Dude, Blog Your Business!

We had one of the best sessions we have ever had at our 3000 Club networking meeting on Friday morning. Tom Hinchey was filling in for group organizer Jimmy Sadre and, fresh with his copy of World Wide Rave, decided that instead of the usual 30 second elevator pitches we would try to get our fellow members more focused on some ‘new marketing‘ approaches using those all important ‘buyer personas‘.

I have to say, I think everyone really learned something from the exercise – so much so in fact that Tom and I are planning to do some seminars on the topic in the near future. We started with David Meerman Scott’s premise that “no-one is interested in your products except you” and tried to come up with an idea of who each person’s ideal buyer persona is and how they can help them. It is surprising how simple a concept and exercise this is and, perhaps, unsurprising how new a concept this is to a lot of small business owners.

As we worked through each person’s attempts my critiques earned me a new nickname – “Simon” – after Simon Cowell of American Idol fame – the British accent must have been a factor in this I suspect (although they did say that I was a lot nicer with my comments than Simon Cowell is!).

It is powerful stuff for those that have struggled along with the old methods of marketing and Tom and I are most grateful to David Meerman Scott for giving us the tools to help our fellow small business. The sheer power of the ‘buyer persona’ stories that were coming out, compared to the old 30 second elevator pitch, was something to behold. What a difference!

Tom and I managed to high-tail it back from our regular Friday 3000 Club networking meeting in time to see a very good webinar by Mike Volpe of Hubspot and David Meerman Scott, Viral Marketing Strategist and author of the forthcoming book ‘World Wide Rave‘.  Viral Marketing is the holy grail of online marketing – “creating triggers that will get millions of other people to share your story and ideas”- without coercion – and without “the tyranny of having to spend money”.  

Viral marketing is very much what Dude Blog Your Business and Hinchey Studios are currently working on for a new client – watch this space.  Video, Tom Hinchey’s province, is very much the medium for viral marketing, and blogs are the platform that allows those videos to be shared and talked about.  The combination of the two things together is powerful enough, but add a touch of humor and creativity and we might just come up with something that people will be raving about.

Suitably inspired, I have put my pre-order in on Amazon for World Wide Rave, by David Meerman Scott. The book is due out on March 3rd and is published by John Wiley and Sons. I then twittered the fact and shortly after David Meerman Scott started following our Twitter! How cool is that!