Your business can’t survive if no one knows about it.
When I was designing SMARTSTART, I went back and forth in my mind about whether or not to call this particular core competency Marketing or Buzz. After giving it much thought, I decided marketing is a business building activity more appropriately addressed under Strategy, Planning, and Processes. The core competency that must be mastered for your marketing to have an impact is being able to generate buzz.
In my experience, you can use any number of great marketing strategies in your attempts to generate sales; however, if you haven’t mastered how to get people talking about you, your products, and your business, that marketing is going to be impotent and unsatisfying in terms of results. And that’s why I ultimately decided to go with Buzz.
Buzz originally referred to oral communication (as in getting people talking to one another about you/your business). The arrival of social media has truly expanded that definition to include all forms of online and online communication. This intensifies the critical need for you to become highly adept at creating buzz. Your ability to start a conversation to fuel awareness of your existence and influence a person’s receptiveness to purchasing your products and services determines your likelihood of business success more than ever now.
There are many tactics you can use to generate buzz. For any to succeed you’ll need a context in which to use them. We’ll start by looking at six things that push people’s buttons — a technique you can use to get conversations started:
- the extraordinary or unusual
[do either apply to your products and services, their origin or creator?] - the forbidden or risque (especially sex, politics and religion)
[is there a taboo association that is appropriate, desired, or worth the risk to you?] - the ridiculous (the more outrageous the better)
[outrageousness for its own sake never works but if there’s a connection that can be made, try it!] - the hidden, unknown, or restricted
[secrets and exclusivity are irresistible — it’s our human nature to respond] - the amusing or laughable (humour doesn’t always translate to hilarity)
[humour isn’t easy to pull off, but it really works well if you do it right] - the notable (or otherwise remarkable)
[to get people talking, give them something to talk about — easier said than done, but effective!]
Today’s question is, “which button do you want to push first?”