How to do Grass Roots Marketing |
Grass roots marketing is the unleashing of creative genius by those whose don't have a big ad budget to reach consumers, and should be utilized even by those who do. Here are some ideas how some little companies did their grass roots marketing and succeeded, so put on your "thinking cap" how to follow their lead:
- Have everyone sell their experience as consumers of your products or services.
- Produce and distribute samples, using retail locations as key position in marketing efforts.
- Demonstrate allegiance to your niche of customers
- Send congratulatory letters and an offer for free product to promoted workers.
- Leverage supporting locally owned businesses.
- Hire the most creative counter help you can find to sing, dance, and draw in customers.
- Show prospective clients how you help current clients, invite guests to your speaking engagements, and send out quarterly newsletters.
- Your best source of new clients will always be old clients.
- Dare to be silly, unorthodox, even risky
to target consumers in the funny bone.
- Offer a soothing ambience and complimentary cups of tea as sanctuary for customers, creating strong and lasting ties.
- Use sales records to generate letters reminding past customers to order again.
- To ease the frustration of arriving past closing time, offer latecomers money-off coupons for their next visit before turning them away.
- Utilize loyal customers to get products onto hard-to-get-to shelves.
- Chronicled your experiences -- the trials and triumphs of starting a business -- in a newsletter.
- Get product stocked on the shelves of nontraditional retail venues.
- Are you selling candles, or are you selling romance? Go for the emotional benefit that your consumers associate with your business when determining what your company sells.
- Offer incentives for referrals that turn into business. They can be in the form of discounts on future business, free estimates or samples, or just plain cash. Even a small offer will catch their attention.
- Create a referral form, and send it to clients or customers with your invoice for services rendered. If you've done a good job, the time to leverage yourself is upon completion of the project.
- Tap your suppliers for leads, by reminding them that when your business grows, theirs does, too. Spark this exchange by giving leads to your suppliers.
- Ask prospects who have turned you down for referrals. This gives them a graceful exit from a potentially unpleasant task. The only secret, as with any request, is to time it appropriately so that you offer people a natural, unforced opening to help you.
- One cold call to a dealer can start word-of-mouth advertising and get your product into stores.
- Cross-promoting your business is cost-effective and increases sales.
- Enters industry competitions in your clients' names if they are collaborating with you on a project.
List Yourself on Local Websites:
There is a New Player...Outside.in:
Iit's an attempt to collectively build the geographic Web, neighborhood by neighborhood, for a new kind of local experience. You sit at a computer and type in a street address, or a neighborhood name, or a zip code -- perhaps for your own home area, perhaps for a place you're visiting or interested in -- and within seconds the screen gives you a glimpse of all the textured, real-world issues and conversations and news unfolding in the location you've entered. Not just restaurant reviews or upcoming concerts, but the broad, bustling range of information flowing through a lively neighborhood: complaints about the local school; rumors of a new bar opening up next week; a crime report for a mugging the night before; a promising open house this weekend. Up to now, only the most connected local experts in any neighborhood could keep up with all these evolving conversations. Outside.in is designed to let you see it all in seconds.
Websites That Do The Work For You
These sites can take the chore of marketing their businesses locally through the web off your hands.
- Dotster Local Site Promotion: An example of a web domain registration and hosting company offering a local web advertising package; includes an intelligent keyword optimization tool, pay-per-click search engine ads and the ability to create online coupons and special offers.
- Froogle Local: Google’s shopping search engine accepts listings for free from local merchants. Users can search for specific products by location. It’s another way for brick-and-mortar stores to be found whether they use e-commerce or not.
- Local.com: Online Yellow Pages and search engine that offers a free listing for businesses. The Paid Local Promote option gives businesses more control over their listings and distributes your information to other online networks.
- ReachLocal: A central location to set up, maintain and track local search advertising campaigns. Pricing is variable.
- RegisterLocal: A service that lets you create a Master Business Profile that RegisterLocal submits to search engines and directories on your behalf for $199.95 per year. When you make changes or updates, they’re automatically distributed.
- TrueLocal: A local search engine that also offers advertising opportunities for businesses. Features full-text searching.
- YellowPages.com: Large online local directory site that also includes city guides and advertising solutions. Basic listings are free.
