I just received a call - on my cell phone - that was a prerecorded message offering me a certificate for a discount on services from the Durrett Chiropractic & Natural Health Care Clinic here in Houston.
Apart from the little detail that this call was illegal - the number is on the national do not call list and I have no relationship of any kind with these people - I have to wonder: Who thought sending prerecorded ads to people's phones was a good way to get new customers? Did they think someone would say, "Oh, hey, I've been wanting to see a chiropracter and these folks must be good - after all, they called my cell phone with an ad!"
It actually annoyed me enough that I filed an FCC complaint (it's really fast to do it via the web).
My guess is that someone convinced them this was a good idea and charged them money to execute the campaign. And poorly - the ad consisted of rapid-fire speech with bad enunciation. I couldn't tell what the name of the practice was (but reverse lookup solved that). If you're going to get in people's faces in obnoxious ways, at least say your name clearly.
It's amazing to me that people still do this stuff. Dear Durrett Chiropractic people, people fire the folks giving you marketing advice ASAP.
3 comments:
Tactics like these exist because some business owners are just plain lazy. They don't want to do the dirty work of marketing their business properly. So the turn to get business quick schemes like this one.
Unfortunately, as you have pointed out, they are usually doing more harm to their business than good.
Well, maybe not so much lazy - as just very busy and clueless. After all, the firm that sold them on this stupid thing is probably billed as "marketing experts." And, somebody else that the client trusts probably loves ol' Jim or Barb or whomever is heading the marketing firm.
Same sort of thing happens with email "marketing" and web sites. Lots of flim-flammers out there selling quick, easy, marketing stuff. Then when it doesn't work - they call someone like us...and we can't help because it's too late and they've already blown their marketing budget. *Sigh*
This is an incredibly annoying tactic, no matter how well executed. It's very format carries the implicit message that "Your time is less valuable than mine, so I'm going to send a tape to talk to you...or AT you."
Unfortunately in these days when new technological options abound, we marketing experts rush to use them without adding the require component of common sense.
As it was, is, and always WILL be, it's the quality of the thinking behind the technology that will really make the difference. Whoever sold the chiropractors on that idea had very little.
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