Don’t Force The Conversation

Posted on | August 31, 2009 | 1 Comment

Recently I read an article from Never Stop Marketing (click to read), and Jer brought up the point of product placements in movies and how when it appeared natural it worked excellently, but when it doesn’t your left with a bad impression (far worse than no impression).

This got to to think about how we approach marketing, and what businesses to often try to do – Force the conversation -

Many business try – and by try I mean spend the big bucks – to get you to listen to them. “These are all the reasons you should buy this, or here is everyone using our products don’t they look happy.” And, when you have a multi-million dollar budget, this strategy can, (AND DOES) work. But what happens if you don’t have that kind of money, or you want to better use that money and attracted more business?

You don’t force, you engage!

You get to first know who is using or may use your product/service. Then, you talk with them, but more importantly as your talking you listen (to-way conversation) and if they do make a recommendation you actually consider it (not ever recommendation will be put into action, but if people know they are heard, and then explained why something isn’t going to be changed – generally they’re ok with that)

You also don’t close yourself out from the conversation – but allow it to sometimes slow as you can talk about your business all the time.

Finally, with this new modern age, you can engage people where they fell more comfortable (aka, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin) but respect when they really just want to check up with friends and family.

- Now there are a load of excellent books that talk about this exact subject, but the best resource goes back to the point made in Never Stop Marketing – go and watch a movie and see if the product placement is forced or natural and see which one you like more.

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