What iThnk We Do
I talk to people a lot of people that don’t really understand exactly what iThnk.com is, and what exactly our team (Sam and I) do. To be honest, I sort of like it that way. To me it adds a little mystery to the whole operation. From a marketing stand-point though, it’s a terrible situation to be in!
The real reason it may seem unclear as to what it is we do is that we don’t really know ourselves. Ok that’s not true. We know exactly what we do – we just don’t want to tell anyone! Ok that’s not true either. So here it is: iThnk.com provides a range of marketing solutions centred around (but not exclusively with) social media. Basically we devise wicked marketing strategies that take advantage of powerful social media tools to work harmoniously with the rest of the marketing mix. Sounds pretty awesome ah? Um that’s because it is! Well at least we thnk so.
Part of our service is to update this blog and give you our take on social mediary stuff (btw that is a word I just made up). We like sharing any insight we have so right now I’m going to give you an example of how we work:
Let’s say we at iThnk.com get to talking to Barry, the owner of Barry’s Garage (a vehicle servicing business). Barry wants to attract new customers. To do this he is thnking about running an ad in Saturday’s local newspaper. $4000 for a full page spread. Fudgecakes Baz, that’s big $ for a small business (says a slightly flabbergasted Andy). Barry envisages the ad reading something like: “Barry’s Motors – Great service, no worries”.
Andy: Ok Barry, catchy slogan; but how do potential customers know what you’re saying is really the case? Just because you’ve forked out truckloads of cash to tell them doesn’t mean they will believe it. In fact, if you have to pay to broadcast how great you service is, it probably means it’s actually rubbish.
Barry: So what would you do then Andy from iThnk? (asks Barry abruptly) A: Well Barry I’d start by thnking about what you are trying to communicate. B: Um that we have great service (quips Barry). A: Sweet, let’s use that customer-minded approach of yours to connect with your target market you have in the places they live! (proclaims Andy enthusiastically). B: Where is that then? A: It’s everywhere Barry, I’ll explain…Take Mike for example. Mike has a problem with his 1987 Honda City. Since he is all about the Google he decides to fire-up the Commodore 64 and see what comes up in a quick search. So he types in “1987 Honda City making funny noise”. Atop the search results is a listing for a TradeMe message board about Hondas. Mike loves anything to do with TradeMe so he clicks and soon discovers many of people share his problem. This is where you could come in Barry…
A Barry’s Garage representative indentifies them self on the forum as a mechanic and provides professional advice on Mike’s problem. Now maybe Mike is the type of guy that will have a crack at fixing the Honda himself. Good for Mike. But maybe the job is too tricky so he decides to take the car into a garage that he knows will be really helpful – and he already knows how helpful Barry’s has been. Hello new customer! In addition, other users will notice a pattern of Barry’s garage providing useful information over time and associate your brand with great value. Heard of word of mouth haven’t ya Baz – well this is word of mouth on steroids powered by the Enigizer bunny.
BUT that’s only the tip on the iceberg Barry. There are so many other things you could do to supercharge positive word of mouth for your business with social media. And hey, if you want to invest some of that $4000 advertising budget on creating your own hub of community interaction through a fully customised blog (that will also make your business very Google friendly) – we’re happy to help out. B: Thanks Andy – you’re the man. A: No Barry, you’re the man.
Image sourced from http://raleighchopper.info (Barry is also into fixing old school choppers).
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This post was written by Andy Moore (aka @MooreOfAndy). You can connect with him on both Twitter and Linkedin. |