How would you like to be promoted to?

[bjweinberg]

Hello everyone,

I am a graduate student working towards his Masters in Digital Media, and I am working on a paper regarding promoting products to emergency responders through social media. I simply want to ask: How would you like businesses to promote their products to you? I know there is no one single answer to this question, tell me how you feel personally about it, as a firefighter.

Thank you,
Ben Weinberg

[nmfire]

Take your bull**** spam elsewhere @sswipe.

[bjweinberg]

I'm sorry if there was a misunderstanding, I'm not trying to advertise or sell anything. I'm just a student interested in the emergency response industry and I'm looking into how marketing for the industry works.

[Pelican631]

Interesting discussion topic. A few thoughts from my experience. First, the fire service as a whole is steeped in tradition, which can make it very resistant to change. There are some departments that are very progressive about trying and evaluating new technologies and products, but many discount anything new as a “gizmo” until it’s been used for 50 years, regardless of potential benefit. You may want to search the forum for threads on the “FIT-5” device to see what I’m talking about. Also, there is a deep distrust of outsiders (see previous post ). If it’s not a firefighter selling it, many won’t want to buy it or trust that it will work.

So how do you sell something in the fire service? First, get a firefighter to sell it. Either take a firefighter and teach him how to sell things or take a salesman and make him a firefighter. After that, all he/she has to do is sell the product to one department. Once the rest of the departments around see that the other department has a shiny new thing, they’ll have to buy two of them, or the new and improved shiny thing. Word of mouth and neighbor envy seem to be the best ways to market in the fire service. As such, new products tend to be adopted regionally as word of mouth travels. Advertising in the trade magazines certainly helps promote awareness, but no one’s going to buy something unless they’ve seen it in action or heard from a trusted friend or colleague that it works. Live demos are almost a requirement, no matter what the device being marketed. Finally, be completely honest about what your device can and cannot do. Don’t try to overhype it as a solution to a problem it can’t solve. State what it’s purpose is and what it’s not good for. Firefighters love to expose false claims, usually in a very public and vocal manner.

Is this the way it should be? Who knows. Again, this is just my experience.

Andy