New Viral Tactic: 'Cause Marketing'
Once again, I've discovered a NEW marketing technique. We'll
call it 'Cause Marketing'. It's a very simple concept really,
pick out your favorite 'cause' that you can rally people behind,
say for instance the fight against the use of Smart Tags. Then,
you set up a Non-Profit.org web site with text running down the
evils of the Smart Tags you are fighting against. In the sales
copy, er, uh, I mean, text on your Non-Profit.org site, you
infuriate people against the evils of big business, such as
Microsoft, and against another terrible aspect of society like
say Communist or Dictatorship governments that dare to censor
their citizens access to parts of the Internet. Now, after
really working up people against these things, you declare that
you will launch a massive media campaign aimed at stopping these
horrific practices. The kicker, of course, is that you need a
way to collect names and email addresses from this
Non-Profit.org site. One good way to do this could be to ask
visitors to sign a petition. Naturally, you will deliver the
petition as promised, but what you will also do is ask visitors
to sign up on your marketing ezine's list at the same time they
are signing the petition. Of course, you won't do this by
requiring them to fill in their name and email again for the
separate list, but instead you will just have two already
checked boxes. The first box pertains to the petition, and the
next to the subscription to your ezine. The logic being that
who, after reading about how you are taking on big business,
censorship, and all other manner of evil, will not want to
subscribe to your ezine? Doesn't that sound like an incredible
idea? Aren't you glad I am able to illustrate these new concepts
for you? Of course, there is an outside chance that if you
undertake this kind of 'Cause Marketing' that a cynical ezine
writer will take hold of your concept and devote an entire
article to making fun of you. Of course, nothing is more
important than gleaning names and email addresses for your
business, right? Who cares that some may view asking for people
to subscribe to a marketing ezine from a Non-Profit.org site as
tacky? Who cares that the only 'massive media' campaign you will
be running will be to get people to your petition site so they
can subscribe to your marketing ezine so you can in turn get
more hits to your web site. I mean, hey, you're fighting against
people that are using illicit means of gaining traffic to their
web site. You are the good guy!