When Marketing Consulting Services, Is It OK to Be Funny?

A few months back, before LinkedIn pulled the plug on its very popular LinkedIn Answers service, we came across a question about using humor or wit when marketing consulting services.

Since our answer was selected by the asker as “Best Answer,” I thought our blog readers could also benefit from hearing this Q&A.

Question

So the question asked (very lightly edited), courtesy of Ritesh Dass, the sales and marketing manager at Navyug Infosolutions Pvt. Ltd in Noida Area of India, “Does humor or wit work when marketing consulting services? Has anyone here ever tried to be funny in their marketing?”

Ritesh also wanted to know the pros and cons of this approach, especially when promoting sophisticated IT services and solutions, and if this approach could be effective in getting past stalled pre-sales conversations.

Answer

While humor and wit can certainly be part of your campaigns for marketing consulting services and other related IT solutions, trying to be funny can be risky.

Plus when executed poorly, humorous marketing can still generate some laughs, but be utterly worthless at generating leads.

So keep the following in mind:

1. Not everyone universally agrees on the definition of what’s “funny.” Even within the same target market and demographic, there are many different kinds of humor.

2. Offensive humor can badly backfire. Most of the time, stay away from politics, religion, and sex, as jokes about these three areas are bound to offend someone.

3. Humor needs to be targeted to your market place. What’s funny in Pune, India may fall completely flat on its face in Portland, Oregon (USA) or Paris, France.

And as a best practice, if you're planning marketing that’s supposed to be funny, ask some casual acquaintances in your target market for feedback before hitting the “Send” button.

What kinds of campaigns work best for you when marketing consulting services? What’s been your experience with trying to make these campaigns funny and yet still effective? Please share your experiences with us in the Comments section below. 

And to follow-through on the tips introduced in this short article, be sure to download your free copy of the special report on the Top 10 IT Marketing Strategies For Consistently Attracting New Business Clients to Your Small IT Business. 

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