Self Replicating Awesomeness – The Marketing of No Marketing

ByBecky McCray

Self Replicating Awesomeness – The Marketing of No Marketing was an odd title for a panel, but it was an interesting discussion. Here are the thoughts of six amazing marketers talking about a different way of marketing.

“When we talk about marketing, we mean bad marketing, because good marketing you don’t notice.”
Parmet

“Either you understand that you don’t exist without said customers, or you don’t and it’s in your DNA. No blog or bling or swag will change that.”
Schultz

“The more I give away, the more I get.”
Hunt

“They are not your community.”
“I didn’t really think of the people drinking the wine as ‘the Stormhoek Community.’ They were just cool people having fun with the wine.”
MacLeod

Larger companies are starting to listen to customers who complain. Why aren’t you also listening to the ones who love you? Talk and listen, especially as a small company, so that it is ingrained as you grow.
Schultz

What Doc Searls called the “Because Effect.” We are giving it away because that’s helping us make more somewhere else.
Heuer

Marketing is moving away from our message (i.e. Come Fly the Friendly Skies) to being about you. (i.e. You’re cool. Here’s some wine.)
MacLeod

Follow up and tell the stories of the people you interact with. The people who received Stormhoek Wine were asked to send back pics of their wine parties. Those pics were shared on Flickr.
Schultz

If your product is too expensive or tough to give away demos or samples, then think of creating social objects that are cool/relevant/free and give them away.
MacLeod

The iProspect CEO Frederick Markini said, “The brands with the best storytellers win.”
Heuer

Nothing replaces listening.
Schultz

Read Heuer’s own summary at The Golden Rules of Marketing.

Panel Participants:

New to SmallBizSurvival.com? Take the Guided Tour. Like what you see? Get our updates. Want more stories? Read our shared stories from all over.

  • About the Author
  • Latest by this Author
Becky McCray wearing long braids and a professional outfit smiles as she stands on a rural downtown street with twinkling lights in the background.

Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.

www.beckymccray.com
Published: March 15, 2008

2 Comments

  1. Great insight. I think the theme of transitioning from “us” to “you” is valid across industries and locations. We’ve seen that among (I hesitate to say “our”) constituents, leaders of really innovative small firms: they want communications from us that do more to share their news and growth stories with each other. In essence, we become a mirror for them. And as long as the technology is in place and works the same way for everyone, that’s not too tall of an order. It’s something we’re working on on both the e-mail and web front.

    Thanks for sharing, Becky.

  2. Mark, I love the idea of your group as a mirror for the community! That concept could help shape decision making on many levels! Excellent! Now if I could get my favorite membership group to adopt it …

    Thanks, Mark!

Comments are closed.

Wondering what is and is not allowed in the comments?
Or how to get a nifty photo beside your name?
Check our commenting policy.
Use your real name, not a business name.

Don’t see the comment form?
Comments are automatically closed on older posts, but you can send me your comment via this contact form and I’ll add it manually for you. Thanks!