Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Social marketing is great (except for selling stuff)


from dribbleglass.com


It's no secret that I have a low opinion about actual results from social marketing. Not saying it has not benefits, not by a long shot. I love meeting new people online and I love seeing what other people do to make a living. I love sharing experiences with like minded people.


But as a means to sell products, I think we do better using traditional advertising. I think the reason people are jumping on the social marketing bandwagon has a lot more to do with the fact that it is fun and interesting. Meeting people online presents no threats to ourselves, not like using telemarketing for example where people hang up on you or snarl back "on your birthday!"


Or, possible even less enjoyable, is selling door-to-door, business-to-business. I used to do that when I sold commercial insurance. Believe it or not I learned to enjoy it except for the fact that I actually had to leave the house where I was even comfortable with the phone nearby. The hard fact was that I would always make some sort of sale, sometimes two or three sales, dong just 4 hours of door-to-door marketing near my house.


I bet if you had the cojones (to borrow an explative from a lady ex-governor from Alaska) to call 100 businesses, you would come away with one good sale, one sale that would make you a bundle of dough. It might take you eight hours to reach 100 business decision makers, but then your eventual profit could be $1,000 or more.


Ask yourself, how long do I have to do social marketing to earn $1,000. I bet the answer is far more than eight hours.


What do you think?


Greg Cryns

Website marketing and SEO - ask me about the $200 website that can outperform the $20,000 website
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