People ask me “Why did you start a business?” It is a valid question, especially given that I started mine at the precise moment that the U.S. economy caught fire and sank into a swamp. I have asked myself the same question a few times as well. In fact, I have been trying to come up with a good answer for a few years now.
The short answer is that I started a business because I wanted to figure out if a few things were possible. That, and I wanted to be my own boss and enjoy my work.
I’m proud to claim unqualified success on the latter two!
I love marketing and hate ads
I wanted to start a marketing company that never abused people’s privacy or permissions. I wanted to help people tell their stories, but to save energy by telling their story to people who wanted to hear it. I wanted to help people draw business instead of trying to drive it. These ideas have become the basis for what I’m calling organic marketing.
Just as food producers must meet certain qualifications in order to call their food “organic”, we have rules which marketers must follow in order to call their marketing similarly. Here they are:
- Never abuse privacy or permission
- Always be targeting
- Draw business, don’t drive it
- Always Be Authentic
Never Abuse Privacy or Permission
An organic marketer understands that a person’s privacy and permission go hand in hand, and would never abuse either. The question of what constitutes such an abuse is something that everyone has to evaluate for themselves, and there will be many different opinions on what is or is not, but that’s ethics for you. It takes practice!
Always Be Targeting
The onus is on us, as marketers, to make sure that every time we talk to people about our message we are talking to a group of people that is as targeted as possible, meaning that those people have demonstrated at least some interest in what we have to say. This is in stark contrast to inorganic marketing methods which just try to talk to as many people as possible with no concern for whether they are interested or not.
Draw Business, Don’t Drive It
Traditional marketing is all about blasting a message to as many people as possible in hopes of driving them — anyone at all — toward our business. Organic marketing is all about drawing the right people to our business, and when I say “the right people” I mean “people who are interested.”
Always Be Authentic
The last, and perhaps most important rule of organic marketing is “Always be Authentic.” We don’t want to trick anyone into paying attention to us. We want people to seek us out because our message is so great!
The Organic Marketing Group
Now, I should say that these rules are very much a work in progress. I call upon my marketing brothers and sisters to help me define and strengthen them. In fact, I have created a local Atlanta Meetup group to help do this very thing. Please join it and help me grow this idea!
Organic Marketing Group (OMG!)
http://www.meetup.com/OMGOMG
