Use every opportunity to create buzz
Matt Heinz
Creating buzz for your company, your product, even yourself is an everyday, every opportunity kind of thing. Everything you do, all day long, has the possibility of accelerating awareness, perception, and buzzworthiness.
Some buzz-building opportunities are right in front of us, and we don’t even think about them.
I had never thought about my email “out of office” autoreply as a word-of-mouth opportunity until I received one from Andy Sernovitz today. Andy’s the CEO of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, and author of the soon-to-be-released book (appropriately titled) Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking.
In response to an email I sent Andy this morning, his auto-reply said the following:
I will be out of the office at conferences until Friday, with limited access to email. I’ll reply as soon as I get a chance.
1. Reporters and emergencies: Please call my cell at XXX-XXX-XXXX. (actual number removed)
2. Wife and parents: You may also call my cell.
3. Charlie (my 3-year-old): No, you cannot pee in the sink. Yes, a dinosaur could eat a monkey.
4. Telemarketers: Please take me off your list.
5. Spammers: Please call my stock broker.
With this simple, short out-of-office message, Andy near-guaranteed that his message would be forwarded around by folks that thought this was incredibly clever (and funny). And of course, at the bottom of this message was Andy’s contact information, information about WOMMA, and a tout for his new book.
Andy’s creating buzz for himself, his organization and his new book all at once. Just by adding a little extra leverage to something many of us already use all of the time.
Very smart. He should probably write a book about this stuff.