I came across this article from the Wall Street Journal last week:

The Infomercial Comes to Life in India’s Remotest Villages
Traveling Salesman Mr. Sharma Sings, Jokes To Spread Gospel of Global Consumerism

It’s an interesting profile of a man named Sandeep Sharma who travels around rural India selling products from big brands like Nokia and Nestle. He uses a variety of tactics to get locals interested in his presentations, and I couldn’t help but think that he’s essentially following a lot of the tenets of successful word-of-mouth marketing and social media campaigns, but instead of using Twitter or Facebook or the Web to reach his audience, he’s doing it in real life.

Here are a a few takeaways:

1. Blogger Relations: Respect the blogger and make sure your pitch is relevant to their audience

Sharma approaches the elders at each village he stops in and first asks their permission to deliver his sales pitch and also to find out who he should target in the village (who has the money). He doesn’t just roll into town and start selling. In blogger relations, it’s important to engage with the blogger (the village elder) and understand how they prefer to be pitched and how to appropriately reach out to their community. This means no comment spamming or depersonalized e-mails to the blogger. Like Sharma, it’s important to ask for permission to be let into their community.

2. Brand Awareness: Get the audience involved

Instead of setting up a stage and just lecturing the crowds with a sales pitch, Sharma makes his presentations interactive. He invites participants up to the stage for quizzes and giveaways about the products. He gives detailed product explanations and demos and allows the audience to test out the merchandise. He stages funny skits and plays that the audience can participate in and has even run American Idol-type contests. All of this activity is focused around getting the audience involved with the products he’s selling. Too many companies or brands are still in the mode of talking at potential customers instead of talking with them. Sharma knows how to involve an audience and make them feel like a part of his show. They’re more likely to buy if they’re engaged.

3. Community Building: Respect community norms

The soaps and lotions Sharma sells are targeted toward women, but cultural norms in rural India dictate that he shouldn’t make direct eye contact with the women in the village. He sets up a screen to shield himself and he allows the men of the village to ask the questions, even for women’s products. Sharma knows that being insensitive to the mores and rituals of the village is a quick way to get run out of town. Often brands try to burst in on an online community with a sales pitch without stopping to first understand who makes up the community and how they operate. Spamming a discussion board with sales messages is a quick way to alienate the very community that you’re trying to sell to. Know what the norms are before you engage.

4. It’s not about the tools: Really, it’s not

Sharma manages to get villagers interested and talking to each other about products without using any of the snazzy, jazzy tools that we in the social media world are all spun up about. He doesn’t Twitter, he doesn’t push out promotions via Facebook, he doesn’t use e-mail. But he epitomizes what it means to be social and encourage interaction and awareness about a product with a target audience. The “it’s not about the tools” mantra has been repeated countless times, but Sharma shows us that it’s really true!

I encourage you to check out the article on WSJ.com. What else can we learn from Sandeep Sharma?