Disrupt the Loop With Something Different
Insights from Base Camp / Alexsa Young, Dir. Marketing
As the days, hours, and minutes tick by, it can be very easy to slip into a routine of processes and checklists. And while automation (be it through tech or by person) makes things efficient, reduces errors, and helps complete those checklists, it can also create complacency. It can cover creativity and push out opportunity to do something different.
Creating something that disrupts the loop can make all the difference between being top-of-mind for a moment or being remembered forever. Things that we do, as small as they may be, can be the differentiator we need to help us make lasting connections.
The Book Made Me Do It
When thinking about the little things that make a big difference, a book comes to mind, and not in the way you think. (No, I’m not going to pull out passages and quotes from a great read.) It brings me back to the day I walked into the office to find a small, plain white box sitting on my desk – with a simple logo and nothing else.
Curiosity enticed me to open it and I’ll admit, even for the most skeptical of marketers, I was a little excited to see what was inside! What I found was a note and a book. The note was an invitation to join a new marketing “think tank,” but the book was what really drew me in. It was a book that, oddly enough, had been on my mind to throw in my shopping cart, but had never made it from my “should do” list to the checkout lane. It was a book that wasn’t written by anyone in the group, or a promo push for any type of new services… it was just a “good read!”
This very situation is an engagement technique that I have been a HUGE fan of for years. I have always talked with those around me about the impact of sending “good reads” to those we are connected to as a way to engage the thoughts we want to share and curiosity we all crave. I have even sent them myself, but I was finally seeing it in action – from the other side of the mailbox! And let me tell you, it was everything I had imagined it would be. It resonated with my interests in marketing, my love of reading, and there wasn’t a big pushy sale with it so it felt genuine. They simply wanted to invite me to share my insights and read something good.
I can’t wait to dig into the book when my kids’ sports schedule clears up, but in the meantime their simple outreach did everything it was intended to do. It left an imprint on my memory because it disrupted the loop.
What else can I say except, send a “good read,” but more importantly DISRUPT THE LOOP and be different!
