I am always looking for quirky and powerful ways to market the business online, whilst exposing our clients too! WIN WIN!Being a Web strategist, I need to keep it fresh, original and catchy for my target market and reader base. I also need to think about how I can increase good quality traffic to my website via the platforms and keywords I choose to use – then capture the viewers interest so as they keep coming back for more.
Last week I had a MASSIVE brain energy surge (thanks to my broken leg).You know the ones I mean right? Those entrepreneurial light bulb moments, that wake you up like a bolt of lightening…usually around 3.30ish in the morning! Shazam!
Here is what the early morning hours injected me with. Why don’t I utilize my supportive leg cast as a means of advertising space? Here I can softly promote the outstanding businesses I consult for (Rob Hartnett and Think Tank Media) ah, and of course Let’s Refresh too! This strategy could be used to gain exposure via all the juicy web2.0 platforms in a unique, catchy and extremely powerful way. Now stick with me here!
Click here to see how we did this. It was such a fun and entertaining ‘cast paint branding session’ guys, with a few gin and tonics thrown in….because we can!
We used many platforms to expose the leg cast in a text based, picture and video format, this gained us an unexpectedly high amount of traffic and attention! We received a whole bunch of emails, tweets and we even saw people sharing this with their friends .Yet why?
I put my inspector cluedo hat on (I do have one you know!) 
and delved deeper. I asked my trusty followers on twitter why they were sharing this. Here are some of the answers I received:
1. Business owners saw it as a way to gain THEMSELVES attention-immediately (on twitter). Interesting hey!
2. They wanted to help me out (sometimes people love to assist others, they find it easier to promote other people rather than themselves-gotta love human behaviour for this-use it to your advantage guys!)
3. Using our quirky pictures and videos got them more click throughs to their own websites.
4. They believed their follow base on twitter increased due to “retweeting this” (sharing my post on twitter via their tweets) .
5. It got them thinking outside of the box, with new ways to promote their own business.
6. They had a resource, some material and content that they could write about in their blog posts. Blush blush!
We even got asked how much would it cost to advertise on the cast! Hmmm… interesting!!!!So, they were using our pictures as a way to gain themselves attention yet at the same time, they were passing on our message (WIN bloody WIN)!
This is why social media and social networking works – I love it! It’s all about word of mouth (and THAT my friends is one of the fastest ways to gain exposure, attention and build up a trust worthy fan base for you business – then drive traffic to your site).
What did I (as a small business owner) take from this, apart from a whole bunch of ideas and some quality feedback? Plain and simple – a new strategy to our business plan. Let’s Refresh can now utilise Web2.0 even more. By using this strategy we can add value to our clients by gaining them some powerful and free exposure, yet at the same time we get a healthy promoting session too.
Each month we decided we would offer one of our lucky clients the opportunity to be promoted exclusively in an extremely quirky and catchy way- I’m excited already! When I say promoted, what I mean by this is giving them viral exposure, growing their presence through the wonderful web2.0 platforms (eg. on our blog, twitter, facebook, flickr, bookmarks, youtube plus many of the video platforms we use and drive traffic to their site too). It will be unique, catchy, and different! It also raises my heart rate above 100BPM, and I’m guessing you now me by now, I love that!
Have a think about what you have just read!
How can you use web2.0 to shamelessly market your business?
How can you add value to your clients/target market through the Web2.0 platforms?
How can you make it fresh, different, catchy and at the same time make it a win win?
Click the comments section below-I’m really interested to hear what you come up with. If you need any quick ideas then feel free to comment too and I will get straight back to you!
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
That’s is awesome. Too often, we just copy, plagiarize, imitate the other business owners thinking that if it works for them, it will work for us. It’s only partially true.
Thinking out of the box and adopting a unique way to communicate with potential customers is a fantastic way to attract the right customers for you. If the message is conveyed on a vehicle that truly represents who you are, the “fitting” customers will knock at the door.
Keep up with that good work, Sam. We love it.
Nadia
Wow-thanks Nadia!Great to see you took something from this! Looking forward to writing a post about what quirky,catchy and out of the box ventures you roll out within your business!Keep me posted!
Sam
This is a great example of how doing things differently to the masses pays off – plus you have managed to give a real life scenario of how this 2.0 stuff works for those of us still getting our heads around it.
Hope you don’t have to break an arm for the next installment…
Bruce
Thanks for your comment Bruce – greatly appreciated. The broken arm instalment is not until next year
, yet I will be fizzing up some new creative marketing stunts for next month!Stay posted! You could be next! High fives – Sam2.0!
Your Web 2.0 info is awesome. So great to have you on our team. I was talking with Brian Carroll at Intouch Inc one of our partners about you http://www.startwithalead.com . Rob Hartnett (the guy on the cast!)