Chris Brogan makes a simple and great point about not slowing down your media during the holidays.
He says,
“You can slow down, but don’t let your media slow down. Why? Because your community and/or your audience are quick to find replacements, because they come to rely on your media as part of their diet, because every post is an advertisement for what you do best. ”
Chris Brogan, Chrisbrogan.com
So is your marketing on holiday?
Yes, some of your prospects may not physically be at the office and past experience might tell you that summer is a bad time for marketing campaigns.
But, times have changed, slowing down your entire marketing operation at this time is a bad mistake!
Why? Because your fiercest competitor (the ones gritting their teeth and fighting for survival) are not backing off your customers. And some of your brightests prospects, the ones you really want to demo your product to, are still at work (bored by the lack of activity in the office).
So maybe, just maybe, this is prime time for your marketing campaigns. The economy is showing signs of life, your prospects might be slowing down off their work just enough to spare the time to talk to you and, really… marketing technology allows you to schedule entire campaigns in advance (so you can still enjoy the holidays).
Just this week, we sent out a follow-up reminder to our multi-channel education video campaign and within a day, we already had about 55% of prospects open and read the email message. That’s almost double the response we traditionally get.
Now, wouldn’t you say that maybe its time to get off your chair and prepare that multi-channel marketing campaign?
(Via Twitter from @APKOB) New employee Jack Kilby “Invented” the microchip while his collegues were on summer vacation http://bit.ly/m3Evo
(Via Twitter from @KarenScharf) Totally agree mktg should NOT slow down. Best part is, as competitors slow down, it’s a great chance for you to really stand out!
(Via Twitter from @MarkGallucci) Great blog post, so true. A little ‘dead air’ can lose a lot of interest quickly.
Tweet this Post:
Some great points here. It is amazing to me that people tend to go to sleep during this time of the year, when they should, at the very least, be building brand recognition.
This is like saying a sales person shouldn’t bother making a cold-call at during lunch time because nobody is at their desk. Or that an entrepreneur shouldn’t start a company during a recession. The reality is that I have made (and connected) with plenty of prospects at lunch time and many great companies (including Microsoft) were started during recessions. The best time to market is while everyone else is either asleep or on defense. Tools like Fuse take away any excuse for not connecting with prospects and customers…regardless of whether it’s lunch time, holiday, or a recession. Keep up the good work guys!
I agree with Jeff: you should find a way to interact with your customers all the more when your competition is likely scaling back, whether it’s a passing holiday or a lingering recession. All these new tools you guys suggest for pre-building a campaign and auto-launching it when you’re ready… the content creative side of me gets all Pavlovian (yes, I drool) when I get to use things like that, as they not only help me schedule content delivery while I’m away, they help me plan and execute a better overall campaign for having provided a platform for me to build the content outside the tension of a launch countdown.
Now, let me comment as a copywriter: the trick to effective holiday marketing, I find, is to prioritize the relationship you have with your customer (and the potential for relationship with your prospects) and make holiday touches warmer. You can still bring up an offer that’s running, or a new product/service that’s launched… just let it be within the context of a message that creates fresh, emotional connection that reminds a reader why he likes doing business with you. This is, in a sense, another “social marketing” channel–so use it to introduce your audience to other ways they can interact with you; cross-link to your new product’s Facebook page, your CEO’s twitter stream, your user group’s YouTube “how to” playlist. And always, always, make it clear that you value the reader’s time all the more for having a few moments of it during a holiday. Thank them, and leave them thinking, “hey, for a marketing touch, that was pretty nice.”
All great points. It is always intriguing to me how the true innovators always find a way to succeed in spite of the economy and in spite of what everyone else is saying they should do.
@Ken, all marketers should strive to get that impact from campaigns. “For a marketing touch, that was pretty nice.”
@Jeff, thanks for the compliments. Our goal with the platform is to make marketing more effective and make implementing campaigns a simpler and more automated process.