Buzz: Creating Customer Anticipation (Smart Monday/Promotion)

Hello, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing.  Today is Smart Monday, and we are talking about creating buzz and interest in your product before you actually release it.

What is buzz?  It is creating excitement for your product before it ever hits the streets, before your customers have a chance to buy it.  Buzz is a powerful tool because it creates a strong desire/demand for your product in advance of its being available.  When you finally do release it people are already standing in line.

Let’s look at some good examples of buzz.  Right now the Olympics are going on and we’ve been anticipating the Olympics in London for a very long time.  You also have the masters of buzz, Apple.  Apple has been able to create such great buzz for products such as the iPad and iPhones before they are released that customers are literally camped out to be among the first to have one.  Recently we had the Facebook initial public offering.  We do know that the anticipation was there for people to want to buy the stock.  Whether it is going to be a good buy or not is another question.

Many companies wait until they have the produce before they market it.  Consider marketing your product before you actually have it ready to release to customers.

From my examples you can see that buzz really works.  Determine how you can create buzz for the introduction of your next product.  A very important strategic element to remember is not to allow a long lag between when you make the announcement that the product will be coming out and its availability.  If you create anticipation and then wait too long before you actually deliver the product you may be doing yourself more harm than good.

That concludes Smart Monday.  Join us tomorrow for Strategic Tuesday.  To discuss an online or face to face service engagement and enhance the marketing and branding for your organization, contact James Glover: (505) 501-1330 or onceadaymarketing@gmail.com.  I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing and we’ll see you next time.