Shameless Promotion - the Huckster Files

I had a client say a strange thing to me the other day (well, I had several, but this one was repeatable and interesting): he didn’t want to be accused of ‘shameless promotion’. Golly, I said, but imagine if we should all become ashamed of promoting ourselves! That’s what companies do: they promote. We’ve all got something to sell, whether we’re a president or a pauper, a baker or a banker. In fact, I confess that I staggered as my capitalist heart tried to take it in – a world without promotion. Imagine!

Sadly, the chances are that right now you’re probably doing just that – dreamily looking up at the ceiling and thinking about a world where there were no advertisements, no clutter: just green fields and trees, butterflies and innocent children laughing as they play in the sunlight. Get over it. Those kids are PS3 playing surfpunks with a nasty Green Day habit, 8gig Nanos stuffed with ripped MP3s and a blog about picking your nose or how to off your siblings. And they’re consumers, just like the rest of us. And if you’re not promoting to them, and us, someone else will. So you’d better get shameless, pal.

Everyone looks down their nose at a huckster until he’s winning, and then it’s too late. The smart thing to do is get out there and hoover up the business before he does: find things you’ve got to sell that he hasn’t, advantages that your products or services offer that his don’t – big customer endorsements that he can’t get together. Package it all smartly and neatly, put together your positioning and distil it all down into an elegant core proposition. Don’t forget the power of the elevator pitch: imagine you’re in a lift with the one guy in the world that’ll buy your new idea, your demo CD, your book idea. What are you going to say in the time it takes a lift to go a couple of floors in order to convince him? Write it down, formalise it. Repeat it to yourself until it’s second nature. And then go out and tell the world.

How’s the huckster getting his business? Who are his targets? Work out how you can get to them first and hit them with your smarter pitch. Give them something to entice them in and get their commitment before the huckster even gets the chance to draw breath.

One word of caution: make sure you can back everything you say with solid fact. And then go ahead: be shameless!

(This article originally appeared in Campaign Middle East)