I’m a big believer in old school sales letters. Those that they say there’s a new order don’t really know that the majority of the principles still work, with the odd adaptation to the online blogging, social and electronic media that makes this an exciting time for direct marketeers.

One interesting thing I’ve discovered, purely by accident is “not selling”.

I entered a period where it wouldn’t be good to take on new clients - we were fully committed.

Not doing any marketing felt a little un-natural. So instead I thought I’d do a little research and get some feedback on our competitors.

I sent an email saying (paraphrased)

“You don’t use us, so you’re ideal to ask this question - what’s great about your current IT support company?

We’re looking to improve in 2008 and it would be great to find out what people love about our competitors.”

It did better than most of the previous campaigns I had done. Got replies along the lines “I can’t name anything good aboutour IT support company - can you quote me?”

I’m still in a phase where we can;t really take on any clients. That campaign forced me to recruit another engineer and we’re working through the responses still - against our nature, not following up as we would ordinarily do in case they say yes.

The thrust of my marketing this year will be focused on “not selling”.

And word-of-mouth.

But underpinned by making the service better than the rest (which it arguably is, but you can’t get complacent”.

Ian Denny’s last blog post..Campaign Against Rude Bloggers - And A Call To Action

Every man appears to have a pathway to the information superhighway….