We’ve all experienced it at one time or another – that uncontrollable urge to spend time or money on the latest gizmo, app, online tool, trick or offer. Remember Dug, the adorable talking golden retriever from Pixar Disney’s movie, Up, who in the midst of conversation would become distracted and exclaim, “Squirrel!?” You may chuckle, but Shiny Object Syndrome (SOS) occurs all the time, including in our marketing.
We are inundated with more than 2000 marketing interruptions per day – whether it be print, radio or TV advertisements, emails we need to sift through despite our filters, banner ads on the websites we visit, billboards we pass on the way in to work. It is a very crowded marketplace and it gets more and more challenging to get your message to your potential customer. So why not allow them to find you more easily? This is the premise of “inbound marketing” – using Google, social media outlets, blogs and other methods to get people to find you. We recommend two excellent books on the topic: Inbound Marketing by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah (founders of Hubspot), and Twitter Marketing: An Hour a Day, by one of our colleagues (and clients) Hollis Thomases, owner of Web Ad.vantage. While the adage “It’s not what you say, it’s what others say about you” is true to a large degree, we would also argue that you had better, indeed, have something substantive to say. You can tweet and blog and reference key search terms ’til the cows come home, but if potential clients land on your website and find little relevant content, a cluttered or crowded site, or an amateur design, you can be sure that they won’t come back. While Halligan and Shah devote a chapter to creating remarkable content, they don’t emphasize enough about the importance of branding and design.
Just read an interesting article in Advertising Age that had my attention. Thought I’d share it and see what you all think.
