Graham McGregor: OMG marketing

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I have had the opportunity in the last fortnight to watch the first two episodes of a remarkable 'fly on the wall' documentary about 'Dynamo Magician Impossible.'

The series follows UK magician extraordinare Stephen Frayne as he amazes and shocks people with his magic.

What I loved about the show is how often I watched it and went 'Oh My God (OMG) how did he do that?'

I recorded the show and have shown it to other people and they've had the same reaction as me. In fact the show has been quite a talking point with a number of the people I know.

When I did a Google search on Dynamo Magician I got over 11 million links that I could check out for further information.

What Stephen Frayne has done is very clever. He has created remarkable moments of entertainment both for the people he shares his magic with in person and the millions of viewers of his documentary series.

He is using what I call OMG Marketing. In other words he is doing things that people want to pass along and tell their friends, family and colleagues about.

I think the same concept can be used by many of us in business.

We can do things in our business that amaze and delight people so they want to pass on what we are doing.

A great example of OMG marketing was shared with me by Michael Hewitt Gleeson the author of WOMBAT Selling. It's about a guy who's got a company called Blendtec which you can Google or YouTube.

He's a businessman in Utah in America. He's got a company and he makes blenders. We all know blenders and he obviously thinks his are the best blenders and they look pretty good.

Mr Blendtec is very clever, he makes little 1 to 2 to 3 minute videos which are all up on YouTube.

And to see one of these is to sit there and watch ten of them. if you watch one of these short videos his tag line is 'will it blend?' In each one of these short and powerful demo videos he puts something shocking like golf balls, or an iPad or a broom into his Blendtec blender.

He puts this mask on, he's a funny kind of nerdy guy and he says 'will it blend?

He then flicks the switch. So far over 15 million people had already seen these videos.

Check out Blendtec and you'll probably watch several of them because they are highly addictive.

(If you go to this link on Michael's site you can see the blend the iPad video.)

At this link you can also request a free copy of Michael's excellent book called WOMBAT Selling.

Thanks to the campaign's popularity (the iPhone-blending video has been viewed more than 9 million times), Blendtec's sales have increased sevenfold in the past three years-impressive when you consider that each video lasts only about two minutes and is produced for a few hundred dollars.

Now you don't have to produce unusual videos like Blendtec to get OMG marketing working for you.

A good starting point is to look at all the interactions that a customer has with your business. When they first contact your business, when they buy from you, when the product or service is delivered and so on.

Then ask yourself 'What could we do in at least one of these situations to create an experience that will amaze and delight our clients so they will want to tell their friends and family about what happened?'

Then take action on what you come up with.

OMG marketing could be just what you need to get positive word of mouth happening for your business.

"Word of mouth is the best medium of all." - William Bernbach

Action Exercise:
How could you get clients and customers to go 'OMG' in a positive way about your business?

Graham McGregor is a marketing consultant and the creator of the 396 page 'Unfair Business Advantage Report.' www.theunfairbusinessadvantage.com (This is free and has now been read by business owners from 27 countries.) You can email him at the link above.