Almost any event is a potential marketing opportunity. Of course, you don’t want to get tacky or annoying, as anything taken to extremes will backfire. However, you should always be asking yourself, “How can I turn this into a marketing opportunity?”
Recent examples from my own businesses:
1. Making a marketing opportunity out of something bad that happens to you. This week I invited subscribers to my newsletter to a free tele-conference about my most recent book. Lots of people came. But someone I managed to disconnect myself twice during the call. Guess how many books I sold after the call? (If your guess is higher than 0, you are incorrect).
So I wrote up a long summary of the call and sent it to subscribers on my list, as a bonus to those who couldn’t attend. That sold some books/programs.
2. Making a marketing opportunity out of something good that happens. Last night you may have seen Edner Cherry win the featured boxing match on ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights. One of the trainers on my Boxing Fitness Institute website helped get Edwin into shape, and was in his corner. So that’s a great opportunity! I sent out a mailing to the newsletter list of the Boxing site congratulating Edwin and the trainer, and letting people know more about the trainer’s Certification program on the site.
3. Piggy-backing on holidays or events. It’s Mother’s Day tomorrow. I have two sites catering to parents. So I sent out a very low-key, non-salesy email to the mailing lists for these sites wishing everyone a happy day and celebrating Motherhood (with a message from one of my partners who is a mother to twins). We didn’t sell anything here, to contrast ourselves to all those flower sites making pitches for mother’s day gifts.
What examples can you share?
Andrew Neitlich
