"It is every business's dream for its brand to stand out and be recognized by many. The text below will give you an idea of how?"
Press Association Images - EDITORIAL USE ONLYSteven Greenall, founder of Warwick Music Ltd and inventor of the pBone - plastic trombone, demonstrates the musical instrument with junior members of the Ratby
Hijack PR stunts, such as the projection of Disney cartoon characters on the White Cliffs of Dover, are not just the preserve of super brands. When it comes to creative marketing, small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) often have an advantage over larger firms.
Being nimble gives SMEs the edge, says Frazer Thompson, chief executive of Chapel Down Wines: “There is no arduous, corporate decision-making process, an idea over a glass of wine can be implemented quickly.”
The Kentish wine maker with a £5m turnoverand 41 m+
embers of staff has built the UK’s largest bottle of sparkling wine to celebrate the one millionth visitor to Margate’s Turner Contemporary Art Gallery . The 15 litre, celebrity-signed nebuchadnezzar, was designed to be a symbol of Britishness in a Champagne market dominated by the French. It will be auctioned off for charity on St George’s Day 2014.
Mr Thompson, formerly of drinks giant Heineken (Other OTC: HEINY - news) , believes all PR should be cost effective but unusual: “The nebuchadnezzar cost a couple of grand and no one else is doing it,” he says.
SMEs need to seek a good return on their marketing investment, according to Mark Cropper, chairman of the family-run paper-maker James Cropper. “Budgets are limited. We can’t afford to take out adverts,” he explains.
The answer for the Lake District-based business was strategic collaboration. Working the link between luxury paper and art, the 170-year-old manufacturer sponsors the London-based Frieze Masters Art Fair, and earlier this year hosted a private viewing in New York exhibiting its creation Gerald the paper dog .
The show exhibited a collection of more than 100 versions of the origami canine, with an accompanying limited edition hardback book, and an arthouse short film on YouTube.
Mr Cropper has consigned many traditional business-to-business campaigns to the marketing archives “Trade shows are totally hit or miss,” he says. But he espouses the virtues of traditional values. A handwritten letter “on good quality paper” got him through the door with the chief executive of an €800m Italian fashion house.
Robyn Exton, 27, the founder of Lesbian dating app, Dattch, also believes in the personal touch when it comes to PR. She printed fliers with a twist for the UK Pride festivals. Festivals are notoriously poor when it comes to marketing engagement or supplying enough toilet paper in the portable loos. “So we’ve stapled toilet roll to each flier to show we understand women’s needs,” explains Ms Exton.
Bloom & Wild the online florist that posts whole bouquets to its customers through the letter box combined guerilla campaigning with old-fashioned chivalry.
Aron Gelbard, CEO, says: “We surprised people by giving out free flowers in the street and tracked whether it worked using a discount code.”
And then there’s the inescapable lure of social media. Mr Gelbard successfully targeted lifestyle bloggers such as queenieandthedew and oldfashionedsusie who showed their followers how to arrange a Bloom & Wild bunch.
Caitlin Ryan , entrepreneur and creative director at Karma Communications, also champions the free and fast nature of digital PR. “Small businesses must use social media to tell their story,” she says. “Digital (Milan: DIB.MI - news) should not be an afterthought.”
When her first independent coffee shop was under construction in London’s Fitzrovia, she put a sign in the window saying “Coming soon a reason to get up in the morning” and a link to her sister-cum-business partner’s blog “Scrambling eggs” .
“As the renovation developed, we put pictures online of the oven being installed we wanted to engage and make the local community feel part of our story” she says.
Social media is now the fastest forum for word of mouth with small business reviews reaching millions in seconds.
But, for Ms Ryan, one of the big marketing mistakes made by SMEs is to blurt out their tale on social media
with no consideration of 'what’s in it for the consumer’. Another reputational faux pas is the dogged hunt for new patrons, neglecting existing customers.
“If you’re not creating good customer service, people will talk about it,” she says, citing the recent example of when a passenger bought a promoted tweet through Twitter’s self-service advertising platform. The Tweet simply said: “Don’t fly @BritishAirways. Their customer service is horrendous.”
Google’s dashboard tools enabling free tracking and analysis of social media mentions are a must, according to Ms Ryan.
Traditional methods of promotion still have their place, she adds, but only once a reputation has been established. She still engages in old-style sampling of baskets of cakes, loyalty cards, and a mention in Time Out still guarantees a spike in custom.
While these small businesses hail from industries as diverse as paper manufacturing to dating apps, they are bound by a common approach to promotion to keep costs down while standing out from the crowd.
As Mr Thompson, concluded: “You can’t be the best forever but you can be different.”
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