Monday, October 23, 2006

Getting the Word Out

It's been a sleety sort of Monday. The kind of day that makes you glad you have a good excuse to sit indoors.

All day long, I worked on the finer points of Geoff Teall's Special Bonus Event that begins at 12:01 a.m., EST, Wednesday. I worked to alert e-newsletter editors and relevant equine forums about the event. I also fielded e-mail queries about the particulars.

The great thing about putting together a package that is so full of good, solid, interesting material, from so many experts in their fields, is that people rarely give you the brush-off. Instead, I found myself in the enviable position of people asking for my approval to let them do an e-mail blast to alert their entire membership lists to the event.

Of course I gave my blessing.

The hardest part of doing a successful "Thing," be it product launch, clearance sale, or Special Bonus Event is letting people know about it. If the product is any good, it's not difficult to put together a fantastic campaign that centers around it. But you can pull out all the stops, write killer copy, have great bonuses, bring in celebrities and dancing dogs -- and it won't do a bit of good if no one knows.

If they don't know, they can't show.

This may be self-evident, but it doesn't make the point any less valid. If you spend the time putting together something that clearly has value to the intended audience -- such as the value the bonuses for Wednesday's Special Event have for people who enjoy riding hunters -- then you owe it to that audience to let them know what's available.

Which is why as the sleet hit the windows throughout the day, I was perfectly content to sit by the fire and get the word out. The clock is ticking, and time is running out...