Novel Marketing

April 20, 2006  

Given that I am now a one-(wo)man band, I need to pay special attention to marketing my business – how do I reach my target market, what gets me contacts, what turns potential clients into paying customers, what gives me the most bang for my buck, etc. So far, word of mouth has provided me with 100% of my customers and Google Adwords has provided me with one potential client. I also had some rather nice and unique business cards made up, which I give to pretty much everyone I meet. Of course, being such a new company I can’t afford to sink thousands of dollars into ineffective marketing so I need to be conscious of what works so I’ve been keeping an eye out for novel and cost-effective means of marketing.

Two such examples that I’ve come across, which were novel but I’m not sure how effective, were businesses that I’d never heard of before. One is “Messages on Hold Australia” and I first heard about this in a book on the how to’s of starting a small business in Australia, but then I saw it in action. This company uses Ambush Marketing to get their name on TV at major sporting events such as the Formula One Grand Prix. I noticed such an ambush on TV whilst watching a football (AFL) game at Subiaco Oval – they stationed employees behind the goal posts with giant hands and waved them along with the cheer squad after every goal.

The second novel idea that I came across was for a security company (funnily enough, I forget their name and their specialty). I was driving behind one of their cars, which had advertising plastered on it – not too distastefully. What caught my attention was rows of magnets adhered to the vehicle’s hatch back door – ready for interested parties to take and display at home. Now, how many of these magnets will find their way into the hands of interested parties I can’t say, but I thought it was a novel idea.

Short of spamming email distribution lists generously donated to me by friends and relatives with other small businesses, I’ve yet to implement any other marketing but I’m thinking about it all the time. Hopefully word-of-mouth will keep me going for a while yet.