Dance With Strangers

Last night we took the kids to a local restaurant to see some animals being brought to Austin from SeaWorld in San Antonio. Typically a night out would not happen on a Monday and to be honest I had not thought much about driving down to San Antonio to visit SeaWorld. But this was a really smart move by these folks to get some of our mind share, and more importantly the mind share of our children.

In the case of SeaWorld they have a huge potential audience in Austin and we are hitting the time of year when school is in session and I would guess less families are traveling down to visit the park. Instead of simply taking out some ads in the local paper or running promos on TV SeaWorld was smart and simply moved their product, the animals and education, up to Austin for a night. These same animals will now do the publicity circuit on the local TV channels and SeaWorld will gather even more attention and mind share. Oh, did I mention that the only reason I knew about any of this is because of the great work they are doing in social media on Twitter and their blog (ahem, the inspiring Kami Huyse)?

How does this all relate to your B2B marketing world?

Just look at that cute kid in the Randy Moss Patriots jersey amazed by Oakley the spectacle owl (yes, he’s mine…the kid, not the owl). In a world of Twitter, Facebook and SEO hype sometimes you simply can’t beat getting in front of your audience and wowing them with your product. Often times we wait for an ideal time to show off our product, perhaps not until they ask for a demostration or potentially at a trade show or conference. Why wait for those moments? Get out and bring your product to the people, no matter what the product might be.