If you’re a frequent reader of this blog, you’ve probably heard of “inbound marketing” by now. But have you heard of the next big thing — “midbound marketing”?
Don’t feel bad if you haven’t. I hadn’t either until I was emailing with Pete Emerson, Senior Web Designer & Developer at New Breed Marketing, one of our partner agencies.
“Midbound marketing. Try it. You’ll quickly discover why cold calling potential leads and reading them your content offers aloud is the future of marketing.”
This happens to me a lot. My job has me working with some of the best digital agencies around, which means almost every day one of them shares some fascinating nugget of marketing wisdom. So I figured I’d share the wealth with you. I rounded up some of the “best” marketing advice these partner agencies shared with me about effective, forward-thinking marketing, and put them in the list below.
22 Nuggets of Not-At-All-Ill-Advised Marketing Wisdom
“Capture your leads’ hearts with Comic Sans. This underused, humanist typeface will appeal to the end user’s sense of style.” – Pete Emerson, New Breed Marketing 
“Use drones to better understand your personas. Find out what your personas aren’t telling you by peeking into their homes with a UAV.” – Pete Emerson, New Breed Marketing
“To drive more sales, have a bake sale on the third Tuesday of every month. You can test out different days, but the third Tuesday of every month has worked best for us. Our prospects love homemade apple pie.” – Aaron Eisberg, Aptera Software
“We’ve moved from simple AB testing to AZ testing. Having 26 different variations allows us to test multiple color combinations and font styles so we know exactly what to use for all our buttons.” – Stephanie Casstevens, Duo Consulting
“If you want to spark viral engagement, find a way to weave your message into controversial political or religious subjects. Controversy sells.” – Mark Fidelman, Evolve! Inc
“If you’re not going viral, it’s not your fault. It’s probably the antivirus software. The root word of ‘viral’ is ‘virus’ and ‘anti’ means ‘against.’ What sane marketer would ever use antivirus software? Do not trust it.” – The Best Google SEO Helper
“Include cats in as many marketing materials as possible. This will increase your brand’s ability to go viral and grow awareness.” – Jennifer Cline, Element5
“When starting a hashtag campaign, it’s important to use the hashtag hand signal in verbal speech. Otherwise, it can be very challenging to grow awareness of your hashtag and get it trending on Twitter.” – Jennifer Cline, Element5
“When your client insists on animated GIFs and Flash intros, respect their expertise and give it to them. Remember, they did once build a blog on Tumblr.” – Charles Drengberg, Big Presence
“People love to read copy. Make all your emails and landing pages as copy-heavy as possible. Make the font as small as you can so you can fit even more.” – Brent Martino, Aloft Group
“Why limit inbound marketing to online? Try it in person at the mall or a hardware store. Give away free books, and make sure you have a clipboard to take down their name, address, and annual marketing budget first.” – Mark Hodges, Influence & Co.
“I have found that the best way to drive organic traffic to your website is to go door-to-door handing out beautiful flyers with your web address on them. It has worked wonders for us.” – Aaron Eisberg, Aptera Software
“Having a hard time figuring out the actual ROI of your marketing efforts? ‘Ask your mom,’ says Gary Vaynerchuk.” – Cathy Huff, Fetch Multimedia
“Don’t bother making your website responsive. Google hates responsive sites.” – Luke Infinger, HIP Creative
“Launching a new website? The best way to get noticed is an investment in a billboard with a QR code on it. Exposure, visual branding, and conversion opportunity … win-win-win!” – Allie Hughes, Hughes & Co.
“Spend as much money as you can on Pay Per Click (PPC) on keywords that are not relevant but have high traffic. Have the link send them to your homepage and hope that the leads come in.” – Rachel Begg, Impulse Creative
“For 2015, we are encouraging our clients to invest heavily in building their communities and create engaging content on MySpace, Friendster, and ASmallWorld to get maximum social media reach. Social is so hot right now.” – Chris Field, Red Wheel Media
“Stop throwing money away on postage! Agencies everywhere are discovering the versatility of direct fax campaigns.” – Seth Eaton, Visual Creatives
“When traditional communication methods fall flat, glitter bomb your leads to really capture their attention. The kind that takes forever to clean up and resurfaces on the carpet every few months. They’ll remember you forever.” – Melissa Fiorenza, CCA
“If you feel your site is not getting enough attention or traffic, just install a siren buzz that goes off when people open your site.” – Andre Tenenbaum, ZONA INTERNET
“Want more readers? Release a musical version of your blog. If your voice is nice and you choose a catchy tune, you might find your boring B2B blog posts going viral overnight.” – Bryan Adams, Ph.Creative
“TYPING IN ALL CAPS IS A SUREFIRE WAY TO CAPTURE YOUR AUDIENCE’S ATTENTION. IT WORKS BECAUSE IT IS LIKE SHOUTING. GET NOTICED BY BEING LOUDER THAN THE REST.” – Chris Handy, Thinkhandy
Happy April Fools’ Day!
