What marketing initiative has REALLY worked for you?

[Tim Reid]

Originally Posted by Steve_Minshall

Now should I pay $5K on a tiny Yellow Pages ad or getting noticed on one of Sydney's main roads into the CBD?

Great work Steve. I like the fact that you've rasied the concept of opportunity cost. I am so frustrated, saddned, maddened when I see the small gusy spending big bucks on directory advertising in particular. As you've proved, look what you can get for $5,000.

Question though, how do you measure the success of this beautiful piece of commercial art?

And graffiti...how have you stopped the graffiti?

Finally, if you don't mind, can you email me a high res jpeg of it...I'd like to use it in a marketing presso to SMEs.

tim(at)smallbusinessbigmarketing(dot)com

[Tim Reid]

Originally Posted by johnpaulgrant

I thought your name was familiar! I am sure I listen to your podcast just can't put your name to the right one (i listen to a lot) ... is it Small Business Big Marketing?

So my top marketing initiative is simply creating content on a consistent basis. This allows me to get decent search engine rankings (could always be better) ... my background is in SEO and PPC so naturally these two channels are where I gain the most business.

I am in the virtual assistant / outsourcing industry.

Good job on the podcast timbo! Love it!

Thanks for the feedback on the podcast John.

Content creation is a great idea...a concept not understood by enough soloists. I particularly love the creative aspect of creating content as you really can go for gold and create highly valuable, useful information that can seriously engage your prospects.

Do you just crrate content for your own site or do you syndicate it out? If so, where to?

And speaking of content, I'd love it if you left a written review on iTunes for the show ;0)

[Tim Reid]

Originally Posted by mike@engagemarketing

I can see how your podcast has done wonders for you Timbo. For anyone else our there, I definitely recommend listening to the 'Small Business Big Marketing' podcast at http://smallbusinessbigmarketing.com/. We've got quite a few of our clients listening to it now after recommending it.

For Engage Marketing, i'd say that Word of Mouth provides most of our work, with search engine leads coming in at a close second.

For The Blog Designer, most of our sales come through a pretty casual affiliates set up. We look after our affiliates and they like us, so we both end up happy. We're just about to launch a few out of the box marketing promotions which I think will end up providing the majority of our business. Stay tuned!

Hey, thanks for the kind feedback Mike and in particular referring clients to the show. Feel free to leave a written iTunes review if you haven't already. Maybe even blog about it ;0)

On more important business, do you actively encourage word-of-mouth? Or do you just wait for it to happen? If it's the latter then I reckon you (and all soloists) should actively turn WOM in to a referral strategy whereby you are asking past and present clients for warn intros. Most people are only too happy to do so if your work has been good.

There's my two-bobs worth.

PS Set me up with an affiliate link and help promote the blog side of things.

[Tim Reid]

Originally Posted by Steve_Minshall

Thanks, and you're welcome.

The following is one of the most important marketing ideas I heard and unfortunately I do not know who to credit with it but I will pass it on.

Image a scene in Antarctica where you have thousands of penguins as far as the eye can see. They all look identical and it would be impossible to single out an individual. But what if you put a pointy pink hat on one of them? A couple of dollars for a pink hat and everyone can see the individual penguin. The moral of this tale is always to be looking for your own pink hat. It shows standing out does not have to be expensive it just needs to be different. And when all the other penguins get pink hats be ready with your step ladder, or flag, or helium balloon. Don't look at what all the other penguins are doing work out what they are not doing.

So what is your pink hat?

(This is different to having a USP which is about the uniqueness of your product, this is about what you do to get noticed)

Steve, this concept you mention is based on Seth Godin's book Purple Cow...I do like the penguin analogy though!

[mike@engagemarketing]

Originally Posted by Tim Reid

Hey, thanks for the kind feedback Mike and in particular referring clients to the show. Feel free to leave a written iTunes review if you haven't already. Maybe even blog about it ;0)

On more important business, do you actively encourage word-of-mouth? Or do you just wait for it to happen? If it's the latter then I reckon you (and all soloists) should actively turn WOM in to a referral strategy whereby you are asking past and present clients for warn intros. Most people are only too happy to do so if your work has been good.

There's my two-bobs worth.

PS Set me up with an affiliate link and help promote the blog side of things.

Already done both mate ;-)

We encourage word of mouth, whether it be a little mention of word of mouth in conversation or an email sent asking for feedback and word of mouth spread. We figure (and it seems you do) if you do a great job people will WANT to talk about you so we're 100% comfortable with politely suggesting passing on the word.

I'll shoot you an email in regards to the blog stuff.

Anyone else like to share something that they have tried lately that's worked well for you?

[brand88]

Whilst I am somewhat biased, Word of Mouth has always been the most successful channel for gaining repeat and new business for me.

Take a look at this case study on my website - http://www.brand88.com.au/case-studi...ious-pigs.html

Quick figures - $10k to design, produce and distribute beautiful custom ceramic piglets, with the business logo on them.

6 years later, these wee piggies are still bringing in referral business, and generating word of mouth conversations about Curious Design.

Another channel that worked really effectively for me, was creating a referral system around my champions, advocates and users of my service. No money changed hands at all, but by working this simple system for half an hour a day, we managed to bring in over $650k worth of billable consulting in 39 weeks.

Again, I'm somewhat biased, but investing your marketing dollars into your existing base of clients, will see a far greater return than yellow pages or local paper adverts.