Marketing, Advertising & PR on a Tight Budget by Marta Kagan
- 1. Marketing, Advertising & PR on a Tight Budget New England Xpo for Business May 18, 2010
- 2. 3 basic truths: 2
- 3. 1 People prefer doing business with people/companies that they know and like. 3
- 4. 2 We are constantly bombarded by marketing messages —and we’re getting pretty damn good at tuning them out. 4
- 5. 3 “Hope” is not a good marketing strategy. 5
- 6. 3 basic questions: 6
- 7. 1 Does your product/service market itself? We don’t recommend this.! 7
- 8. 2 Are you making it insanely easy for your fans to tell the world how awesome you are? 8
- 9. 3 What are you doing to build and maintain momentum? 9
- 10. A few great examples: 10
- 11. Case Study Before 451 Marketing: Website was simply an “online brochure” Leads received from website = ZERO Minimal positive press Web traffic = 4,500 visitors/month 11
- 12. 451 Marketing Approach: • Search (paid and natural) marketing • Public relations • Search-leveraged public relations • Social media marketing • Content development 12
- 13. 451 Marketing Approach (continued): • Setup (in)efficient frontiers Blog • http://inefficientfrontiers.wordpress.com/ • Created LinkedIn Group “New England CFO’s” • setup Facebook recruiting page • Pitched firm’s thought leaders to targeted media outlets • Began paid online campaign • Distributed search-optimized press releases • Distributed content through social media channels 13
- 14. Results: • Blog receives almost 2,000 visitors/month • Website traffic almost doubled • Tremendous media coverage! • The Boston Globe, BusinessWeek, Boston Business Journal, New York Times, Forbes & many others • 1st page search results for their top 20+ keywords. 14
- 15. Results (continued): • 2008 Q4 was one of their best for new business engagements • Over $2 Million in business during December and January • 15-30 leads/mo. through website 15
- 16. Consultec Moving Notice Attention-worthy & fun! A “keepsake” vs. a throw-away Rave reviews & lots of buzz 16
- 17. Samsung Telus Campaign “Experience” vs. advertising Activated both traditional media & word-of-mouth buzz 17
- 18. More low/no cost ideas: 18
- 19. Website/blog • Encourage/facilitate sharing with social bookmark links (Digg, Tweet, Buzz, etc.) • Start blogging! • Create & share content (posterous.com is a great, easy tool for this!) • Is your customer base always on the road? Make sure your website/blog is optimized for mobile devices. • Offer >1 way to connect (RSS, social profiles, mobile alerts, etc.) 19
- 20. Video, audio & other media • Experiment with video press releases (don’t replace text, just add video). • Create shareable, shareworthy content—not just about your product/service (that’s just an ad!), but about relevant topics your customers care about. • Make great decks? Share them on Slideshare and/or Scribd.com. • Experiment with live video via sites like uStream.tv or Qik on a cell phone. • Make sure all your videos and media are embeddable and shareable. 20
- 21. Social Networks • Identify existing communities, social networks, and forums that will be interested in your product / service—and build relationships on their turf. • Start a community group on Facebook, Ning, MySpace or LinkedIn. • Use Twitter as a way to show your company’s personality, find and connect with potential and existing customers and fans, and engage them in conversation. • Experiment with Flickr and/or YouTube groups to build media for specific events. • Find bloggers and podcasters whose work you admire, and engage them in an authentic, relevant way. 21
- 22. Monitoring (aka “listening”) • Use conversation monitoring tools to glean how people are talking about your product/service/brand. • Search Twitter for customer insights on your product, competitors, and industry. • Look beyond traffic volume. Where are people are coming from and what are they responding to? • Track your inbound links and when they come from blogs, be sure to comment on a few posts and build a relationship with the blogger. • Turn complaints and negative posts into victories by genuinely addressing the issues and grievances in a public forum. 22
- 23. Foursquare & Location-Based Services • Is your business on Foursquare? It should be. • Engage with the people who “check in.” Reward them with special offers, coupons, badges, “shout outs” etc. • Consider running a campaign via Gowalla or SCVNGR. 23