About SPEAKING YOUR GEEK
We call it "SPEAK YOUR GEEK," but the official term is "native advertising" and it's blurring the lines between advertising and basic content. It's also one of the fastest growing marketing trends around. Spending on native advertising has ballooned exponentially over the last few years because advertisers are seeing greater than usual customer engagement using this technique.
So what is it?
Native advertising is: material in an online publication which resembles the publication's editorial content, but is paid for by an advertiser and intended to promote the advertiser's product.
In other words, if you owned a gardening shop, you could release a series of ads about your upcoming spring sales, and that would be great! But what's even better? Well, you could include a short infographic on the ad explaining which plants are best to plant this time of year. You could also start a blog, a vlog (video blog), or post a series of infographics on social media describing what plants to look for this spring, what plants do well in your particular climate, and/or how to properly care for seedlings. You get the idea. You need to be a vendor of great information that will bring users back again and again. If you're their go-to expert, they'll trust you for both information and the best products and services.
When you're passionate about something, you probably know a lot about it and, chances are, there are plenty of people out in the world looking for that information. If you make it easy for them to find and consume, they learn to rely on you for that content. It may not feel like sales and marketing, but it really, really is. And this form of advertising is especially useful if your target audience is easily turned off by "sales-talk" and traditional commercials.
Get creative with how you SPEAK YOUR GEEK, but don't go overboard. As with anything in life, if it's difficult to do, it's less likely you'll do it. So only bite off as much as you can chew, but definitely get chewing! Read our other How-tos to learn even more great ways to successfully reach and teach your fellow geeks!
At Chic Geex, we're more than happy to help you figure out what form of native advertising is right for you. Contact us now, and start SPEAKING YOUR GEEK like a champ!