By Tom Wozniak, Head of Marketing – published on Forbes on 10/4/22

As marketers, we’re always looking for ways to connect with our audience and set our company or brand apart from the competition. There are plenty of ways to go about that, but one of the most effective strategies can be adding humor to your marketing and communications program. Just about everyone likes to laugh. Humor can brighten our day, be a diversion from the daily routine and, when done well, can create a connection with the person or company that makes you smile when you receive their messaging. We’re probably more familiar with consumer brands using humor to connect with audiences, but it can work every bit as well in business-to-business marketing. However, unlike many common marketing and communication strategies, using humor is not always straightforward and can be extremely challenging to use successfully. If you do it wrong, the impact on your brand will be anything but funny.

As someone who has been using humor in corporate marketing and brand building for many years, I can both relate to the challenges and appreciate the feeling of accomplishment that comes from building a successful marketing strategy that relies on being funny where appropriate. So, I thought I would put together a few hopefully helpful tips for marketing pros who want to add humor to their marketing programs. My main focus is on more corporate marketing strategies, but these tips can be adapted to a business-to-consumer strategy as well.

Make Sure You Have A Sense Of Humor

My guess is that we all think we have a fantastic sense of humor and are totally hilarious. At the same time, we all know people who we know don’t appreciate humor at all. (These are typically people who don’t laugh at our jokes.) The point is that not everyone is funny. If you’re going to write humor, you have to be able to recognize and create the type of humor you’re going for. Are you more highbrow or 13-year-old boy in your level of humor? It is going to help tremendously if your own sense of humor is well developed and a part of your personality.

So, before stepping off the ledge and taking your first metaphorical marketing pratfall, you need to reflect a bit on whether you are wired for this approach. It’s not for everyone. If it isn’t your forte, trying to be funny could be a real drag. But, if you already find yourself being funny in your emails or conversations with friends and co-workers (especially industry people), then this could be right up your alley.

Read the rest at Forbes.

Tom Wozniak heads up Marketing and Communications for OPTIZMO Technologies.