OneAndOneIs2

The biggest problem I face with Thermaren at present is that hardly anyone knows of it.

I went fact-finding last week and hunted down the local(ish) shops that might sell such a product, if they only knew it existed. In one of them, I noticed a magazine for sale, and knowing how useful 'niche' magazines can be, I picked up a copy.

There was a lot of useful stuff there, including (unusually) a lot of information on how to advertise in the magazine. I had just missed the deadline for the next issue, but on the off-chance that it wasn't set-in-stone I wrote an email to ask if there was still time to get an ad in.

But then I stopped and looked at the email, and was reminded of all the reading I've done on the difference between advertising and marketing. What I had written was fine for an advertiser, but it wasn't good as marketing.

So I rewrote it from "Can I still put an ad in?" to "Can I still put an ad in for my amazing new idea because I think your readers will be interested in it"

This started a chain of emails going back and forth, with the end result that as well as getting the ad in the magazine as hoped, I'm getting a month's free banner advertising on the website and have sent the editor a product sample so he can write a review of it for inclusion in the next issue as well!

I'm amazed - but very pleased - at how much difference something as simple as going into more detail in an email can make. If I'd just asked a question, I'd only have been given an answer. Instead, he gets a free sample and will be the first place most of his readers will have heard of a new product; and I get a whole lot more exposure than I'd hoped for at the start.

Good, isn't it?