Breakaway from the Broken-Record Approach
admin, May 24, 2012
By now, if you're reading me, you understand online marketing is marketing in essence. Marketing involves relating to people. People can be creatures of routine; yet, life is not so pragmatic. Exceptions do and will always exist; people are extremely dynamic as well as routine.
How many interests do you have? I'll assume you have more than one. Imagine if you only had one topic of interest. That's all you would think, hear, and speak upon? That would be incredibly…vanilla.
Media
Mix up the media. Take advantage of a plethora of tools available in the marketing world. Stop writing (all the time) to convey your brand's messages. Information is what browsers seek; it doesn’t have to be written information.
When I was a teacher, I had to be diligent in regard to how I presented information to subsets of students. Some people are visual learners; others are audio learners; other people can't really 'get' something until they actively attend to a matter in physical form… Think about the theory of multiple learning styles.
Let's take a look at some examples:
Audio Interview:
Here, WebiMax CEO, Ken Wisnefski supplies information through phone interview scenarios. The brand could issue the sentiments in written format; yet, the interview allows users to engage the marketing material via auditory means.
Video
SEOmoz issues a lot of content, much of it written; but, the brand issues video posts on a weekly basis. The audio and video cues offer something different from the purely-textual norm. People have preferences. For instance, I'd rather read text; but, that's me. Many people rather listen to audio or have it combined with visual cues.
Info-graphic
Info-graphics can really make an impact. I see them as 'business comics.' Somewhat of an oxymoron, yes; but, you can see how the emphasis on visual cues and the de-emphasis of textual information can make for an intriguing synergy. The Blue Glass brand recently did an info-graphic for Forbes; the graphics really complement the textual information.
Comics
Before the info-graphic was born; publishers aligned pictures and text together in comics. 'Comics' have an entertainment connotation to them; but, that's okay. It's okay to both entertain and educate. Ask any high school teacher. Peter Attia often mixes comics in with his posts. The 'jokes' are relevant to his blog's target market.
Let Someone Else Hold the Pen
Julie Joyce of Link Fish Media recently let me write a copywriting guest post on her brand's blog. It's much appreciated and allows my writing and brand to reach more people.
Don't forget to look for information-suppliers existing outside of your brand. Yes! That's right. Stop playing the same in-house songs; mix things up a bit. Ask others to guest on your site. It gives your site and browsers a breath of fresh air, which is always championed by people; remember- we are all dynamic! New is often exciting. Dare to be a bit different; or, you can continue to your regularly (boring) scheduled content programming.