Current Kayak clients and regular blog readers will already know that we are huge fans of "attractive" marketing, and do our best to avoid interruptive tactics. But until now, we haven't taken the time to spell out exactly why.
To best understand the distinction, and why it's so important, let us give you a quick description of how we define each one. For our team, interruptive marketing tactics are ones that attempt to "grab" a potential customer’s attention and steer them in a different direction. The most obvious examples of these might be spam e-mail, pop-up ads, billboards or TV commercials.Attractive marketing, on the other hand, seeks to help prospects find what they were already looking for, interesting them in your company and its products or services in the process.
Things like search engine optimization, content marketing, and virtually any form of inbound lead generation fall into this category. Besides the basic differences, interruptive marketing techniques can be thought of as being on the old-school or more traditional end of the spectrum, while attractive marketing is a more modern marketing concept.
Given that businesses have built big profits over the years using both tactics, why are we such proponents of attractive marketing techniques? Here are a few of the biggest and best reasons:
Attractive marketing offers a higher success rate.
Or, to put things more plainly, it just works better. Look at the abysmally-low success rates for things like banner ads, direct mail, or tele-marketing and it isn't difficult to understand why having customers come directly to you through your website is more effective and efficient at the same time.
Interruptive marketing is frustrating to everyone involved.
Even going beyond the quintessential "telemarketing call at dinner time," interruptive techniques have always been a source of frustration – even for the people using them. No one enjoys passing out flyers or bombarding people with unsolicited messages; the companies that rely on these tactics are usually the ones that are simply out of ideas.
Attractive marketing campaigns create a more natural sales process.
Having someone come to you to help fill a need lays the groundwork for a strong relationship (not to mention referrals) going forward. Trying to find them and convince them that they have a need, on the other hand, tends to breed mistrust, excessive price negotiations, and other problems in the sales cycle.
Attractive marketing is more effective over time.
Those sales cycle strengths and shortcomings turn into big advantages and disadvantages over time. That is, companies with strong attractive marketing campaigns tend to convert a much higher percentage of opportunities into new orders and accounts. Additionally, they waste a lot less time and money finding new business, which helps streamline everything else in an organization.
The best companies in most industries rely heavily on attractive marketing.
While there certainly are companies in some industries that invest huge amounts of money in interruptive advertising and other traditional techniques, most businesses that take advantage of online lead generation prefer attractive techniques by a wide margin. It only makes sense, if you want to be at the top of your field, too, to follow their example for the same reasons.
With all of these important benefits in mind, let us ask you: how attractive is your website to prospects? And, have you or your creative team done everything possible to ensure that buyers are coming to you, instead of the other way around?
In an upcoming post, we'll look at some of the features of attractive online marketing plans. To see how these principles might apply to your specific business, though, feel free to contact our office and schedule a time for a consultation with our team.
