I remember reading Mark Cuban talk about how useful Google Ads (Adwords) could be as a networking tool. It would allow you to reach a potential contact in a way that’s not as easily ignorable as email or phone calls–plus it proves your dedication. I think he even called it “the best sales idea [he’d] seen in a long time.”
And I finally found someone who used it. John Chow, who has a pretty good blog called The Miscellaneous Ramblings of a Dot Com Mogul placed bought Google Adwords placement on Steve Olson’s site proclaiming his (non-sexual) love for the man. And you can bet that if Steve ever reads his own site, he’s going to notice. Obviously I don’t know the extent of their relationship and it could be a joke, but the viability of this idea doesn’t rest on a single example.
Think about how effective using Adwords could be to reach clients*. Let’s say you want to see your company featured on TechCrunch. Arrington sells space on his personal blog, buy yourself an ad. Prove your cleverness, prove your dedication. You’re just trying to get in the door, like a 1000 other people, so uniqueness–catching his attention–puts you in a rare position.
Understand that these people get hundreds of emails a day, many of which are exactly the same. How nice would it be them to see your pitch pared down to 20 words? If you can’t do that, then it’s probably not worth pitching anyway. Olson checks his entries for typos, to read the comments, etc, so he is going to see it. And if he doesn’t, you’re only down a few dollars anyway. Especially since Adwords allows you to pick specifically what sites and pages your ad will be displayed on. If “We want to interview Tucker Max” or “Ryan, Read my Book” started showing up on our Adsense boxes, you can count on the fact that I would at least investigate it. That gets you an audition, the rest is up to you. It is definitely worth checking out! You could even look into getting Google Ads automation scripts to make your life much easier when setting things up!
Not much else to say, but when I see brilliant PR, I like to point it out. But, as a sidenote, THIS TACTIC WILL NOT HELP YOUR RUDIUS SUBMISSION. I repeat: It will not help your Rudius Submission.
*A note of caution however, this idea is playing off the novelty factor; if it gets overused, it will no longer be efficient.
