Your last dollar
April 4th, 2008 by misterarthurPretend for a minute that your business is failing. You have (figuratively) one dollar to spend on “advertising” and “marketing”.
Where would you spend it? A cheap tv commercial you could run a couple of times on cable? A couple of radio commercials on Rush Limbaugh? One print ad in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal? Some targeted banner ads? Of course, your choice may change based on how long you think you can keep going, but nevertheless, it’s a good exercise to go through, because it helps focus you on what you really believe works.
My question is, why wouldn’t you do that first?
Here’s one of the smartest marketing “plans” I’ve ever encountered. Last year, I needed to buy a backpack leafblower. So I started looking online for reviews. Not so much later, I ran across a forum dedicated to lawn and garden equipment. One of the most active members of the forum was the marketing manager for a small Japanese commercial-grade lawn gizmo manufacturer. He proselytized on behalf of his brand, was honest about it, answered questions by other forum members, and quickly got a great reputation on the forum for after the sale parts and service.
Here’s the point. It was free. All he needed to contribute was his time and passion. I can’t imagine he had much of an advertising budget anyway. Most people in advertising would have suggested scraping together enough money to run some quarter-page ads in Popular Science and sponsor a call in “ask the handyman” type of show on local radio.
This brilliant guy put his ‘first’ dollar into establishing a legitimate, authentic relationship with the people who actually use and buy his products. Traditional thinking front-loads “marketing plans” with traditional, expensive advertising tools and “recommends” a blog or forum outreach program as a nice extra.
If it was your last dollar, is that what you’d do?
Tags: advertising, Marketing Plans
