Marketing Tips from a Marketing Agency: Be disruptive

It would only stand to reason that a marketing & branding agency would be pretty good at branding and marketing itself.

So I thought it might be fun to explore some branding & marketing concepts using our own agency, McLellan Marketing Group, as the guinea pig.

Be disruptive

Voicemail Marketing isn’t always about the big campaign.  Sometimes it is taking something simple or expected and turning it on its ear.  Earlier in this series, we talked about how we approach business cards.  Being disruptive seems to be an MMG given. It’s certainly what we do with our voice mail.  If you call our office, while we’re transferring your call — you’re going to be asked a question.

So, let’s say you hit my extension (17 by the way) and you expect elevator music, silence or a sales pitch. Instead you’re going to hear me asking…"while we transfer your call, ponder this.  What tagline best describes your personal brand?  Be ready to tell us why…"

Not only do we  learn quite a bit about our callers, but the Q&A helps define our brand.  We ask a lot of questions, so we might as well set the expectation now.

But the biggest value in our voicemail tactic — it’s disruptive.  It surprises people and it’s something they talk about.  It says, "these people do things differently."

Now maybe you can’t mess with your company’s voice mail system but come on, you can be disruptive some place, some how. 

How can you cause a buzzworthy disruption?
 

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

8 comments on “Marketing Tips from a Marketing Agency: Be disruptive

  1. Dan Schawbel says:

    Being disruptive really works with buzz marketing, especially when your creative and can disrupt a major event with a marketing attempt.

  2. That’s a great idea!

    Maybe this could be an idea for a future blog, but I’d like to get hear your thoughts on agencies that care too much about being in design annuals. Just because the design community thinks your great doesn’t mean the piece helped the client. In the book “Your Marketing Sucks” the author says to fire your agency if they enter design contests.

  3. It’s pretty simple really. You have to get their attention and even more importantly, you have to keep it and it has to resonate.

  4. Dan,

    One of the cool things about disruption is that it doesn’t have to be elaborate or big. It just has to be noticeable.

    It’s an important element to include in the plan, for sure.

    Drew

  5. Brett,

    Now don’t sell yourself short. You know your audience and what their tolerance is. Much of disruption marketing is about understanding where the edge of tolerance is…and pushing yourself to that limit.

    Or, in our case with the voicemail — does it align with your brand. We ask a lot, and I mean a lot of questions. So it makes sense that we’d begin every interaction with one.

    Drew

  6. Mike,

    Thanks for the comment and the post suggestion. I will tackle awards and agencies fascination with them.

    As you know — all too often awards shows are based on pretty, not results. That doesn’t mean the piece served the client.

    Drew

  7. Katie,

    The resonnate part is the area where most companies suffer, I think. They can get someone’s attention but then what?

    And all too often, how the tactic interacts with the brand is not addressed.

    So simple to us, but as I am sure you’d seen — not so simple for most companies.

    Drew

  8. Singapore —

    Thank you very much. Glad to have you here!

    Drew

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *