I’ll make you a bet. The next time you see a “Target Market” slide in an investor pitch deck or a marketing overview that has more than 50,000 companies or users or prospects, you buy me an iced Americano at your favorite coffee shop. If the number is less than 50,000 then I’ll buy.
Why is 50,000 the magic number?
Whether you like it or not, social media has opened up your customer support lines to the world at large. If I can’t get your attention, or I just don’t like the way my support was handled, I just have to put my complaint into a 140 character tweet and add your company’s hashtag. If you’re not on Twitter, I’ll create a hashtag for you.
Millions of examples abound.
Here’s how the game is played:
One of my most important rules in life is “different is always better.” If you’re trying to do what everyone else is doing–with your product, with your message, with your hair style–then you’re boring. And boring isn’t going to drive a lot of success in your life.
Unfortunately, it’s not advice that’s always easy to follow. So here are three ideas to get you going.
I can now scan my breakfast fruit.
You can scan my business card as well. At the risk of sounding quite shallow, the main reason I added a QR code to my card is because it is a cool conversation piece. I get a lot of comments when I hand them out; however, there are a lot of great reasons to add QR codes to your campaigns and collateral as well.
Here are 10 of my favorite and most compelling ways to use QR codes.
I do something that I think is a little unique with my clients and friends and I wanted to share that idea with all of you. It’s simple, but old fashioned enough to stand out.
A while ago I was playing a mens doubles tennis match against a duo that was collectively 150 pounds heavier than my partner and me. The points on our side of the net were won with a lot of running, tight angles, drop shots and finesse. The points on their side of the net were won with blistering forehands aimed right at our faces. I think I still have a mark on my forehead that says “ProPenn 4.”
At the end of the very close match–each set went to a tie break–one of their players said, “That was like a battle of the piano players versus the piano movers.”
That’s kind of like lead nurturing.
A client asked me this morning, “if you could only do one marketing tactic, what would that tactic be?” I told him telephone calls. At which I think I heard him choke on his morning latte.
I’m sure he was hoping I’d say social media. Perhaps a nice video campaign. Or at least email. Something elegant and fun. Those are all great. Those things all significantly increase the effectiveness of your integrated marketing strategy. But if I only had one thing I could do, I would make a ton of calls.
I’d win ugly.