No one likes being interrupted — especially when you are trying to catch the latest episode of Blacklist or read an article online. For years, marketers have used an interruption-based method for marketing through newspaper, radio, and television. These traditional methods employ invasive advertising tactics like direct mail, junk email, spam, pop-ups, and large print ads.
What have consumers done in response to these invasive methods? Blocked, filtered, deleted, pitched, and ignored. There are even filtering options that allow you to view things “ad-free,” and pop-up blockers that keep annoying spam off our browser. Yet marketers are still coming up with new ways to push their ads out; consequently, they push away their customers as well.
If people don’t like being interrupted, why are marketers still shouting at their consumers? My advice is to let the consumers do the talking through the power of recommendation.
To understand why recommendations work, let’s look at a real-life scenario. Say you receive an invitation to a party in the mail. The design is appealing, the information is clear, and it looks like a good time. You’ve never met the person who sent it to you, however, and you’re sure you won’t know anyone else at the party. Now, let’s say your friend hands you a different invitation, which is looks just as appealing, and asks you if you want to go to the party with him. Which scenario are you most likely to accept? Personally speaking, even if I’d received five invitations to the first party, I’d much rather go to the one my friend invited me to.
I’ve seen many marketers who waste thousands of dollars on traditional invasive methods of marketing. Marketing has never been one-sided. Like any form of communication, it’s a two-way street that requires conversation and feedback between consumer and businesses.
The real profit is in the recommendations and interactions that grow around your online presence.
In my next post, I’ll talk about the main ideas behind recommendation marketing, and what that means for your staffing firm. In the meantime, if you have any questions or need assistance, please feel free to contact us. You can also join the conversation by liking ASJ Partners on Facebook, or following us on Twitter.
