Here is something I want to share with you all.
We have done a ton of low cost, high visibility, community based marketing this year. For the last few years we have been involved in a number of races, sponsored soccer, baseball, football teams as well as a performing charity projects. This year we took it next level. We set up a calender of activities that includes 3 different town's summer concert series, summer festivals in addition to dozens of road races. We bought a popcorn machine and had bags with our logo printed on them. We converted two trailers from paint usage to marketing tool boxes. We give out lemonade, Gatorade, ice tea and water. We don't charge anything for the popcorn, but we have been taking donations for Alex's Lemonade, a charity for pediatric cancer. We have been to 30 plus events this summer and given out over 4000 bags of fresh popcorn. We also have given out 5000 Nolan Painting reusable water bottles. We have been in the newspaper, on TV and have had blast doing it. We meet a lot of our customers and get new ones. We have had lines of 50 people or more. Unbelievable exposure!
Sometimes we have to pay for a sponsorship and sometimes we just give out the refreshments. There are plenty of opportuities, just look at community bulletin boards, churches, schools and race calenders and find crowds in good demographic areas.
This weekend we we did an outdoor concert on Friday, "A Salute to Guitar legends," a 5 k race on Sat. and Shakespeare in the park on Sat. night. We have a little break for a couple of weeks and then the fall schedule is very busy. It is a lot of work.
We are also planning on showing up at the soccer fields (we sponsor a few teams) this fall and we are going to give out some more popcorn.
I require all my employees to be involved, and I make it worth there while. Each event they work at gets them two hours credit. When they come to four events they get the vacation day. When I hire someone I ask them if they would be willing to come to these events. They correct answer is yes.
We have given up on Direct Mail, Yellow pages and print advertising. I just don't believe you can compel people to spend money in a recession. However some people do need painting done and we look to have top of mind awareness when they decide who t call. We also have done an email blast every two weeks to help spread the word of where we will be each week.
Bottom line it is very effective and inexpensive relative to other forms of advertising. Just another way to keep costs low and still keep our name in front of the community. It's working. We are getting a steady supply of good leads and keeping our prices up.
Anybody else have versions of "gorilla" marketing to share.
All the best,
Kevin