on impositions.
I was watching the Obama infomercial last night, when I received a call from a charity hockey game, asking if I was interested in buying tickets or taking donations. I generally follow my father's example in these situations, which more or less means being polite, hearing them out until I know what they want, and then saying 'No, thank you' ad infinitum until I feel justified in hanging up.
The first thing the woman said to me was 'It's nice to hear a pleasant voice, everyone either hangs up or yells at me.'
This would have been said, but she was essentially opening everything with an imposition at 8:05pm. Irritation is acceptable. But it's difficult to build an outreach and awareness campaign without any imposition whatsoever. 'Permission marketing' is a good idea, but it's also based on existing awareness of a product or service, or a transactional 'for permission you get this newsletter/trinket/exclusive widget' model. People need a core reason to hunt you down, merely offering things for them to learn about or try isn't enough.
Options include being remarkable, indispensable, or controversial.
Another option is to, carefully, impose on people. It's irritating, bothersome, and increasingly being screened out. But the funny thing is, a carefully targeted, remarkable / indispensable / controversial imposition is rarely considered as such.
If someone had called me at that time with a request for funds related to someone I care about deeply, or to ask if I was interested in receiving a package with information on something I care about, I probably would have considered talking to them.
This is why it all comes down to targeting for me. Targeting offers the chance to make impositions, on a consumer level, obsolete. Given, of course, that what you have on offer is of sufficient value to offset the irritation of a ringing phone or unsolicited email.
2 comments:
Disagree. The difference with those types of solicitations is that they prevent you from doing whatever you were trying to do at the time, because the focus of your attention is occupied with determining what they are hawking, and then whether or not it is of any value to you. Passive advertising is much more acceptable. I get called by the Seattle Post on a weekly basis, and each call results in my saying "I'm not interested" and hanging up as soon as they say "I'm from the Seattle Post". I have no interest in their product, and any increase in the duration of that call is wasting both of our time in the name of politeness over which a transaction is never going to occur.
You'd think they would get the hint.
One would hope they get the hint. That was also more or less my point, that reaching out to people about stuff they don't want ends in irritation.
I don't mind getting an email or call if it's regarding something I actually care about.
And while passive advertising is less invasive, it's also less involving. I often note that I like an ad, then realize I don't know what it was for.
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