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NobleOak's team of business experts have put together articles on
business planning and business models, marketing plans, and tips and
strategies on web site design and functionality. We also introduce
the terms 'pixie dust' and 'guerrilla marketing' both vital elements
to your short and long term business success. Enjoy!
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"Marketing Plan: Find Clients and Customers through Guerrilla Marketing" (Part 2 of 3)
Choosing a smart name is important to your business. You have microseconds to get your message across to the market in a huge clutter of competing messages so invent a smart marketing name. For example, here is a great name for a fishing charter boat: "Bite Me". The Captain probably gets a lot more charters than a boat named, say, "Lost at Sea".
Internet Marketing
Web sites by and of themselves don't work very well in a world of 60,000,000 domain names sold and 40,000,000 + web sites. Sure, there are always Google searches and lots of other search engines too but with paid search engine optimization rampant in the industry, the larger sites are buying their way to the top of the returned search results.
That is why, it is possible that the web may not be the democratizing force in the global economy that many people hoped for. It may be that there is only room for one eBay, one Amazon, ... that the web could be a force for monopoly rather than competitive markets.
The cost of developing a really good web site presentation layer, a solid backend, acquiring the bandwidth, establishing the order fulfillment side of the operation and doing all of this at very high levels of reliability in the murky world of the web while resisting hackers and denial of service attacks of all types is huge.
So for smaller operators they have only one shot at it-- they need to have the ability to effectively market their web sites in RL (Real Life). Without this, they are doomed no matter how good their products, services, presentation or technology are.
They need effective, inexpensive marketing-- guerrilla marketing, if you will.
Example 8 – The Internet and Real Life
MostlyMakeup.com is a web site focused on, well, mostly, makeup. Its success though depends on its promotion of the four hair and spa stores run by its group of owners and here is what they are doing to promote it:
“We are presently working on our shirts & hats that will have our web address on them and will be a part of all our staff's wardrobe. We have 78 staff in total. Additionally, we will have some giveaways and sales to clients. There is no better 24/7, non-zappable advertising available anywhere than having people walking around with your advertising on their clothing. Sports teams have already figured this out-- people pay to buy their clothing to advertise the team. Sounds like viral marketing in real life to me.”
Universities, bands, and popular clothing brands all use clothing as a marketing tool. Think about that for a moment, you the consumer pays for an item of clothing with a marketing message on it that says “I support this organization so much that I am willing to act as a human billboard for it”. Isn’t that a powerful statement?
Example 9 – Who Sucks?
Many companies have entered into litigation with holders of the acmecompanysucks.com domain name registrants. The automatic knee-jerk response is that the (insert your company name here)sucks.com holder is infringing on your company trade mark right?
The www.sucks.com people (Dan Parisi) have maintained that these sites are places and spaces where people can go to vent their sometimes legitimate complaints- that the right to freedom of expression will, in effect, outrank the right of the trademark holder, a rather persuasive argument.
Other companies like Intel and American Express are a lot smarter- rather than sue, they say the sites are o.k. They provide management with feedback that they probably couldn't get any other way. Middle managers usually aren't as forthcoming as, say, an irate customer. It is a form of inexpensive, independent product research- guerrilla marketing research, if you will.
Example 10 – Les Ailes de la Mode
This upscale fashion retailer in Canada came out of nowhere to create a sensation in its industry. They were the first to issue a credit card, which thanks to a microchip in it, allowed the retailer to give each of its 80,000 card holders an electronic $10 coupon every month, no questions asked.
Example 11 – Hockey Anyone?
GradeAstudent.ca goes to the home of the Ottawa Senators (the Corel Centre) and unveils a huge banner saying "Go Sens Go" but in smaller type "Grade (A) Student".
1. "Go Sens Go"is political cover.
2. The management might think that "Grade (A) Student" are a bunch of students (they are) and not a real business (they are-- they do on-site computer service).
3. They also hand out their business cards at the exits.
4. They pay nothing for the evening (even their tickets were donated).
5. Prices for signs at the Corel Centre go from $20,000 to $375,000 per season.
Read point 5 again very slowly…
Example 12 – Leveraging your Assets (Turning cost centres into 'profit' centres- seeing assets where before there were only liabilities!)
Roger has a small real estate company in Seattle. He is budgeting $50,000 for marketing in this calendar year. His accountant, Bill, notes that the ads that Roger's company is running often mention partners; people like homebuilders, framers, landscapers, lawyers, well drillers, other clients and customers. Bill goes on to point out: "This is like the 'mini-office' concept applied to our newspaper ads and our on-site signage too. Roger, you have seized the 'high' ground- we now 'own' very valuable space at the bottom of the Business to Business Classified section every Wednesday and you have bought it at a 'wholesale' price. Perhaps you can lay off some of our costs on our clients and partners so that we acquire space at a reduced cost.This is Guerrilla Marketing 101! Regards, Bill."
It is thinking like this, which is at a micro scale that, when applied enterprise-wide (i.e. at a macro level), can make a huge difference to the profitability of the business. It requires creativity and attention to detail. You can become more creative by training yourself to look at problems with a view to spotting opportunities where before you saw only the negatives. You must force yourself to look, and look again and again- creativity requires focus and time; time to let your subconscious work on the problem too.
Continued
...previous | 1 | 2 | 3 | next...
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| 11/1/2002 |
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"Mapping Interface"
"Getting the Business Model Right and Pixie Dust"
"Tips On Web Site Design"
"Web Site Functionality" (Part 1 of 2)
"Web Site Functionality" (Part 2 of 2)
"Marketing Plan: Find Clients and Customers through Guerrilla Marketing" (Part 1 of 3)
"Marketing Plan: Find Clients and Customers through Guerrilla Marketing" (Part 2 of 3)
"Marketing Plan: Find Clients and Customers through Guerrilla Marketing" (Part 3 of 3)
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