In 1997, I wrote down a marketing lesson from the circus that I completely forgot about.
Until this morning.
I had visited the Ringling Museum in Sarasota and got fascinated by the business behind “The Greatest Show on Earth.”
One of the things they did when the circus came to town was brilliant.
Every day at 11:00 a.m., rain or shine, they held a parade through town.
And this wasn’t some little procession.
They brought out the animals. The performers. The costumes. Lions and tigers and elephants rolling through town in open cages.
Basically, they took a miniature version of the circus and put it right in front of everybody.
For free.
Of course people followed the parade.
And where did it lead?
Right back to the circus.
I wrote the lesson in my journal as:
Free parade. Daily. 11 a.m. Rain or shine.
Reading that this morning made me laugh.
Because here I am, almost 30 years later, doing videos and sending emails every day.
And guess what time we release them?
11:00 a.m.
Apparently I’ve been running the circus all along.
But there’s a really useful marketing lesson here.
Instead of constantly asking people to come to you, think about what part of what you do you could take to them.
Give them something genuinely interesting.
Something useful.
Something that lets them experience a little bit of what it would be like to enter your world.
That’s really what content marketing is at its best.
Not an advertisement for the circus.
A little piece of the circus itself.
What’s your free parade?
And could you do it daily?
Rain or shine.
Dean