Lesson on Marketing From The Big City – What Does The “Slinky” Have To Do With Marketing?

Lesson on Marketing From The Big City – What Does The “Slinky” Have To Do With Marketing?

“Small Business Stacey” shares how a squiggly piece of metal called a slinky can help with your small business marketing. #SmallBizMarketingWiz #ASmallBizLife

Marketing in 2 Minutes or Less: Lesson on Marketing From The Big City – What Does The “Slinky” Have To Do With Marketing?

Listen to the podcast:

Here’s the transcript:

Hey, everybody. Small Business Stacey here. Why am I sitting on my steps? Well, it’s part of a marketing lesson learned from the big city. Have you ever seen one of these? … It’s called a Slinky. Look, I’m probably dating myself here, but this was a really cool toy when I was growing up.

We would sit on our steps and for hours just get this thing to walk down the steps. It would entertain us forever. We’d have contests to see who could make it go the longest or the fastest, and we’d race each other. It was so much fun. Something so simple, a squiggly piece of metal, that could entertain us for hours.

Today it seems like nobody has any type of attention span, so how can you use the concept of a Slinky in your marketing? Well, it’s all about nostalgia, and it really doesn’t matter your age, because you’re probably thinking, “Oh, man. This woman … She’s from the dinosaur age. Slinkies? How am I going to use a Slinky in my marketing?”

What you want to do is tap into marketing nostalgia. I have a client who owns a dessert shop, and what she does is once a month, she brings out these old candies that we used to grow up with that they don’t sell anymore, and it’s such a popular event. The people in the neighborhood love it. Families come and they bring their kids. The kids think these candies and desserts are like the most amazing thing, right?

Well, it’s sort of like the Slinky effect. There’s a gentleman in my Small Biz Marketing Success Group. Paul Finkelstein, I know you’re watching. He leverages the power of nostalgia. What he did was he created a spare time machine, which is really sort of saying tapping into the DeLorean effect, because what he does is he brings his mobile portrait studio to you. He’s sort of saying by doing this, I’m going to save you time. So it’s sort of like “Back to the Future”. Nostalgic, right?

So why they had a Slinky in the Museum of Modern Art, I’m not quite sure. But I guess for the time, it actually was pretty modern. So whether you’re modern art or nostalgic art, it’s all going to help with your marketing.

Did you grow up playing Slinky? Let me know. I’d love to see a comment below, and make sure you tune in tomorrow for part three of marketing lessons learned in the big city.

This is Small Business Stacey, your Small Biz Marketing Specialist here to help you get your marketing into action and help you become a #SmallBizMarketingWiz.