Creative strategies I used to grow my business during a recession
Creative strategies I used to grow my business during a recession
PR
A PR Strategy that worked well for my marketing firm, and helped us acquire several new clients, was offering 30-minute marketing brainstorming sessions for free and with no-obligation to hire us. Just call us, tell us about your business, and we will tell you strategies you can implement to better market your company and attract new customers. This strategy generated a flood of calls and several of the companies that called us decided to hire us to build marketing programs for them.
They way we got the word out about our brainstorming program was sending out a press release, sending an announcement to our marketing ezine, posting it on our blog, and posting it in a small business ezine. I believe our total cost for this campaign was about $1000. So, very affordable. We generated well over $25,000 in new business, so our ROI was outstanding.
Here is how I launched my viral campaign and keep it alive:
1. As my goal was to use my viral ebook to build a database of prospects and generate sales, the first thing I did was create a webpage with an email subscription form so people had to give me their name and email address to get my free ebook. Upon entering their name and email address, my ebook would automatically be emailed to them.
2. Then, I wrote and distributed a press release announcing that I was giving away a free marketing plan outline and marketing strategy ebook. My cost for this was around $200.00 on prweb. This got my press releases posted on over 20 blogs and websites where their visitors could see they could download my ebook for free. I soon will be sending out another press release as doing this worked so well the first time.
3. I setup a Google AdWords account and bid on search terms such as "marketing plan", "marketing plan outline", and several other terms. My cost per click was around 25 cents. This immediately got people to my website where they could download my ebook for free if they gave me their name and email address. Over the course of 2-years I have spent a couple thousand dollars doing this and it has worked incredibly well.
4. I advertised my free ebook on my website, which I have number one search engine rankings for the terms marketing firm and marketing firms. This brings me a lot of targeted web traffic and people downloading my ebook.
5. I advertised in a couple of small business ezines (electronic newsletters) that had tens of thousands of subscribers. Total cost for this was around $500.
Doing the above 5 items is what got my ebook into the hands of my target market. By telling them they can freely give away my ebook on their website and forward it to friends, family, colleagues, etc., viral marketing was launched as other people were doing my marketing for me.
Results of my viral campaign to date:
1. My ebook has been downloaded countless times.
2. Many websites offer my ebook as a free gift/resource to their visitors. This is viral marketing at its best – other people talking about and giving away my "viral offering" to others.
3. I have built a database of prospects that I market to each month with my automated marketing newsletter.
4. I get many of my clients from my marketing newsletter. My investment of about $4000 to date to market my free ebook has generated over $100,000 in sales in the past two years. So, although my example of viral marketing is a very small scale example, it is a very profitable example. Most viral campaigns are NOT profitable because the business is focusing on building brand instead of building a database of prospects and generating sales. In my opinion, spending money on branding alone and not on building a database of targeted prospects to sell to is throwing your money away.
Creative strategies I used to grow my business during a recession - To learn more about this author, visit Peter Geisheker's Website.
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Here are a few marketing tactics my marketing firm did to grow our business over the past 2-years and these tactics worked very well.
PR
A PR Strategy that worked well for my marketing firm, and helped us acquire several new clients, was offering 30-minute marketing brainstorming sessions for free and with no-obligation to hire us. Just call us, tell us about your business, and we will tell you strategies you can implement to better market your company and attract new customers. This strategy generated a flood of calls and several of the companies that called us decided to hire us to build marketing programs for them.
They way we got the word out about our brainstorming program was sending out a press release, sending an announcement to our marketing ezine, posting it on our blog, and posting it in a small business ezine. I believe our total cost for this campaign was about $1000. So, very affordable. We generated well over $25,000 in new business, so our ROI was outstanding.
Here is how I launched my viral campaign and keep it alive:
1. As my goal was to use my viral ebook to build a database of prospects and generate sales, the first thing I did was create a webpage with an email subscription form so people had to give me their name and email address to get my free ebook. Upon entering their name and email address, my ebook would automatically be emailed to them.
2. Then, I wrote and distributed a press release announcing that I was giving away a free marketing plan outline and marketing strategy ebook. My cost for this was around $200.00 on prweb. This got my press releases posted on over 20 blogs and websites where their visitors could see they could download my ebook for free. I soon will be sending out another press release as doing this worked so well the first time.
3. I setup a Google AdWords account and bid on search terms such as "marketing plan", "marketing plan outline", and several other terms. My cost per click was around 25 cents. This immediately got people to my website where they could download my ebook for free if they gave me their name and email address. Over the course of 2-years I have spent a couple thousand dollars doing this and it has worked incredibly well.
4. I advertised my free ebook on my website, which I have number one search engine rankings for the terms marketing firm and marketing firms. This brings me a lot of targeted web traffic and people downloading my ebook.
5. I advertised in a couple of small business ezines (electronic newsletters) that had tens of thousands of subscribers. Total cost for this was around $500.
Doing the above 5 items is what got my ebook into the hands of my target market. By telling them they can freely give away my ebook on their website and forward it to friends, family, colleagues, etc., viral marketing was launched as other people were doing my marketing for me.
Results of my viral campaign to date:
1. My ebook has been downloaded countless times.
2. Many websites offer my ebook as a free gift/resource to their visitors. This is viral marketing at its best – other people talking about and giving away my "viral offering" to others.
3. I have built a database of prospects that I market to each month with my automated marketing newsletter.
4. I get many of my clients from my marketing newsletter. My investment of about $4000 to date to market my free ebook has generated over $100,000 in sales in the past two years. So, although my example of viral marketing is a very small scale example, it is a very profitable example. Most viral campaigns are NOT profitable because the business is focusing on building brand instead of building a database of prospects and generating sales. In my opinion, spending money on branding alone and not on building a database of targeted prospects to sell to is throwing your money away.
Creative strategies I used to grow my business during a recession - To learn more about this author, visit Peter Geisheker's Website.
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