You had me at the 150th hello
The other day I found myself at free credit report dot com, jingle running through my head, hoping I could save my credit from the fate of the poor guy on TV who can’t buy a cool car, has to work at a Renaissance Fair to pay off debts he didn’t know he had and was facing a divorce because he didn’t know his fiance was a financial disaster until after they married.
The commercials are ubiquitous, obnoxious and completely memorable, at least to me. They nagged at me until I took action, and, as such, represent a successful ad campaign. I hate to admit it, but VistaPrint and personalized M&Ms promotions wear me down as well. I have haphazardly spent more than a hundred bucks buying the “FREE PRODUCTS!” from VistaPrint, and I finally broke down and created personalized M&Ms for marketing — I swear they ended up costing me a buck an M.
I’m a certified cheapskate, and I don’t part with my money lightly, so for these ads to work, I know they must be doing something right. A few weeks ago, I wrote about salespeople approaches that turn me off, but these multimedia, passive-aggressive onslaughts of jingles, sales, savings and benefits keep reaching out and tend to work on me.
My question: is it just me, or do you tend to cave after a while? Perhaps you’ve purchased a ShamWow, but you throw rocks at the TV when the free credit report guy starts lipsynching. How do you finally come to the conclusion that you need to contact a certain vendor or service provider to fill a need you have? Or, better yet, under what circumstances do you find a business telling you about a need you didn’t know you had (i.e. — who the hell needs personalized M&Ms?)? And how do we as small business owners replicate these campaigns without becoming obnoxious?
Instead of relentless emails and blinking offers, I tend to send out “Hey, here’s some ideas for your business, and I’m still here!” emails about once every 45 days. I also try to stay active (but not obsessed) with networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, hoping that people will remember my name when an appropriate need arises. So far my approach keeps me pretty busy. Just yesterday a Twitter contact asked for my contact info to give to her team for a possible freelance job. She’s a fellow runner, and she and I exchange hellos now and again. If it pans out, it’ll more than pay for the labor I’ve put into updating Twitter.
You, my readers, are consumers as well as business professionals. What should small business owners like freelancers do?
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Rebecca Smith on 01 Sep 2009 at 5:23 am #
Thanks, Beth, now I’ll be humming that damn jingle all day!
But seriously: When it comes to marketing SmithWriting, I rely on tried and true networking through business events and conferences, targeted emails, and, yes, the occasional cold call (always geared toward someone who I believe could really use our writing services).
Until I can write and (gasp!) sing a really catchy tune like indebted bad hair guy, I’ll stick to old-fashioned, get-out-and-meet-people marketing. So far, it’s worked for me!