Truly great marketing isn’t just about getting attention and coverage. It’s not just about improving a business’ reputation, or improving your visibility. Rather, truly great marketing is about creating a narrative, getting people to care and getting people invested in your business. Great marketing is about making people feel like they know you, and getting them excited about your products and services. And there’s one simple secret to doing this: getting them involved.
How to Make People a Part of Your Vision
So how do you go about doing this and making people feel like they’re a part of your vision and your mission statement?
Well one example of this is to get them to help you create something – whether that’s something small or something major that’s a crucial part of your business.
For instance, imagine getting an e-mail from a business in your inbox. Rather than the usual ‘50% OFF SALE’, the subject line reads ‘Saw your website, here’s a great business opportunity’ or ‘We need designers for a BIG project!’. Either way that’s more interesting because it’s asking for help and because it sounds like a legitimate opportunity. People who have websites will open it thinking it’s a personal message and everyone will be at least intrigued by what’s going on.
Next the e-mail might describe a challenge to create the best logo for the website in exchange for a cash prize and of course a lot of exposure as a designer. For any professional with skills, or for anyone who likes being creative for a bit of fun, this will seem like a great opportunity to test their abilities and to potentially get something for it – it’s still a lot more interesting than 50% OFF.
The Extra Benefits
Now you’ll probably get thousands of responses to this, and each one of those will see your website and spend time looking around at it for inspiration: all potential new customers for you. But there are many more benefits to this strategy too. For one, you’re going to get a whole load of free logos, any of which you could then potentially use. At the same time, people who can’t draw or don’t have a website might pass it on to their friends and websites and magazines might cover the story for the benefit of their readers – this has big viral potential.
At the same time though, research has shown that asking favours is one of the best ways to make someone like you (in business and personal relationships). The reason is that after doing the favour, we then assume that we must like that person in order to have helped them for free. This cognitive dissonance is solved on an unconscious level and we go away liking that person or brand more.
But more to the point, they will feel like they are a part of your business. While working on the logo they will feel invested in what you’re doing and like you’re working towards a common goal – which will win you a huge amount of loyalty compared to any other marketing method.
There are of course other ways to get people involved with your business too. Speak to your internet marketing services and see what they can help you come up with.
Michael Anderson, the author of this post, is a project manager at Vayu Media, well known providers of internet marketing services. Michael is a tech enthusiast and an avid blogger. You can connect with his team on Google+ and Facebook and have a look at their profile on LinkedIn.