How Dolphins Taught Me to be a Better Marketer

It was during my fourth week working at Impulse Creative that I had my first “aha” marketing moment. While I had previous inbound marketing experience, it wasn’t a lot and I was (and still am) very much in the process of learning. You see, though my thoughts and ideals aligned perfectly with inbound, I was lacking in the technical and specifics of marketing as a profession. My first marketing job came when I opened my own cloth diaper manufacturing company and began marketing it. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I used the methodology behind inbound and I was doing it well. Once I moved from cloth diapers to full blown marketing, I knew that there had to be more. As I began to grasp the first levels of inbound marketing, I would have these “aha” moments and each one of these moments have made me a better marketer.

“Here, dolphin, dolphin, dolphin”

My first “aha” happened at the end of my first Boat Day at Impulse Creative. Rachel, our VP had come into the office a few weeks before and declared that November 15 was boat day. We should come in our swimsuits and bring snacks. I was startled, boat day? On a workday? But, what about….work? 

We loaded up and headed out on a cute little boat with Remington, as always, as our navigator. The waters were choppy and the wind was chilly. I was newly pregnant and expected to not enjoy the ride, but Julie and I made good fun of bouncing on the seats and we propelled off the waves. As we got close to our lunch spot, Remington spotted a school of dolphins! I’ve lived in Florida nearly my entire life, but I can count with one finger the amount of times I’ve encountered dolphins in the wild. I was so excited! We grabbed our phones and we decided to get them to come play in our wake. We spent 45 minutes trying to encourage the school of dolphins to come play with us, but they weren’t interested. We eventually figured out that they were hunting and no amount of squealing, begging and pleading was going to make them interested in playing in our wake. I won’t lie, I was a little disappointed. I’ve heard stories of them loving to play with the bubbles from the boat, but I had yet to witness it.

After lunch as we headed home we stopped by a gorgeous island to just enjoy the views. Of course, we found another school of dolphins and again tried to engage them. They had none of it. I didn’t understand, we were offering them something that they loved, they wanted, why weren’t they interested!?!?

Once we resolved to the fact that dolphins were not going to play with us, we made our way back home. A few miles into our journey, we stopped for gas. After fueling up, we came back into open water and seemingly out of the blue TWO dolphins started jumping in our wake! I sat just feet from these gorgeous animals as they rushed in our bubbles. They kept turning their heads sideways to look up at us. For nearly two miles they followed us. To say I was thrilled would be an understatement.

After the excitement of seeing the dolphins calmed down, my “aha” moment hit. We had been “outbound” marketing to the first two schools of dolphins. Though they may have also loved playing in the wakes of the engines, we were intruding in their lives at the wrong time. We had the right message, but the wrong timing. When we finally just put our “services” out there and let them find us when they wanted or needed to have some fun, we ended up with one of the most memorable workdays I’ve ever had.

I realized that like dolphins, humans don’t like to have things pushed upon them, no matter how much they love it, want it or need it. Inbound Marketing is about presenting your message at the right time, in the right places and allowing your prospects to find you when they’re ready. I think of the dolphins every time I write a social media post, blog or create a campaign for our clients.

How do you keep the message of Inbound alive for you as a marketer?