All Marketing Works
May 21st, 2007 by Dominic Canterbury
That’s right. Anything and everything that makes people aware of your business, no matter how ridiculous or annoying, WILL get you clients and get you sales.
You know that chicken suit you’ve always wanted to wear, well you go put it on and grab a piece of cardboard and scribble out your business name and phone number and rush right out to the nearest strip mall, and you DANCE, dance with wild abandon. Get some flashing lights while you’re at it. It don’t matter if you’re a lawyer, a writer or an internet startup because that sh*t is gonna work!
I should point out though, that just because it works doesn’t mean it’s worth doing.
As with all marketing, you get exactly who you target, and though you may not know it, your Chicken-Suit Strategy IS targeting someone. But who? Who would be attracted to you just because you stole a moment of their attention? Especially these days when it takes just a few minutes to find relevant and credible information on just about anything we could imagine spending money on.
As I see it, Chicken-Suiting is highly effective at targeting the lazy and the desperate. And it’s also great at filtering out all the rest.
So if you love working with the lazy and/or desperate, then by all means, grab attention by any means necessary. Send out mail pieces just to remind people you’re there. Email them canned newsletters. Put your face on shopping carts. Think outside the box — spray paint your URL on the sidewalk.
You may end up spending far more (renting costumes or paying legal fees) than you’d ever get from your clients, but by-golly those lazy-desperate clients will stumble to you like zombies to brains (Thanks goes to copywriter Chris Haddad for the witty line.
So why does chicken-suiting appeal to the lazy-desperate? Because, due to their disposition, you are relevant. You are right there. Their search is over.
The fundamental principle here is this: Relevance attracts.
So if the lazy-desperate types are not your cup of tea, you might want to consider developing ways to be relevant to the kind of clients you do want. Start by defining the kind of people you want, then ask yourself what they would want from someone like you. Next, put it all together to give them the relevance they crave. The more relevant you become, the more they will want to hear from you, and the more they will spread the word about you.