Brazen, bold and interesting self promotion

Are you doing something interesting or special?

Are you doing something for the community?

Are you going over and above what your customers expect?

If you are, then how will your customers and contacts, friends and family going to know if you don’t tell them?  My momma taught me growing up the rewards of being humble and in school we were told not to brag or people wouldn’t like us, so sometimes self-promotions feels a bit shameless!  However, in marketing, you have to be bold, you have to be your own best press agent –  and there is a skill to that!  You know what I say – “Marketing is simply telling people what you are doing”.  Now, we can disect that all day long and add to it a million times, but the bottom line is that if you are not doing anything, it is hard to have an interesting marketing message.  And if you ARE doing something, your clients and target audience need to know about it!

Shamless self-promotion, as some call it, or “tooting your own horn” is a necessity in any business, expecially for the small business owner and entrepreneur.  You have to get out there and shake up your community, be seen and heard.  Find a project you can wrap your arms around, put some soul into it and then tell everyone about it.  Your product or service alone may be worth telling about.  Create a buzz through your activity.

Remember, in this age of social networking – Twitter, Facebook, Plaxo, LinkedIn, Blogger, WordPress – (just to name the vehicles I use), we have the perfect platform to toot our own horns, BUT, and this is a BIG BUT, no one wants to be subjected to a canned, generic, lame, old-school sales pitch.  What is more important than your sales pitch is what you can offer as an expert in your field and how, through your communications,  you can develop relationships that last!

Love and Peace,

Sandy