think he has a website. In the UK, I think we are becoming more push-savvy and less tolerant to the card reading salesperson. I am increasingly becoming in favour of pull marketing instead - develop relationships, be seen to be present online and offline, offer your targets free information and products.
What are your experiences?
I am the owner of Opal Flame Consultancy, providing expert technical authoring, research and education for the engineering and construction sectors. My mission is to "create with excellence and authenticity" and look laterally across organisations to give them a stronger operational base.
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