Imagine for one moment that you own a Mercedes dealership. You have a shiny, contemporary showroom filled with slinky, sexy supercars. Polished and proud. Gleaming chrome and that intoxicating smell of leather. There’s only one problem: no customers. Now let’s imagine you hire a consultant to bring people into your showroom. Would you pay them to bring you tramps or Trumps? Suprisingly, most business owners are still paying to attract tramps.
In the world of internet marketing, quantity has overshadowed quality. Businesses are hungry for thousands of fans, friends, followers… the more the better.
Yet, imagine that logic in a real world scenario and all of a sudden it seems ridiculous. Would you drag any old 1,000 passersby into your shiny showroom? Of course not! You would carefully target your marketing materials and messages at high income individuals; people who are a good fit for your product.
Where quality is thought about, it is a side thought. Or perhaps even thrown in as an idealistic wish. (I’ve mentioned before how much I hate self-professed “gurus” and “ninjas”, but I am still waiting for someone to declare themselves a “genie”.)
Here is an example of a job I was recently invited to bid on:
Dear sparklyscotty,
You’ve been invited to submit a proposal for the following job:
Job Name: 15,000 + Twitter followers
Buyer Name: [Ahem, let's not embarass the poor buyer]
Job Budget: Less than $500
Job Category: Sales & Marketing > Viral Marketing
Job Description: We need 15000 or more qualified valid Twitter followers for our MBA / Education related site. We need this to be done in a month. We will pay on milestone basis.
More information would be given on selection.We need experienced bidders. This may lead to many more projects in the future.
Thanks. …….. and more
The problem here is that they want diamonds, and diamonds take time, expertise and investment to mine. Otherwise those 15,000 followers are worthless, because at the end of the day 15,000 x 0 still equals zero.
Take the time to think about your target market and pre-qualify leads. Let your sales figures impress you more than your social media numbers!
