Ancient lore states that a vampire must ask permission before entering your house. This means that if they want a chance at entering your home to drink your blood, they must fairly earn it. With grace, charm, and commitment, they will try to get you to allow them entrance.
So, is this strategy really that different from those used by today’s marketers? With grace, charm, commitment, and a little persuasion you may find yourself becoming interested in their brand, service, or product and supporting their continued success. In fact, you may even want to invite this product or service into your home. Why is it then that so many marketers miss the mark when it comes to this shining opportunity?
What does it take for marketers to win your support?
I follow a popular guy on LinkedIn. Let’s call him “the editor”. He has great content that resonates with me, and I engage with it often. As the editor of a major publication, he gets a million inquiries from people wanting things from him every week.
In my opinion, his message is clear: Be honest and earn it. No tricks, no lies, be supportive of my work and I will be supportive of you.
He always responds to personal messages and is willing to have a discussion on topics of mutual interest. My interactions with him have been nothing short of amazing. For example, I once reached out for some advice and he responded in moments.
For the above reasons, he has earned my attention and my support. And because of these great interactions, I don’t mind if a message were ever to hit my inbox — Whether it’s a message from him or from a fellow entrepreneur who name drops him.
Lessons in Interactive Marketing
Since I sometimes interact with popular accounts like the editor, marketers might feel like I could be interested in supporting them too. And since we probably share similar professional interests, they may be right!
Admittedly, the bulk of these marketers have less popularity-power and experience than the editor does. Yet, some of their interactive marketing strategies have been questionable at best.
I completely understand desiring to sell your product through emails, the direct message box or a comment on a post.
Interactions With Marketers
Marketer #1
The first example comes from a person who asked me to listen to his podcast. He took the time to make the message feel personal and painted himself as ever a supporter of people in the business world. He also name dropped the editor he knows I appreciate. So, I set aside some time to listen to the podcast and provided some positive feedback.
Even though I didn’t love the part in the middle where he tries to peddle his course, he still got me to listen to his podcast and interact with him. Sure there may be more he could do to reach a larger audience, but I feel like he got the ball rolling in the right direction. At the end of the day, his approach was enough to get me to do what he asked.
Afterwards, I reached back out to give him feedback on his podcast. The personal messaging stopped altogether. No “thanks for listening” – just crickets. It left me feeling duped. He had personally asked for my support and my time, and I had given it to him with no response.
Marketer #2
Next up is a personal message sent to me by a fellow entrepreneur. The conversation went something like this:
“I saw that you were interacting with the editor.” I said, “yes, he’s a great guy! I’m glad to support him.” His only response was a link to his book about how to build a successful business.
Based on this interaction, it was clear to me that he must have skimmed over a few sections in my LinkedIn profile. If he had shown a real interest in speaking with me, earning my support, and making a sale, he might have noticed from my page that I’ve got a lot of experience in successfully launching many businesses.
Still, I firmly believe that there’s always something new to learn to keep your skills sharp. Even though I know this guy probably won’t teach me anything new, I politely replied to his message, nonetheless.
I stated I didn’t know if I was the exact audience for his book, but I was happy to purchase, read it, and offer support as a fellow entrepreneur. When no response came neither did my purchase.
Marketer #3
The next example comes from a message I received from a woman on Instagram. She asked me if I could please take a moment to listen to her podcast. She made me feel like we were warm networking connections.
As such I was happy to listen to her podcast, but since it had been a topic on my mind I decided to ask her a question.
Around this time, I had just started one of my own. It was a huge fear of mine so I asked her how to get over the fear of putting myself out there. This message was again met with no response.
The ROI for your time is huge
These marketers who found me based on my interactions with the editor must not listen to his message. I find this ironic because the editor spells out exactly how to properly and fairly engage with someone almost daily, yet they ignored all these rules. He talks a lot about people who email him. They either lie, or they are way off target. He uses the emails as examples to teach others.
The rules of gaining support for your brand, business, or services aren’t that hard. For example, I follow the editor because I support him. He in turn does not feel as if he’s too good or too big to respond to personal messages. I am ok with the random sales direct message but the issue I see is acting like a friend and then flipping the script. Come in selling or come in as a friend don’t put one before the other.
I may not be Elon Musk, but I did start a nationally recognized business. I often get messages, emails, and phone calls from people I don’t know. I always make it a point to set time aside to chat with these folks. This is because I believe that in life we pay. We pay people with our time and resources.
Never forget that an email is a payment — that email was time from someone else’s life they have given or paid to you. If you are going to message an inbox especially under the guise of personal approach, you should always be prepared to interact back. Otherwise, you leave the other party feeling like a peasant that should buy your wares, but they should also stay at arm’s length along with the rest of the crowd.
In short. If a vampire must earn his way in, so should you marketers.
