“I walk into a large group of people and start yelling positive things, affirmations, and then end with my URL.”
That is a marketing strategy I heard the other day. I told the guy I thought that was the bravest strategy I’d ever heard. And craziest.
He added that it didn’t work all that well. No surprise there. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it because what he did is classic interruption marketing at its most basic. He entertained you (or at least got your attention) and then ended with a commercial.
Sure, there’s a difference between this guy and watching a TV spot someone spent $200,000 in production costs to get your attention and deliver their message in the middle of The Daily Show. But there’re doing the same thing.
Sometimes to understand a thing you need to reduce it to its lowest denominator. On one end, a slick spot on your favorite TV show. On the other, some guy starts yelling in a crowd and ends with his URL. Interruption marketing at its ‘finest’ and ‘worst’.
So the question then becomes, what does this reduced-to-its-lowest-denominator exercise teach? Interruption marketing makes no sense.
What makes sense:
Content marketing, or, attraction marketing. And search marketing, or, context marketing. Attraction marketing: creating value for others with the content you create, attracting them to you. Context marketing: placing your ad where and when someone is searching for what you do.
Think about this the next time you are considering a form of interruption marketing such as a print ad in an industry publication, trade show, direct mail, and the like. And think about it the next time a marketing consultant recommends you hire a new employee to manage Google AdWords and write blog posts, LinkedIn articles, Facebook updates and the like.
