There is no denying that it’s difficult to get promotional work right. There is a fine line between being confident of your online presence, and being obnoxious. There is a fine line between being appropriately competitive, and trolling. There is a delicate balance between getting good information out to the waiting public, and shoving it down their virtual throats. It’s a problem that comes with social networks like Facebook and Twitter, and a problem that comes from more personalized medium’s like individual blogs, or even e-mails. In order to geek out on this subject, let’s look to some definitions.
What Is a Good Thing?
A good thing is getting the right message to the right people at the right time in the right format using a balanced promotional campaign. A good thing is being able to find people with a need, and satisfying that need. A good thing is permission marketing, and establishing trust with clients you have worked with in the past. There are no shortcuts to get these kinds of relationships going. There is a significant amount of trial and error that can potentially be involved. If you want to be a geek about promotional work, you have to go all in to do the research and the work, and you can’t be afraid to fail a few times in the process, as long as your heart is in the right place. A good thing feels right to both you and your subscribers; anything feels off, you might have a problem.
Not Enough of a Good Thing
If people don’t know about what you provide, they can’t choose you. This means being visible and present and logically spreading your content. It means that if someone is searching for you specifically, they can find you and communicate with you. If another competitor is easier to find, easier to communicate with, or easier to interact with, you might not have enough promotional work going for you. Reassess, and get yourself in the open!
Too Much of a Good Thing
If you overdo promotional work, if you enter the realm of spam, or if you push communication on people who don’t want it, it will reflect poorly on your company or product. Too many social media posts, too many email updates, too many requests to share, or to pay, or to update, or too many requests for feedback can wear people out. Even if it is high quality promotional work with great, relevant, useable content, be very cautious about flooding your audience. It will backfire.
In the world of promotional work, it doesn’t really matter what it is that you’re promoting – a product, an event, a website, an album, or a cause – the most important thing you can geek out about is your attention to detail. Ride the wave of giving people what they need when they need it, no more and no less, and you’ll be well on your way to success.