Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I would like to start a conversation with the members of the SuN community about creative ways that you can get your company exposure, both locally and nationally. I want to discuss things that cost little or no money as well as those creative things that require a little bit of a budget to pull off.

Though I will be offering several suggestions as this thread moves forward, I along with the other members of the SuN community would love to hear some of the creative, out-of-the-box ideas that you’ve tried, ideas that have worked or were an absolute failure. Remember, sometimes sharing things with others that haven’t worked and putting your bad ideas on display can be just as valuable as the things that did work.

There shouldn’t be one person on this site that doesn’t have something to contribute to this discussion do to the nature of what you do and who you are. Yes it’s great to look around and get ideas and advice from others, but contribution is where it’s at. It doesn’t matter how big or small the idea was, how great the results were, or whether it was even that creative. In a market like this there are not a lot of companies who can afford a game of trial and error. So what do you say – share won’t you?  

Duke

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This was one of the best, least expensive public relations programs we ever did. While handling the advertising for Daytona Beach there were fires along the east coast of Florida - tourists were canceling vacations, and the economy was suffering.

Love it!

A great way to use the situation to your advantage. Humor is a great tool. You got the message across and created a buzz at the same time. I’m sure that everyone was talking about it.

It reminds me of a banner campaign that Sun Microsystems asked me to do for them to promote their company benefits for same-sex partners. Some of their employees mentioned that there was a segment of this gay and lesbian community website called PlanetOut.com that was fairly technical. This was back in the dot com boom when companies just could find enough good talent. We needed to position Sun as a great “accepting” place to work. I decided to use humor, like you, to break the ice and get my message across.  It was a while ago, but I still remember a couple of the banners that we ran on the site.

“Okay, I’m gonna be straight with you. Sun’s a great place to work.”

“Beautiful campus, onsite workout facilities, spacious offices, no closets.”

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A great idea! Humor can be hugely rewarding or be risky and backfire, so you need a savvy creative team and have to make sure you have a good finger on the pulse of the market (and do some research if you can) to see if it will be a strong positive or come back at you.

Here is an approach that anyone can use, just to get this thread started.

Here in Boston there is an event called the Head of the Charles, or The Charles River Regatta. The Regatta is the world’s largest rowing competition. Here is a video about it - http://www.hocr.org/2008HOCR/media.asp

Anyway, advertising at the event is at a premium, and they are VERY strict about what companies can and can’t do to get visibility. For the most part, companies were set off to one side in the back with a tent where they were allowed to pass things out. I recall that someone got caught walking through the crowd passing out flyers and they were escorted off of the premises. With the opportunity to get in front of the 250,000 people in attendance, as well as the media, we needed to get creative. Unfortunately we had virtually no budget. So what did we do?

I approached one of the “fun” fraternities at one of the local college campuses with a proposal. What I was looking for were candidates with the right attitude to pull off my idea. Long story short, they agreed.

The only thing left to do was to get some T-Shirts made and buy a coaches whistle.

Each T-Shirt had a single letter on it that took up almost the entire shirt. Members of the fraternity began to walk through the crowd along the river, when out of nowhere a loud whistle blew. All of the members of the frat lined up side-by-side in a long line, and as I stood on the other side of the Charles, all I could see was this big human billboard spelling out my company’s web address with everyone staring and pointing at it wondering what all the commotion was about.

After a few minutes, each member of the billboard put on a plain dark T-Shirt to cover up the lettered shirt and disappeared back in to the crowd. The next thing I knew, the guys in the frat thought it was fun and turned it into a game to see how many times they could do it without getting caught.

I’ll tell ya, you just can’t buy exposure like that for $250 and a couple of cases of beer these days.

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Come and JOIN ME on the Couch! http://www.facebook.com/MarketingCouch

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Come and JOIN ME on the Couch! http://www.facebook.com/MarketingCouch

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Come and JOIN ME on the Couch! http://www.facebook.com/MarketingCouch

Dude, I`d suggest most of those 60 are like me so intimidated by marketing, and probably running a little low on funds. I looked in here to get some great cheap / free ideas. unfortunately I don`t have any to share. But some ideas are banging around just from the few stories above, I am going to go try an idea or two today.
Thanks

Stan:

 

Why don`t we generate a marketing solution for you live. Put budget issues aside. What marketing challenges are you dealing with?

 

Duke

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Come and JOIN ME on the Couch! http://www.facebook.com/MarketingCouch