Sneak Preview: Build Buzz for Your Biz: 23 Creative and Inexpensive Marketing Strategies that Will Get You Noticed!
I am so excited to be publishing my E-Book next week that I am offering a sneak preview! For a limited time, I will be offering this book for Free! If you would like to be notified when it comes out so you can get your FREE copy,email me: Buzz@23Kazoos.com. Don’t worry, I won’t spam you or give away your info. Guaranteed.
Marketing Strategies for Small Business
Many years ago I worked in an office of law enforcement personnel and they were some of the biggest pranksters I’ve ever met. We had running competitions to see who could out prank each other. Here are my top 10 office pranks from those days, just in time for April Fool’s Day! If you tell anyone where you got them, I’ll have to hurt ya!
10. My world is upside down! Turn everything in your boss’s office upside down, and rearrange it in the same place that it was.
9. “Stolen car!” If someone in the office has a small car such as a Prius, MiniCooper or VW, a few people might be able to lift it up or push it to another place in the parking lot. Lots of hilarious laughter as they look for their stolen car. (Note: watch out, some people get really mad!)
8. Mail a letter to China. This works if your assistant’s middle name is gullible. Find a company that has a local and a Chinese office. Print out the address to the Chinese office, written in Chinese. Give your assistant a letter to send to the person in China. Make sure you tell your assistant to transcribe the Chinese letters perfectly so the post office in China can read the address.
7. Just in time. Change all the clocks in the office to be one hour ahead or one hour behind. To make this work, you’ve got to get the phones and computers too!
6. It had to be you! Replace artwork on office walls with “Wanted Posters” of the boss. Bonus if you happen to work an office where portraits are hung instead. Replace the faces with those of your coworkers. Write captions.
5. Car for sale. List an office worker’s car for sale in the classified section of Craigslist or one of the car buyer magazines. Make sure you use their phone number.
4. Fake food. If you feel creative make people cookies out of a recipe for dog biscuits. Funny thing is, your coworkers might not know the difference!!
3. Eeek a mouse!! Put lifelike rubber mice, bugs or snakes in the desk drawers or kitchen drawers. Bonus points if your victim jumps up on a chair!
2. What’s wrong with the phone? Put clear tape the telephone. There are lots of ways you can do this. Tape the mouthpiece so that the caller doesn’t hear them, or put tape on the earpiece so they can’t hear the caller. Another good one if you have the right type of phone is to tape down the clicker on the receiver so instead of receiving the call when the handset is picked up, the phone continues to ring and ring.
1. Is it snowing? This is my favorite office prank. Collect the dots from the three-hole punch. Put them in a container and hang them over a door. When the person opens the door, the dots fall all over him or her, and all over the floor. For added fun, put dots in drawers, dots in files, dots in briefcases and anywhere where they have a good chance of falling out and making a big mess!
(photo courtesy: joeltelling)
I admit it, I’m addicted to Twitter! It’s a disease that can’t be cured! From the time I get up in the morning, to the time I go to bed at night, I find myself continually being pulled to my blue little friend like a person on a diet is drawn to chocolate cream pie!
My family is quite ready for an intervention. “Why do you like Twitter so much?” they say. “Because I get to learn what’s going on with my followers,” I reply. “What’s a follower?” they ask. My husband is concerned, “There’s a bunch of men who are following you!” “No, it’s not like that at all! Why don’t you get your own Twitter account and find out?” I say. “No,” he says, “I’ve seen what it’s done to you!”
Social Media has many names and platforms including Facebook, MySpace, Linked-In, and more, but not since the dawn of AOL’s “You’ve got mail” email account, has one form of social media taken America by such a huge storm as the fantastically popular application known as “Twitter.”
For those of you who are like my family and not quite up on this new technology, Twitter is a free social messaging utility that people use to keep in touch with each other in real time through short little 140 character messages called “tweets.” It was invented by a couple of guys in San Francisco in March of 2006.
In order to Twitter you must first sign up for a free account at Twitter.com. Then you need to set up your profile. This includes your user name (mine is 23Kazoos), real name, location, email, website, and a short 140 character bio. When you reply to a user name on Twitter, the @ sign is used before the name. So to reply to me on Twitter you would use @23Kazoos.
You can post an “avatar” or small photo of yourself as well as customize your Twitter profile background in the “settings” tab.
After your profile is made, then you can follow people or wait for them to follow you. You can follow friends, family members, celebrities, and even brand names. Neil Diamond, Justin Timberlake and John McCain use Twitter, so does Starbucks, McDonalds, and JetBlue. The music artist John Mayer is said to be on Twitter so much that it caused his girlfriend, Jennifer Aniston to break up with him!
You can find people to follow by name; such as Brittney Spears, by interest; such as blogging, and even by location; such as Phoenix, AZ, by using the “Find People” tab on Twitter, or by using Twitter’s co-sites such as Twello, Just Tweet It, or Mr. Tweet.
Having a number of people who follow you or “followers” on Twitter is a sign of popularity. And most people think that if having a few followers is good, having a huge number of followers is even better. Ellen Degenerous (@theellenshow) declared that she wanted to get up to one million followers in one day! She didn’t quite make it, but she came close with over 300,000 followers in one month. Note; if someone follows you, it’s courteous to follow them back.
You can tweet from your desktop, your i-phone, your blackberry, your laptop. You can tweet on the go, at work, and even in congress! With an estimated 6 million unique users and counting, it seems like “everyone” is doing it! A look of some of the most popular tweets on Twitter will bring up names like Barack Obama, Arnold Schwartzenegger, PDiddy, Martha Stewart, and the Real Shaquille O’Neal.
Twitter is the place where news is reported first. When pilot “Scully” landed the bird-crippled airplane on the Hudson River, in January of 2009, saving himself and all 155 occupants, the first photo came via TwitPic from one of the passengers.
The media uses Twitter to get the scoop. When seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong’s bike was stolen, he posted a picture of it, and the message on Twitter first. Later on, when the bike was found, through the help of Twitter, Armstrong’s followers were the first to know.
People tweet about what they are doing and where they are at. Shaquille O’Neal likes to tweet about where he is and give away Phoenix Suns game tickets to the first of his followers who find him.
People tweet about their business, their family, their life, and generally whatever is on their minds. However, there are some “unwritten” rules about the “right” way to use Twitter. For example, remember that anything you tweet is on the Internet forever and can be used against you. One guy found that out the hard way when he tweeted about how much he didn’t like his new job at a certain company. That certain company was on Twitter too…Ooops. So be careful what you tweet about. You also don’t want to tweet too much personal stuff, like “I’m going out of town for 2 weeks, house key under the mat!”
The general idea is to be positive, tweet enough about yourself so that people get to know you, but don’t be too personal. Don’t be negative either. If you are a negative tweeter, you’ll find yourself losing followers. Another rule is that if you’re a business, it’s bad manners to be tweeting about your business all the time like some used car salesman. Nothing turns followers off faster than that.
Twitter is a relatively new social media application that has taken the world by storm. But in order to understand what it really is, you’ve got to try it yourself. So log on to Twitter.com and get set up, and don’t forget to follow me at @23Kazoos.com.
Wendy Nelson Kenney is the crazed creator of 23Kazoos.com, an organic marketing company that teaches business owners how to build buzz for their business through social media, public relations, and new marketing. She can be reached at Buzz@23Kazoos.com or you can follow her on Twitter at @23Kazoos.com
If you like this post, feel free repost on your blog or on Twitter, giving credit where credit is due and a link back to this website.
The other day I was at a networking meeting with about 30 entrepreneurs and our guest speaker was a “marketing” person who spent about 30 minutes telling us about how much of an expert they were. Then they handed out their brochure. There were obvious misspellings, no white space, and no graphics. It looked like it had been put together by a third grader. Their business cards were obviously made on a home computer as well as their website. All of this left me with a bad taste in my mouth and a lump in my stomach. I was sorely disappointed, and even though I liked the person, I decided I wouldn’t be doing business with them because this person was so obviously not the expert they said they were.
Have you experienced this too? Perhaps it was you? There was a time when that person was me. But I’ve realized that if I’m going to be in business, I’ve got to do it right because everything I do and say, communicate the truth about my brand to my prospects and customers, and the saying is really true; “You only get one chance to make a good first impression.”
Branding is all about your first impressions and is experienced by all five of our senses! It’s about the story that invokes feelings of hope, the image that excites our imagination, the sound that leaves us asking for more, and even the textural feeling of the quality of your workmanship.
Bust mostly, in order for a brand to work, it’s got to touch our heart, mind and soul. You’ve got to show customers that you’re different, that you care about them!
Here are some things that speak loud and clear to your customers about how much you care.
- Logo and Graphics, quality, homemade, or professional.
- Web and Blog Design
- Business cards, brochures.
- Packaging
- You, your environment, your employees, the service they provide, the way that they look and speak.
- The message and the meaning.
- The smell, and the flavor of your brand, product and experience.
- Your authenticity
If you want to create buzz for your business, all of these areas have to be in alignment! You can’t say one thing, and then be, do, look, and act another. People will do business with you because they like you one time, but if you aren’t everything you promise, chances are highly likely that they won’t come back!
So what do you do? Poll some of your clients or friends about their perceptions regarding your business and brand. Ask questions like:
- What is the best experience you’ve had while working with me?
- Is there an experience that could have been better?
- How does my company, brand, website, etc. compare with other companies that do the same thing?
- What would make you absolutely thrilled with the service I provide?
- How can I improve?
- What am I doing well?
- How does my company look? Smell? Feel?
You should also be on top of what your competitors are doing. Talk to their clients, and check out their services. How do you compare.
Customers have a lot of choices. S0 as business owners, our number one goal of marketing is to communicate to customers why they should choose us, which is what branding is all about.
So make sure that your branding matches your buzz, or it won’t be long that your buzz will match your branding.
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This is a guest post by Brian Solis, the CEO of Future Works, a PR, Social Media, and New Media Marketing Company.
The old way of putting together press releases in this age of new media doesn’t work. Here’s how you create a compelling press release, New Media Style!
Headline:
Insert a short, compelling headline that features keywords, not buzzwords, to attract attention and legitimate interest by those who cover your space as well as potential customers.
Sub Headline:
The Subhead should further explain why someone should continue reading, providing a bit more clarity to the news
News Summary
List a few compelling features of what, why, and who cares…do not use buzzwords or hyperbole (and try to keep the entire release below 400 words). You can use bullets or sentences or a combination of both.
Quotes
Not every press release needs a quote, especially if the quote doesn’t lend anything to the value of the information. If a quote is necessary, there are a couple of ways to implement into the SMPR.
Corporate quote:
Please do not start with, “We are excited…” or “We are thrilled…” Keep the quote on target explaining why this is a significant milestone.
Expert or customer quote (if necessary):
Keep it related to the news and how the product/service benefits customers in real world applications.
Market Facts and Relevant Links
Use del.icio.us or other social media-driven site to collect relevant facts about the company, product, competition, and state of the market and present it all through one link.
One Link Example:
http://del.icio.us/FutureWorksSMPR
Or you can provide the relevant links in its own category of the SMPR.
Multiple Links Example:
How To Write an SMPR – http://future-works.com/about/103106_htg.html
Todd Defren’s SMPR template - http://www.pr-squared.com/2006/05/the_social_media_press_release.html
Examples of social media press releases -
http://www.spiralfrog.com/socialmedia.aspx?control=spiralfrog-kochrecords20sep06.ascx
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/8/prweb428622.htm
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=162010
Evolution of social media press releases – http://www.briansolis.com/2006/10/evolution-of-social-media-press.html
SocialMediaClub - http://www.socialmediaclub.com
TopRank Marketing Blog – http://www.toprankblog.com/
Company Info:
Add a few sentences about the company, but leave out “XXX is a leader…” and other filler, posturing language. Don’t make it too long, you can always link to a corporate backgrounder or additional information.
Image/s Link:
Include a link to images, and the best way to do so is to use a social media photo sharing services such as flickr or zooomr. The best part about social media is the ability to not only share your photos with bloggers and reporters, but with the right tags, the pictures can make their way onto the desktops of anyone searching for similar products/services for consumption and sharing.
For example, if you go the link below, you will see a set of images that I created for the purpose of sharing artwork with PR/marketing writers interested in the launch of the Social Media Club. I’ve also tagged each photo with several different tags, including “socialmediaclub” and “social media” so that others can find these images when they’re searching for photos related to the subjects.
Example:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/briansolis/sets/72157594290369491/
RSS Link:
RSS is a simple XML-based system that allows users to subscribe to their favorite websites and blogposts. Using RSS, webmasters can put their content into a standardized format, which can be viewed and organized through RSS-aware software or automatically conveyed as new content on another website. Now, this capability can be used for bloggers, reporters and customers to subscribe to future news directly.
Example:
http://www.future-works.com/cutenews/rss.php?category=2
or
http://www.briansolis.com/atom.xml
Technorati tags:
Technorati tracks the number of links and the perceived relevance of blogs, as well as the real-time nature of blogging.
What’s important for you to know about Technorati allows users to search by “tags” or keywords to help you identify who’s talking about your areas of interest. With Social Media Press Releases, readers will now also have access to your news – if tagged and published correctly.
For example, this “how to” will carry many keywords, tags, and links, with “PR” and “SMPR” among them. Behind the words, the following tag will be hyperlinked, http://technorati.com/tag/PR and http://technorati.com/tag/smpr and updated at Technorati. So for example, if someone searches “PR” as a tag or as a keyword, this article will hopefully appear in the list.
For more information on tags, please visit:
http://www.technorati.com/help/tags.html
Example:
For the tag “futureworks”, it would look like this
<a href=”http://technorati.com/tag/futureworks” rel=”tag” class=”techtag”>FutureWorks</a>
Remember to use best practices and publish only relevant and necessary tags – do not promote tag spam.
Bookmarks:
It’s important to give readers a way to save the link, using their favorite tools. The whole concept here is that you provide a means to enable social bookmarking which allows other people to find and share favorite things on the web.
It’s also a good idea to provide suggested tags.
Example:
socialmedia press+releases public+relations PR brian+solis todd+defren chris+heuer socialmediaclub
News Sharing, Digg, Netscape, reddit
These sites tap into the potential reach of user powered content. Every article on digg and Netscape is submitted and voted on by their communities. By placing a link to these sites in the release, users can help share, discover, bookmark, and promote your news.
Contact Info:
Add contact info here. Please include relevant info, email, cell, and any IM client you may use.
Also, insert link to vcard, see example below:
# # #
Distribution:
Several wire services reach traditional media, but integrate social media optimization (SMO) and search engine optimization (SEO) elements as well to appeal to bloggers (because the releases can provide the information in a format that they can appreciate).
These services include:
PRWeb (traditional, SMO, SEO)
PRNewswire (traditional, SEO, multimedia)
Businesswire (traditional) and the new, pseudo SMO BusinessWire (alliance with PRWeb)
Weblogwire (traditional – but only tech bloggers subscribe to this service)
Marketwire (traditional, SEO – working on SMO)
PRXbuilder – (SMO specific, aligned with PRNewswire)
Illustration Credit: Matt Hamm Thanks Matt- You Rock!!!
What I love most about Twitter is that fact that you can connect with celebrities, business leaders, politicians etc, and you find out for the most part that they are real people too!
Here are some of my absolute favorite celebrities on Twitter: Note these are the real tweeps!
Ellen Degenerous: @TheEllenshow Find Ellen’s monologue, celebrity photos and videos, games, giveaways, how to get tickets and more on The Ellen Show website. (Ellen you need to FOLLOW!!)
Lance Armstrong: @Lancearmstrong 7-time Tour de France winner, full time cancer fighter – LIVESTRONG!
Martha Stewart: @Marthastewart
“Yes this is the martha between chores checking email,phone messages and twitter i really am gardening,planting peas and going riding” She’s the real thing.
Shaquille O’Neal @The_Real_Shaq VERY QUOTATIOUS, I PERFORM RANDOM ACTS OF SHAQNESS (Half the time I can’t understand what’s he saying, but he’s fun to follow. Posts random pics, shopping at WALMART!) Gave two tickets to tonights game to the first Twitters who touched him!
Cesar Millan, The Dog Whisper @cesarmillan Official Twitter Account for the Dog Whisperer. Congratulations, Cesar just became an American Citizen!
John Mayer @johncmayer He likes video games
Neil Diamond @NeilDiamond Good at answering tweets
Richard Branson @RichardBranson: Lots of activity to keep up with. Around the world in 8 days.
Stephen Fry @stephenfry “Well. Breakfast time. A bowl of fruit for Stevie.”
Rainn Wilson @rainnwilson “I am an actor. I’m launching SoulPancake soon! My wife is Holiday and my son, Walter. Beets rule!”
John Cleese @JohnCleese “Yes, I am still indeed alive, contrary to rumour, and I am making video podcasts”
Jimmy Fallon @jimmyfallon Live from New York or wherever he’s at at the moment!
Claudia Jordan @claudiajordan Currently on Celebrity Apprentice
Kim Kardashian @kimsaprincess Yes she is. Sweetheart of a girl.
Khloe Kardashian @KKardashin Celebrity Apprentice Girl, you rock!!
Justin Timberlake @JustinTLake ” probably the most chill guy youll ever meet. definitely a work-a-holic..buts its hasnt proved to be a bad thing yet. my family and friends are my lifesavers.” Justin you rocked out SNL!!
Tony Hawk @tonyhawk professional skateboarder, dad, videogame character, husband, ceo, kid chauffeur
Ron Howard @Ron_Howard Director of Jim Carrey’s the Grinch! All around good guy
Mark Wahlberg @Mark_Wahlberg Still new to Twitter Loved him in the movie: Max Payne
Diablo Cody @diablocody Writer of Juno, just got a new office in NY
Mischa Barton @MischaBarton Gorgeous!
Luke Wilson @LukeWilson Another bored Twitter user? Don’t call him Owen’s brother!
Find more that are not on here? Email me!!
Wendy Nelson Kenney is the Crazed Creator of 23Kazoos.com, an organic marketing company that teaches business owners how to build buzz for their business. She can be reached at Buzz@23Kazoos.com
If you like this post, feel free repost on your blog or on Twitter, giving credit where credit is due and a link back to this website. Enjoy!!
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My company has been working on updating its brand, including logo, brochures and other marketing collateral. Being the Director of Creativity, the task of finding a graphic designer was up to me. This is my experience.
Graphic Designer A. Since I am in a networking group that has a graphic designer my first thought was to contact them. After all, I want to support the people in my networking group. From all of the samples of work that they had done for other people in our group, I was pretty sure that they could do a good job for us. Plus I knew that their rates were very reasonable.
I contacted graphic designer A by telephone and email and asked for a quote, which they sent to me promptly. Then I agreed to work with them. There was no contract, just an email. The graphic designer did not contact me to find out what I wanted as far as a logo design, colors, style etc. Basically I just told them that I wanted a logo with our name. I was very surprised they didn’t at least send me a worksheet to fill out so they could get my ideas. Working with them was difficult. They did not return my telephone calls, preferring to communicate via email. Once it took them a week to return a call or email, indicating, when they finally did, that they had been out of town on an emergency.
After what seemed like 20 revisions on our project, and missing several deadlines, we finally did our own research to find examples of the type of logo that we wanted. After that they were able to get it done. It was a difficult experience. We loved our logo, and the cost was right, but the experience was very frustrating. Grade C-.
Graphic Designer B was another one I met in a networking group. I contacted them because out of all of the graphic designers in this group, they were the only one that had contacted me outside of the group on a friendly basis. Although I wasn’t exactly excited about the style of graphic design this designer preferred, I wanted to give them a chance. Their rates were double of Graphic Designer A.
Graphic Designer B returned my telephone call and email right away, both by phone and email. They provided me a quote for the project I was working on and worked with me to get it to fit within my budget. They did not send me a predesign questionaiire either. Can you tell I was expecting this type of communication? However, I sent a very clear email with a sample of what I was looking for. The first draft was right on target and I was very pleased. My only concern was that in communicating with this designer, they let me know they were very busy, going to meetings or whatever. It took a little longer than I expected to get the project started, and the designer did not communicate a deadline for finishing. I felt like my project was not a priority. Grade B.
Graphic Designer C. After going through those experiences I decided to bid out my next project on a portal called Elance.com.
Elance is a website where people can connect with service providers to get projects done. You post your project, in my case, I was looking for logo, and business card design, and then services providers bid on it. You get to pick from the multiple providers, which enables you to find styles, prices, etc, that work for you.
After posting my project with an end date of 7 days, I received almost 100 bids. I narrowed the bidders down by feedback score (95% satisfaction or higher), price, and style of examples in portfolio. If I had wanted to, I could have also narrowed it down by location, or specialty. I finally chose a provider and accepted their bid.
Graphic Designer C immediately responded to my bid acceptance and sent me a predesign questionnaire. Nothing too difficult, just about 10 questions asking what I was looking for, what colors, styles, and sample logos I liked, and then we were off. Within 24 hours they sent me 8 concepts. I was very pleased. I quickly narrowed it down and they responded again within 24 hours. What surprised me the most about the experience with this company was that even though they are a large company with many graphic design projects, they made me feel like my project was the only one that they were working on. They always responded quickly and kept me current on timelines. I never felt like I had to guess what was going on. Their price was reasonable and they threw in additional value by designing a business card and stationary exactly to my specifications. Grade A!
In order to build buzz for your business, you’ve got to create a customer experience like none other. You’ve got to make your customer feel like they are your number one priority by calling them back promptly, communicating, and following up. Graphic Designer C delivered on my expectations and then some and I most highly recommend them for your graphic design and web needs! Want to find out who they are? Email me me with the subject line: Graphic Designer C, and I will send you their info!
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How to Build Buzz for your Biz: 23 Creative and Inexpensive Marketing Strategies That will Get You Noticed is coming Soon. Click here to be notified when it is ready!
In the meantime, here are a few of my favorite Free e-Books for download:
Lose Control of Your Marketing, by David Meerman Scott
Marketing Apple 5 Secrets of the World’s Best Marketing Machine, by Steve M. Chazin
Sticky Note Success: 25 Self- Motivating Messages to Pump up Productivity and Stimulate Sales, Scott Ginsberg, the Nametag Guy
Did that headline get your attention? It certainly got mine! But what if we changed the headline to read:
“Free Mercedes SLK 350 Brochure, Just Drop By.”
No, that one doesn’t really get me excited. Does it you? What’s the difference?
Free offers are one of the best ways to get your company or product or service noticed. They can create instant buzz for little cost. But they have to be done the right way; otherwise you’ll see your efforts backfire.
Here are 7 No Fail Rules of Running a Successful Free Offer
1. The Rule of Dollar Value. The offer has to be something that that has a dollar valued attached to it. Case in point, Denny’s recently ran a campaign for free Grand Slam breakfast for everyone in America. The value of a Grand Slam is approximately $5.99. Millions of people waited in line at Denny’s Restaurants all over the country to take them up on their offer. Denny’s said their promotion was a huge success. According to one of the Denny’s managers, “Free freaks people out; they call and say, ‘What’s the catch?’” And Denny’s thinks that by “freaking people out” in a good way, it will keep them coming back for more.
2. The Rule of Desire. It has to be something that customers want, and wouldn’t be able to get unless they paid for it themselves. Good examples include free Kindle books for Kindle owners at Amazon.com or free MP3 downloads from Napster.com.
3. The Rule of Relevance. One way to make sure that your offer is something that people want is that it has relevance to what’s going on right now or what’s popular. Dunkin’ Donuts gave away free iced coffee in May and experienced great success. Would they have done so if they would have given away hot chocolate instead? The question to ask yourself is what is relevant in the market right now? What are people talking about? Then tailor your free offer to address that.
4. The Rule of No Strings Attached. For free to work, it has to be 100% absolutely free. As customers, we are weary and cynical. We don’t know who you are yet, and we don’t trust you yet either. Give us a chance to trust you by giving something away that won’t require us to sign up or opt in. If you’ve followed all of the other tips above, it’s highly likely we’ll tell others and we’ll come back to see what else you have. David Meerman Scott, Author of the “Word Wide Rave,” gives away a free eBook on his website WebInkNow. It’s definitely worked for him as his new book, “World Wide Rave” is one of the top sellers on Amazon.com. Scott believes that the purpose of free is not to generate sales leads but to create positive buzz about you, your product, or service.
5. The Rule of Taste: The freebie should only be a taste of what you have to offer, not necessarily the whole meal. Costco is very successful with this sampling strategy. In fact people will go to Costco on Saturdays just to get the free samples, which are so plentiful they can easily score a “free lunch!” Costco doesn’t seem to mind. You know why? Because it works! How many times have you tried a new food at Costco and ended up purchasing a whole package?
6. The Rule of Limited Time: Customers who go to Costco know that the free samples are only given out on weekends. They make sure they are there to get them or they will miss out. Denny’s free Grand Slam was only good for one day. Having an expiration date or a limited supply will create urgency that creates buzz and also will motivate people to take action right away.
7. The Rule of the Right People: Have you ever noticed how much free stuff celebrities get even though they can easily afford to buy the stuff themselves? That’s because they are influential. Other people see what they are wearing or using and want to follow suit. If a celebrity likes something, they may also spread the word. Oprah ’s Book Club is a case in point.
According to Andy Sernovitz, in his book “Word of Mouth Marketing“ you’ve got to identify the “Talkers,” that is those people who by nature enjoy spreading the word and will spread the word about you. So who are talkers? Talkers are people that naturally use your product or service. A celebrity may not be the best talker for your business. For example, if you own a retail store that specializes in organic clothing, a talker might be a well known blogger or journalist who specializes in that area.
Many business owners miss out on the buzz they can create, or even create negative buzz by doing free offers the wrong way. Don’t let this be you, by following the 7 No Fail Rules of Running a Free Offer, you’ll be well on your way to creating buzz for your business!
Photo by: Jiazi
Shh, don’t tell anyone, but traditional advertising is dead! I can’t remember what I had for lunch a half an hour ago, let alone what commercials I saw while watching American Idol, or what ads were in this month’s issue of In-Style Magazine. If you think your customers can remember your ad because it’s funny, unusual, colorful, etc., you are sadly mistaken. So if you want to get customers, you’ve got to go back to the old way of doing things: word of mouth! Fortunately you don’t have to saddle up your horse and ride through the streets yelling “the British are coming!“ Because in this era, word of mouth spreads through what’s known as “social media.”
Yes, customers want to get back to the foundation of society: relationships. Just like in the days of Paul Revere, customers want to do business with people they know, like and trust. Furthermore, they want the people that they do business with to know, like, and trust them as well. No more, “If you don’t come see me today, I can’t save you any money.” We’re savvy, we’re cynical, we relational, and we’re powerful. Through social media marketing, we can reach all the customers we need and then some. And the good part of all of this is, you don’t have to spend a single dime.
photo courtesy of Flickr, 2005.
