Today’s thought for
the day is the phrase “There is no such thing as bad publicity”. While the
phrase is often credited to Barnum, Oscar Wilde expressed a similar view when
he said “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked
about.”
In 2011 Three
American academics completed a study into bad publicity and found that ‘because
negative publicity can increase product awareness and accessibility, it can
sometimes have a positive influence on product choice sales.’[1]
I suppose the
important thing here is - what are people saying about you? If it is very
negative then it would usually be better for you if they kept quiet. Unless,
that is, you want to use the negative publicity to your advantage. Think of the
Hans Brinker Hotel that publicises itself as “The Worst Hotel In The world”.[2]
So, exceptions
aside, most companies want and need good publicity and visibility.
And this is why I
am thinking of publicity. Visibility is important for new companies. You need
to build a database of contacts that you can hopefully turn into customers of
the future. Now there are a lot of marketing courses out there that give
excellent advice on how to keep prospective clients happy and engaged but not
how to attract them in the first place.
You could buy in a
list of contacts, but this is banned by most mailing services, who insist your
contacts have agreed to hear from you.
You could use your
database of contacts from your previous customers that you have collected and
added to over a number years. Unfortunately, people change address and don’t
inform you and so when you send a newsletter via a mailing service you find you
get a large bounce back rate and look like a spammer. Or, having opted in to
communications years ago, they have now forgotten that they gave you permission
to write to them and again you look like a spammer. Email addresses and
permissions are, apparently, only considered “good” for six months.
You could use the
contacts you have made networking. Think of all the functions and exhibitions
and workshops and seminars where you have discussed your business and gained
peoples trust and business cards. Verbal agreement to receiving more
information is not, it seems, considered enough to add people to your mailing
list. They need to physically hit the button on your website, assuming you’ve
managed to get them to your website, which says “I opt in”.
So, you collect all
the data and email asking them to visit your website. They ignore you. You
email and ask if they’d like more information from you. Nothing. No-one emails
back. No-one visits the website. You email again, with a cheery note, hope they
are well, ask is there anything you can help them with and would they like to
subscribe to your mailing list? You wait a bit longer but still no-one replies.
No-one hits the link. Nothing. You watch the tumbleweed roll across your
office.
Then you think,
“How about I change it to “You were very interested to hear more from me when
we spoke, so I hope you don’t mind but I’ve included you on my mailing list. If
this is a problem, please let me know””.And now they respond to your call to
action. They can’t wait to email back and demand to be taken off your list!
Negative visibility
it may be but when you have spent weeks/months with no visibility at all at
least you know now people are speaking about you.
So should I be
worried about the publicity this new approach may attract? As the Irish author
and dramatist Brendan Behan is quoted as saying “There's no such thing as bad
publicity except your own obituary.” If you would like to opt in for more information please click here
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