A Man Walked Into A Phone Booth

by Suzen Pettit at Omaginarium

An old wise man once said:

‘To love is to suffer.

To avoid suffering one must not love.

But then one suffers from not loving.

Therefore to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer.

To suffer is to suffer.

To be happy is to love.

To be happy then is to suffer.

But suffering makes one unhappy.

Therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness.

I hope you’re getting this down?’ -Woody Allen

Your online strategy does not have to cause suffering, over- angsting, overwhelm, or extreme drama (like Woody seems to). KISS. DO I need to explain this acronym? If so, email me and I’ll let you in on it. [email protected] .

No, we break it down, and then break it down some more. The simpler the better. That being said, no matter what your marketing strategy is, it will always need to contain the key elements discussed in my video “The Differentiator”, it must always be offering GREAT value…so that we all have a warm and fuzzy feeling when thinking about you, and it must, if using content marketing, which I urge you all to partake in in one way, shape or form, make sure that content is catchy, different and rises above the others. It sounds hard, I know, but truly it need not be. Call me maybe.

The value of a great (or outrageous) headline should not be underestimated. You can’t imagine the amount of traffic this blog entitled “Chinese Man Sues Wife for being Ugly and Giving Birth to An Ugly Baby” garnered. I know…sounds like a sleazy National Enquirer tactic…but you know what? It was an actual headline and I used it to prove a point, having nothing to do with that creep of a guy who sued his poor wife. According to Google Analytics, I had the highest numbers with the lowest bounce rate in the history of my blogs. That means people stayed and read more, rather than just checking out the headline.

I read an excerpt from a book this morning about 2 guys who opened a hot dog place in New York City’s East Village. Over 60 various styles of hot dogs are served at this place-dogs with eggs and cheese, hot dog fritters, hot dog parmesan (I don’t know if these last 2 are for real; made them up for effect), but apparently the place was tres popular there for a while. But then, like so many antsy entrepreneurs, that wasn’t enough. They needed more, and traffic was beginning to wane in the dog shop.

So what did these two smart hipsters do? Well, sitting in the back of the restaurant, there happened to be an old Clark Kent style phone booth, and within the phone booth, an authentic, old fashioned, stick your finger in the hole and rotate clockwise dial, which, if one were so inclined to do, on the other end of the line a voice would miraculously come on and ask you politely if you wanted to make a reservation.

Make a what? To whom? This made no sense. You’re already in the restaurant. Then this voice would continue to ask a couple of questions about your plans. The last thing you heard the voice say is “Shhhh….don’t tell anyone about this, ok?”, and the next thing you know, the back of the booth opens up, just like Alice’s rabbit hole, to reveal a cool hipster bar scene behind that booth, that no longer serves up hot dogs, but rather, in a speak easy, cool and sexy space, now is offering, well I don’t know, frankly what they’re offering because I haven’t yet read the book, just the excerpt. But I will, and report back. Don’t want to recommend anything I haven’t yet read.

The point here is that these 2 guys were thinking out of the box. Way out of the box. Who would not be talking about this crazy experience now, what with the mystery voice in the booth warning you NOT to talk about it.

Out of the box marketing brilliance!

Here it is in a nutshell: keep it simple, but do something extraordinary. Give people an experience they would not be getting at your competitors. It may take creativity, sure, but it does NOT have to be complicated.

Sorry Woody.

What is your differentiator?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Suzen Pettit has been in marketing for the past 27 years wearing various hats. Founder of OMAGinarium, an acronym for Online Marketing and Growth, Suzens’  specialty is getting small businesses FOUND and helping you stay “sticky” with online marketing, optimized websites, SEO ,blogging, content marketing and list building.  Suzen has helped hundreds of small companies and entrepreneurs get their businesses on the map. When not working hard for her clients, Suzen can be found blogging and providing content for the Patch hyper-locals, Mashable, Founders Space and The Huffington Post, as well as speaking on topics geared to online business growth.  Suzen was recently featured in the March issue of Tribal Woman.

Reach her at [email protected] to discuss your marketing needs.