Viral isn't dead if the offer is good enough

"Viral" marketing was a bit of a buzz word over the past few years that seems to have gone out of fashion in 07 - but the concept of viral is exciting because it's the ultimate zero budget concept. That is, you send out something (a promotion, an offer, news of a sale, a movie/joke/story) to a set group and then people pass it on for you. And it continues to spread...like a virus. So your original message to 100 people could end up reaching 10,000 people.

A good viral campaign isnt easy to come up with. The original (and future) recipients have to think it's exicting enough to pass on, such that their friends or colleagues wont be annoyed to receive it. So a really compelling offer - or a very funny message - is what's needed.

I just received a great offer passed on by a friend - and it was so good I wondered if it was real. So after a long investigation (well, actually, after clicking on a couple of links) I confirmed that Krispy Kreme WERE in fact giving away a half dozen donuts on the day after the election.

They've even tied in database building element, some topical marketing by linking it to the federal election, a cause related element by asking for a gold coin donation to the Salvos and some amusing creative. This little promo really ticks all my boxes! (They've also got some safety nets built in - see the preferred store and the "up to 6 donuts" to help them cover their tushies).

So Krispy Kreme have done it again - for the cost of some clever creative and I'm assuming several thousand donuts - they'll be gaining both a customer database and store traffic, at what I'm sure will be a very low cost per unit.

If I had a zero budget gold star, I'd slap it on them right now!

Knowing your customer makes for easy copy writing

I was trawling the net the other day looking for a company that does decking and fencing as I'm planning a spot of "back yard renovation". This being my first home, I dont really know much about what I'm looking for - and I imagine the majority of people who are investigating online are in the same boat. And yet most of the sites I came across were AWFUL. Some had obviously had a lot of cash spent on them (eg. Bluescope Steel's site) but they were all tremendously unhelpful. No "general" information about their product, lousy pictures and no advice.

And then I came across a little gem. The Outdoor Timber Company. It's not the world's most stylish site, but it spoke to people like me immediately. No chest beating and waffling words. The page on decking started with: "Decking timbers can be divided into three main groups" - and went on to explain the world of decking to me - and ultimately why these are the people to buy it from.

You can tell this site hasn't been written by a copy writer either. It's been written by someone that's passionate about what they do - and they make you feel rather passionate by the end too.

So the zero budget marketing thought for the day is to visual a customer interaction...

Do you know what questions your customer usually opens with? Of course you do.

Answer these questions up front and people will assume that you know your stuff - and you'll save yourself a tonne of time answering the same queries over and over.

Given it away for free lately?

Yes, it's an anathema to many business people, but the fact remains: giving something away for free can be the best way to attract future customers.

I saw this again in action at a recent regional tourism marketing conference I was speaking at.

There was a relatively new massage/health spa in the area and they were at the conference giving massages at breaks to attendees. The two owners were there in branded outfits. They covered all the accomodation owners and, importantly, the MC for the day, Lawrence Mooney from Postcards. So they took the opportunity to let important prospectiver referers "sample" their service free of charge - which will translate to referrals and perhaps even a spot on tv should Postcards ever cover the region. Plus they got to attend the conference, network and learn from the various presenters. What a smart zero budget marketing tip put into action!

It's all in the application!

Last night I was speaking on networking skills at an event for mentors and mentees (otherwise known as heros) from a great program run by the City of Glen Eira and City of Kingston.

One of the ladies in the program came up to me after the event to tell me she'd seen me speak a few months previously on Zero Budget Marketing. And I was very excited to hear she's applied some of the simple ideas she'd come up with from my talk- to great result apparently. Her business is a specialist painting business (http://www.tuscantrellis.com.au/) . She'd successfully used a promotion of a family ticket to the Guggenheim Collection as a means of getting people to update their database details. So for $50 she heard back from people who she'd been chasing previously with no result!

She'd also remembered the tip about marketing to people you'd worked with before - and when she got back in touch with past customers, found she got four jobs straight away - apparently enough work to make her wonder how they'd get it all done. And all for the cost of a few phone calls!

It was a great reminder that no matter what time we spend learning and listening - nothing happens unless we put things into action! So the zero budget additional tip for the day is "get moving"!

Brains over brawn gets me every time

The site coolhunter.com.au recently published a story about a launch that is a reminder that a really great idea doesn't need to cost a bundle to implement.

It could even cost as little as a few coloured packs of post-it notes.

"Hot on the heels of this fad, gaming giant Nintendo have promoted their latest baby Wii in Italy with this interesting wall display created by a series of posted notes. The post it notes make a nice 3D representation of a 2D pixel. "

Gee, that's a clever idea...I'm sure the agency charged a bundle for it, but what's to stop you coming up with your own version of this gem? Go on, get creative!

If anything but free is too expensive...

I was advising a landscape designer the other day - a one-man band, country based - who would like a website but was finding the prospect of putting one together as a big job.

I asked who might use the site, and it was really only people who had been referred to him, so it was a place he wanted to showcase his work.

Like most of us, he didn't have a big budget handy to pay someone to do the site. And though I recommended a number of great third-party providers than would be quite cheap - under $1k for the whole lot, content management, hosting and even a custom design - it still sounded like a lot to him.

So I thought a great place to start was with something like this - a blog. Blogging has gone far beyond the concept of an Internet diary and has moved into the realm of a great potential - and search engine friendly - business tool.

You can bit some great design templates through the various blog sites out there. We found a lovely, semi-abstract plant one for him. You can use free add ons, like zookoda, to allow people to subscribe to your blog or conduct email marketing. You can upload pictures of your jobs and tell the stories about how they're created. You can add your business profile and your contact details. You can even buy a cheap .com of your own (TPP Internet will sell you one for two years for around $70) and automatically re-route it to your blog's domain, so it gives the appearance of a stand alone site.

So if your actual level of investment available to build a website is ZERO, give a blog a go!

Selective advertising + targeting = low cost lead generation

Sometimes a little bit of regular advertising may be just what a business needs to keep awareness up or leads flowing in. But advertising is too expensive, isn't it?

Well, not always. I was recently reminded of this when buying 10 spots on Melbourne's Triple RRR -for around $500, including the ad's production. Now 10 spots over a month isn't much - but if the audience is targted enough, this won't necessarily matter. These ads, over 3 months, have continued to bring in 3-4 customers a month for my client - which covers more than the aquisition cost - plus it has the benefit of spreading awareness among others who may join in the future.

Another option I've used with success before was a small print advertisement in one of Melbourne's gay/lesbian papers. It was for a small laser hair removal studio. Now the first thing most people think of when thinking hair removal is girls. But we didn't have the budget for advertising in female glossies. So it came down to thinking about who else is looks conscious and living around South Yarra? The small and inexpensive weekly ads - again including production - generated MOST of their business from then on.

So if you've got a targeted product or service, there may be a relatively inexpensive media vehicle out there that YOU may not consume, but that your target audience does.