Thursday 25 March 2010

House of Istria does PR week- Balaclavas not required!

Hello business owners!

Hope youve all had a pretty day... have to say we are loving the rain at the moment! its not the drizzly annoying stuff that makes your hair go all frizzy its that proper heavy good old english rain that makes you want to curl up next to a window and watch it. It also stops us from going outside so we have more time to design and make! And of course, PR ourselves ;)







I'm dedicating this last one to my hubbie2b, who yesterday reminded me of a time last year when we decided to go out for the evening purely to run about in the rain and jump in puddles. One of my favourite times. xx

ANYWAY!...

Ok so today I'm considering Guerilla Marketing. For those of you who havent heard of it, its basically how to market small businesses creatively, effectively, and above all, cheaply. I consider the book Guerilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson one of the most practical and useful books is learning to PR/Market your business. To find his book online click here.

So, everything I mention today is from this amazing book. If you want to know more, go buy the book!

two of the most amazing features in it are the following;

ONE

sixteen monumental secrets of guerilla marketing;

1) You must have commitment to your marketing program
2) Think of that program as an investment
3) See to it that your program is consistent
4) Make your potential customers confident in your company
5) You must be patient in order to keep a commitment
6) You must see that marketing is an assortment of weapons
7) You must know that profits come subsequent to the sale
8) You must aim to run your business in a way that makes it convenient for your customers
9) Put an element of amazement into your marketing
10) Use measurement to judge the effectiveness of your weapons
11) Prove your involvement to your customers and prospects by your regular follow-up with them
12) Learn to become dependant on other businesses and they on you
13) You must be skilled with the armament of guerillas, which means technology
14) use marketing to gain consent from prospects
15) Sell the content of your offering rather than sell the style; sell the steak and the sizzle, because people are too sophisticated to merely buy the sizzle
16) After you have a fully fledged marketing program, work to augment it rather than rest on your laurels.

Levinson then goes on to say 'keep in mind that all sixteen words (italicised) come with a guarantee. If you memorise all sixteen, and run your business by the concepts they represent you will exceed your most optimistic projections.

Doesnt that sound great!

(Each of the sixteen 'secrets' are then elaborated upon, but to find out more youll have to read the book)

TWO

Ok, now for the weapons! In his book, Levinson lists 200 of these for you. I'm going to list the first 50 only, because I dont want to get sued for copyright issues! The idea being that you take your brand; logo, colours, typeface, values, etc etc, and you pick your weapons of choice to apply them to. And repeat. Just like yesterday. The only way these weapons will work is if they are sustained over a period of time. One website Levinson quoted was that the average american citizen sees approximately THIRTY THOUSAND adverts a day! And yours and your business wont be remembered until it has been seen at least twenty times. Which is why you get a perfume advert running on the TV at the same time as in a magazine at the same time as it sponsers a TV show at the same time a department store runs a promotion on it. And this, everyone, is an advertising campaign. Now using these weapons, go create your own advertising campaign!

Mini-media

1 Marketing Plan
2 Marketing Calendar
3 Identity
4 Business Cards
5 Personalised Stationery
6 Personal Letters
7 Telephone Marketing
8 Vanity Phone Number
9 Yellow Pages
10 Postcards
11 Postcard deck (different to above as this is carried with you at all times and used like business cards, the others are for sending out)
12 Classified ads
13 Free ads- in supermarkets/Parish/Village magazines?
14 Community Bulletin Boards
15 Outside signs
16 Car stickers
17 Car Window Stickers
18 Posters
19 Canvassing
20 Door hangers (brilliant for leaving in toilets)!
21 Back-end sales (after youve made a sale, trying to make another one to the same customer by offering them a personalised recommendation and discount)
22 Attendance at trade shows

E-Media

23 Chat rooms
24 Forums
25 Internet bulletin boards
26 Personalised email
27 Email signature
28 Audio/Video postcards
29 Video Tutorials eg 'how to make'
30 Domain name
31 Search Engine Optimisation
32 E-brochures to email (great for sending with an e-receipt)
33 Blogs
34 Own e-zine
35 ads on other e-zines
36 articles on your blog (hmmm not sure I know of anyone doing this ;) )
37 articles for other sites
38 Joint ventures eg 'pairs' marketing... you namecheck or ad on one anothers blogs and sites (im up for this if anyone wants to do it)?!
39 Ebay- not necessarily to sell all your products but it can be a good marketing tool to raise awareness of you
40 Hit counter

Info-Media
41 Research studies
42 Specific customer data
43 Brochures
44 Catalogue
45 Business Directory (lots of free online ones)
46 Newsletter
47 A speech or talk
48 Free consulations/demonstrations
49 A column- local magazines?
50 Constant Learning

Ok that's my fifty for today! Hopefully there is one or two on there you arent doing, or maybe the list has reminded you you need to do what you do MORE OFTEN...the other categories in the weapons list are human media, nonmedia, company attributes, and company attitudes. And the whole book literally dissects each one of the above and comes up with unusual, quirky, and relevant ideas and make them works for you.

As an extra, ive been researching some articles on how to make a great blog.

Click here

here

here

for the best blogger widgets click here

Ok everyone that's it for tonight! How is everyone finding the series so far? Any questions? Anything you want to see or ask about? Leave us a comment, and make sure to add House of Istria on twitter, facebook, and of course follow us on here!

Hope youve all had an equally lovely rainy day.

Sweet dreams God Bless

House of Istria

xx

3 comments:

  1. Great write up, made me think of a few new things for my new site that I know can work if only everyone finds it and of course comes back to it.

    http://www.virtualcraftmarket.com (bit of marketing there lol ,0 )

    I am coming back to this blog with a pen and a pad to make notes.

    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  2. great stuff, house of istria, such a lot to take in, but I shall keep coming back to it over the coming weeks, just now trying to decide on my corporate image, and marketing colours, and I'm also up for the blog swap advert if you like,
    thanks again,
    joyknitt http://www.joyknitt.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  3. There is an awful lot to take in, but well worth it. Thanks again for sharing all this and taking the time to write it. Agree with other comment, must bring pen and paper for notes, I intend to study this all again at length next week.

    Bags of Swank
    By SimJaTa

    ReplyDelete