Salsa Dancing and Marketing

Most of my time as a 24-year-old is spent doing one of two things: working in digital marketing or salsa dancing. I am very passionate about both of these subjects. Just ask one of my coworkers, and they will tell you how much I love all things Latin and how excited I get when I can make an impact for one of my clients through digital marketing. Driving up to Cincinnati two times a week for practice might seem crazy to most people, but it's worth it to me to be a better dancer. Digital marketing is what I pour myself into every day and strive to always improve in as well. Salsa dancing and marketing may seem like two completely opposite concepts, but over the past year working at The Squad, I have made some interesting connections between the two. Stick with me through this blog and you might learn a little bit about how we do marketing at The Squad and maybe even a thing or two about salsa dancing as well!

Connection with your partner (or your client)

Anyone who knows anything about partner dancing knows that connection is the foundation that makes the dance possible. When I speak of connection in this sense, I am not talking about something abstract. The connection required to get you through the complex moves and fast spins of a dance is a physical one, created by a proper frame that moves your entire body and connects to your parter. Without this connection, you are not going to be able to feel when to accelerate or when to stop on a dime.

I have found that the same is true when it comes to marketing for clients. We strive to tell our clients' stories in a way that will grow their businesses, but if we aren't connected to them and in-step with what is going on in their world, it will be impossible to do effective marketing. For example, last week we were going full force promoting a Homearama home on social media for our client P. L. Lyon's Architectural Builders. We planned to put all of our momentum into selling the home up through the event, but when a lady saw a sneak peak video of inside the home on Facebook and showed up at our client's doorstep to make an offer, we had to make a sudden stop and change the pace of our marketing for the week. Otherwise we would be spending money on ad dollars to promote a home that had already sold!

In dancing, you have to connect your frame to your own body so that it moves as one unit and then connect with your partner to be able to move smoothly through the dance. As marketers, we make sure that we have connection by keeping up with the ever-changing marketing trends and communicating with members of our internal team. Then we connect with our clients through weekly calls and constant checks on their account. We strive to be quick responders when we receive communication from our clients so that we can take action and make something beautiful and effective through our connection!

Musicality

In dance, you can take your steps on beat and still lack musicality. Musicality is your ability to interpret the cadence of a song. You may not know this, but there are many different types of salsa music. Salsa romántica is slow and smooth, while salsa tropical is more playful and island-sounding. There is also a type of salsa that is fast-paced and incorporates more elements of jazz. Different songs inspire a different cadence of dance. If you don't add some musicality to your dancing, then you are just moving your feet.

Speaking in the right tone or voice for our clients is the equivalent of dancing with musicality in salsa. In order to create content that effectively conveys the message, your client requires the right tone and voice. To do this, you have to really know your client, just like to dance with the right cadence, you really have to know the music. That's why our directors encourage us to listen to salsa music when we are not dancing so that we become familiar with the instruments and rhythms that are common in salsa. In the same way, you need to study your client (as well as their target audience) to be successful in marketing.

Improv

The last connection I would like to make between salsa dancing and marketing is that of improv. Let's face it: sometimes things don't go as planned and you have to react on the spot. Even the pros make mistakes, but their secret to being phenomenal dancers is that they make their mistakes look like part of the dance. In order to do this, you have to know the dance! The more you know the patterns and steps of the dance, the better you will be able to work through the mistakes and turn them into something phenomenal. This is true, whether you are dancing socially or performing a choreography. The same goes for digital marketing. Whether you have to change the pace of your marketing because something unexpected happens, like in my example above with the Homearama home, or you have to address a mistake that you or your client made, you have to take charge and own your next move. Mistakes can be turned into some of your best moves both on and off the dance floor.

If you would like to talk to someone about taking the first step in digital marketing for your business, share your goals with us here! You can also reach out to me on Facebook if you are looking for a place to take lessons or go dancing in Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana!