Online Marketing for Dumbshits
Let’s face it: nobody has ever read a quick article about marketing and gleaned anything worthwhile from it. Articles about online marketing are just part of the marketing for individuals or companies that offer marketing services. They’re the Rick Roll of the business world except not funny. That being said, here are some tips to kick your online campaign into high gear!
- Include some friggin’ profanity
No matter your target audience, cursing in your link or headline gets results. Young people will be titillated by it. Plumbers, hipsters, and other urban dwellers will find it relatable. A college-educated mother of 3 will think “what’s all this ruckus?” and click out of pure curiosity. Hey, it worked on YOU, didn’t it? As much as we might feel offended by or accustomed to expletives, they still cause our brains to light up and say, “pay attention, asswipe!”
2. Somehow involve selfies
With the proliferation of forward-facing cameras on phones and the advent of the selfie stick, taking photos of one’s self has become a simultaneously treasured and loathed American pastime. Even the word itself — “selfie” — is alternately adorable, amusing, bemusing, or repugnant to the point where people just can’t stop saying it. Folks love taking photos of themselves, so integrate digital narcissism into your campaign by any means necessary.
3. Brand awareness, shmand awareness
Pepsi and Coke are both household names by now yet still spend millions on advertising globally every year. Seriously, nobody cares. Either have recognizable media attached to your goods/services… or don’t. Whether it’s cheap crap from China or vapid “content” from a 19-year-old YouTuber, people will consume it, forget the name of the it, and be too whacked out on xanax or weed to care. Remaining “on brand” (formerly “consistent,” before the latest swarm of buzzwords was unleashed upon us) might be a worthy goal, or maybe changing things up is. Again, nobody cares.
4. Lists
Lists satisfy the brain’s craving for structure in a chaotic world. Probably. Truth be told, the attention span of internet users is shrinking every day, so we’ve reached the point where we can’t digest anything unless a distinct opportunity to lose interest and check our email inbox is known to be near. The items of your list can be single word/phrase entries or meandering paragraphs about whatever. Just use lists, damn it!
5. Avoid pop-up ads
Pop-up ads are responsible for more homicidal rampages than crashed hard drives and stuck keyboard keys combined. At best, utilizing pop-ups will lead to a potential customer associating your company name with the very pain of existence itself… AT BEST! The same goes for auto-playing video ads or cover-the-screen-when-mouse-hovers banners. Just be a decent human being and you won’t even need to remember this important rule of thumb, it will just come naturally.
6. Search engine optimization
Wow, who even cares?
Hopefully these tips and tricks will assist you in your ventures and help to crystallize some key aspects of online business-oriented communication. At the very least, you’ve learned how writing about marketing quickly devolves into angry satire unless you honest-to-goodness get a hard-on from this soul-sucking topic. Good luck!
