One of the most popular lines in my speeches is “Advertising is the price of being boring.”
It doesn’t mean that advertising is bad. It means that there is a direct relationship between being buzzworthy — earning word of mouth — and how much you’ll have to pay to promote yourself through paid marketing.
Give people a reason to talk about you for free, or you’ll have to buy advertising to get the message out.
Before you launch a product, before you start your business, ask “Would anybody tell a friend about this?” If not, you better have a huge advertising budget. Even better, go back to the drawing board and give people a reason to talk.
The Robert Stephens, CEO of Geek Squad, agrees. Here’s a video of a speech called “Marketing is a Tax You Pay for Being Unremarkable” from last year’s Get Satisfaction conference:
Nice item. Unfortunately, I seem to be failing at finding a way to be interesting…
great post; i’m happy to know that i don’t have to spend money on advertising. I’d rather develop my brand / products and have people talk about them then spend a gazillion dollars on a bad marketing campaign.
it means starting out slow – but strong and working my way up to being a solid brand!
thanks!