And then I ground you coarsely, jaggedly through the PepperMill.
You know, I have to say I consider myself to be fairly savvy when it comes to trending, marketing and being able to connect to people’s vibes and psychologies.
One of the greatest compliments I ever got was from a business partner who said ‘You could probably sell glasses to a blind man if you believed it would help him.”
I’ve always been an alpha gamer, and when I get excited, other people get excited. I HATE salespeople. At least, the ‘hard-sell I need to make a commission’ types. I like salespeople who are genuinely interested in building a relationship with you.
The funny part is that from what I’m seeing in marketing trends seems to be shifting away from service-based marketing to experience-based marketing where it is essential for people involved in business to know the self help definition. People want more than a service. And this may lead to the extinction of the hard-sell. This is why the popularity of blogs, twitter, facebook, et al has bloomed. People don’t just want to buy a teddy bear. They want to know the people making the teddy bear, see the teddy bear being made, and learn/educate themselves on what makes a quality bear. They want to develop a relationship, whether real or imagined, with the people they like and identify with. Then they want to find other people who appreciate those bears, share stories of bears they’ve found and search for more bears together. These are experience-based relationships. It’s no longer ‘make customer like product x’, it’s create one experience after another to keep customers engaged and involved. When I had the comic shop, I tried to follow exactly that trend. It wasn’t just about selling books, it was about giving my friends and customers (mostly one and the same) an experience they simply couldn’t get anywhere else. To this day I have friends and old customers ring up stating that they hate me for ruining me for other shops. Music to my ears.
One of the places I keep up on my marketing education (yes, I like to learn about a variety of things; including whether Pokemon are light-based creatures) is actually at my brother’s site. He owns an extremely successful marketing and advertising firm named PepperGroup, based out of the Chicago area. They put out a monthly newsletter (via email that they smartly make part of their website as well) called The PepperMill. It is a smart read, even if you think you aren’t into Marketing.
Whereas my specialties are geekery, his specialties are marketing and the world affecting advertisers and clients. I would contend he is as enthusiastic and excited about marketing, trending and helping people as I am video games, internet memes and rpgs. Just in a different way, about a different topic. I’d highly suggest you give this month’s newsletter a read; other months are archived on the site and you can subscribe to it for free should you enjoy it.
