Does marketing really need to be a measure of how much bull you have to shovel at a potential customer to get them to buy your product?
What if you could make your product or service known and then when someone is ready to buy, they remember you. Yes, I know that flies in the face of all traditional marketing, but we are just talking about “what if’s” right now.
Let’s look at an example. The last time I stepped onto a car lot, I was assaulted by a salesman who was determined to make a hard sale that day. I wasn’t interested in buying that day, I was trying to figure out which car I wanted. Once I figured out which car I wanted, I would be ready to buy.
The salesman was obviously not deterred when I told him this directly, and he continued to harass and even bully me into a decision. That pretty much sealed the deal and I left, not having learned what I wanted to about their cars. I wasn’t ready to buy, period. I didn’t have the money yet, and I still needed to find the right vehicle. Nothing the salesperson was going to say would change my mind on that.
I may have forgotten to mention it, but I am a horrible consumer. I rarely, if ever impulse buy. I get incredibly annoyed when someone tries to sell me something. I want what I want, and if you have that, then great, but if you don’t, then please shut up!
What I need, is a way to match my needs to your product or service, without someone trying to stuff garbage down my throat. I need a way for companies to work WITH me in meeting my needs, not blocking my search with a sales pitch.
I have a client that wants to increase his sales. He has a very good reputation, a great service and happy clients. I recommended to him that he increase his exposure to potential clients, by creating videos, podcasts, and articles to be placed in websites that his potential clients congregate (basic stuff, really). The idea is to put the information that someone is looking for, along their path. This does not mean building a brick wall in their path. It means placing a golden Easter egg on the side of the road where people are looking for Easter eggs.
Instead, he wants to buy a list of names and email and call them until they either buy his product or tell him to go away. Buying a list and working it is easy to do and measure. Creating content that is interesting and appealing to a potential customer is difficult for a lot of people to do. Measuring is getting better. There are new tools that allow you to measure the effectiveness of online marketing this way. It’s not traditional marketing, but more and more people are getting tired of being beaten with a marketing stick.
If you need an example of non-BS marketing, look up John Haydon. I met him while working with a charity organization. When I mentioned that I was new to twitter (at the time), he sent me a booklet and multiple links to more information. This met my needs exactly. He didn’t give me information on Facebook because that’s not what I asked for (I already knew how to build facebook pages just like the OpenSourceMarketer Fan Page). John gave me the information and never brought it up again. No harassing, no sales pitch, nada. I now follow him on Twitter and Facebook. When a client of mine (or myself) needs additional information, I now consider Mr. Haydon to be a prime source.
Its like fly-fishing for new customers rather than harpooning them.
The company who leads the customer to their doorstep is going to have an edge over those who continue along the previous generation’s shoveling methods.
Of course, that means less sales for the guys who sell boot cleaner.
Toff Ward
OpenSourceMarketer
Do what YOU want and get PAID for it!
My colleague, Robert Reynard, and I just returned from 
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