I'm a sucker for a fantastic idea

I got sent this video and I loved it so much I had to share it. It's definately not zero budget but it is a truly original way to tell a story. Plus, it may very well have been less expensive to make that had this been produced using actors and travelling around the globe.

So what is this? A potentially "boring" corporate video has been turned into something magical, off the strength of a beautifully simple idea.

So what can we learn from this?

If you're facing a marketing challenge, ask yourself what you can do differently to everyone else out there? Don't look to copy ideas from your competitors - look for inspiration from outside your industry.

This is a great example of how a fantastic idea, well executed, can totally bat above it's weight.

Origami In the Pursuit of Perfection from MABONA ORIGAMI on Vimeo.

What if you wanted to double your customer base tomorrow?

It's a tough question. How to double your customers or prospects overnight?

Wouldn't it just take every customer to recruit ONE more person.

In a perfect world, that is really all it would take. But even though we're not in a perfect world, it doesn't mean the idea isn't worth pursuing.

I've yet to work with a business that doesn't get some - and often MOST - of it's business from referral. (And as you can see, the smart marketers at World Vision are trying to tap into that with the recent email I've pictured).

And that referral is great because it's MASSIVELY cost effective and carries the far greater persuasive power than anything a business could ever say.

So this is just a reminder not to ignore the most powerful new business tool at your fingertips - your existing customers. Get out there and motivate them to refer a new customer to you.

Check these out online for some inspiration

Being all about "zero budget" means educating yourself constantly...and thanks to the web you can do this for nicks. It can be hard to wade through WHAT is worth reading, but here's a few worth signing up for / following online.

http://www.clickz.com/: These newsletters are online marketing gold. If only I had time to read all of them, all of the time.

http://mashable.com/ : Mashable is the world's largest blog focused exclusively on Web 2.0 and Social Networking news.

http://www.ipsosmediact.com/knowledge/ : Ranking third worldwide in survey research turnover, Ipsos specialise in five areas of research: Advertising, Loyalty, Marketing, MediaCT, and Public Affairs. The online knowledge centre contains tonnes of info, case studies and free report summaries.

http://www.sendupalargerroom.com/ : Original marketing/consumer behavious Aussie blog by lead strategist for Carat Sydney.

(List inspired by article by Lee Stephens "Finding Gold Among the Spammers" from AdNews - 10 April, 2009)

Have you tried this with Google Adwords?

I've played around with Google Adwords with several of my clients, with mixed results.

Adwords are a great tool if enough people are looking for what you have to sell. But when you're selling something people might NOT be searching for, you have to think a bit more creatively about how to get their attention and hopefully entice them to visit your site.

One thing as marketers we DO know is that the web is used early on in a buying cycle. Consumer and Business buyers use it to research the category they're interested, often a while in advance of actual intent to purchase.

So you might get them browsing, but getting them to visit your site and BUY is the trickiest part.

So I thought I'd trial a bit of "old school" DM using this "new school" medium and ran the voucher ad below recently...

I linked it to a landing page that explained the offer - and included a promotional code to enter if they chose to join the service. My rationale was, if people were "tyre kicking" already, this might get them over the line.

In the first four weeks of running this little advert, SIX people joined the service using this promotional code.

At a cost of around about 60 cents per sign up [not including time for my creative brilliance of course :) ].

Now to understand whether six is a lot, you need to think about what each customer is worth.

For this service based business every customer means in the vicinity of $600 a year.

At 60 cents to attract, this makes a whopping ROI on this advertisment 1000%

If only all our marketing gave such a great return!

Now, I don't have the goose that laid the golden egg just yet. I'll have that when I can get 100 customers to buy using this offer.

But I'm off to a great (zero budget) start.

Why don't you try it for your business and let me know how you go!

The dog ate my homework - cheap marketing idea for tradies

...yes, I've been very bad and haven't blogged in AGES.

My only excuse has been a lack of inspiration - luckily I passed a little gem the other day that has got my lazy butt back in action.

So what did I see?

A bit of common sense thinking that isn't so common.

It was an electrician's van. It wasn't particularly flash, looking like a small operation. The branding on the van itself wasn't even that attractive.

So what caught my eye?

The branding on the front of the van - the part you'd see in your rear vision mirror - had the company name, phone number and website printed "back to front".

Which means, in your rear vision mirror, you'd be able to read it.

I love this little "big idea". It's a case of really making sure every cent you have to spend is spent in the smartest way possible. Because I'm sure this van gets more people stuck in traffic checking it out than it ever does parked at individual jobs in suburban streets.

(And I don't even has to wonder if anyone ever actually CALLS a number they see written on a van. I know someone does - because I've done it. It was how I got my cleaner of 4 years.)

So next time you're doing some marketing the way you've "always done it", stop and ask yourself if you should be rethinking anything? Use the back of your business cards to explain what you do. Ensure your signage is able to be read by those you want to read it. Structure your website in a way that makes sense to customers, not just to you.

Making your (zero) budget work for you, means ensuring everything is done as smartly as possible.

Hmmm, when coke goes with no advertising, you know something is up

I was moderating a panel discussion at a marketing conference yesterday (evolve08 run by Networx Brisbane) and one of the panellists was from Coca-Cola, the global drinks giant. You may or may not know they have a host of brands in their stable, including things like Mount Franklin water and Mother energy drink.

Now Coke is a big believer in advertising, as anyone who's over the age of five can probably attest. A couple of years back they spent a reputed $18 million in Oz alone to launch the Coke Zero brand.

Now I've been saying for a long time that good marketing does not equal spending big bucks on advertising. Sometimes it equals spending no dollars on advertising. And who would have thought the people at Coke would agree.

But they do. When they launched Vitamin water in, they decided against spending marketing budget on advertising. In fact, their major marketing tactic was getting this product into the hands of influential people. And it's apparently working for them, as they've sold four times what they expected to sell in their last year, according to a rep.

Now I'm sure they spent a tonne of cash in other ways - they've got a spiffy website (which seems to have some flash bugs alas), probably the largest distribution penetration in the world and probably many a smart agency that advised them. But still, I'm sure this launch cost nowhere near the 18 million they spent on launching a mere brand extension, let alone a whole new product.

So really this is a bit of a "take heart" message. When one of the world's biggest consumer product companies decides there might be another way to go, it's a reminder that launching a brand doesn't require the world's deepest pockets.

As another one of the speakers (Jack Perlinski, Brand Strategist, DAIS) said yesterday "some of the best creative campaigns are born from having no budget".

Ah, couldn't have said it better myself!

A little letter & being willing to ask

I've been working a few days a week this year with a small charity. So small that when I asked at the interview "what's my marketing budget" they said "what marketing budget?". So I'm getting a chance to flex my "total and utter zero" budget muscles.

And in a very, very competitive market. There are 19,000 charities in Australia - and an estimated 680,000 other "not for profit" organisations out there. That's a LOT of organisations hitting up a very small population.

One little campaign I've run this year - providing a 1500% return on investment - reminded me the power of ASKING for things - be it a sale, a donation or a favour.

A little background...

This charity (Western Chances) attracts most of its funds from Foundations and business donations. But it had never written to the people in these businesses and foundation AS people, as individuals.

So I thought, what can it hurt? After all, I tell people in business they can get more blood out of a stone when it comes to selling a product or service, so why not when it comes to selling "feeling good" by donating to a charity?

We didn't have a large database to start with and then the list was whittled down further, as some people just weren't appropriate to hit up again.

I ended up with a very short list of just 250 people.

I did a bit of an estimate and thought I'd probably be able to raise around $1,000. Not earth shattering, but every little bit counts.

As I didn't have any cash, I couldn't do anything fancy with design or brochures. I had to write a good old-fashion letter.

And I didn't re-invent the wheel. I used a great letter writing guide provided to us (free) by Our Community to work out the structure. I included a specific appeal we were working towards and a true story from one of our beneficiaries in the letter.

Then I laid out in Word a one page donation form, with some specific amounts people could donate and what it would translate into. And I'm no graphics whiz, I just made sure it allowed for everything I needed to capture information and make it easy for them to donate.

Then I had the issue of postage. So I continue on the "if you don't ask, you don't get" trail and made a phone call request to a larger corporate supporter, which landed us a committment to send the mail-out for us. So the "real" cost to the charity was about a day of my time, 500 sheets of paper and 250 envelopes. Let's say an even $500.

So the letters were mailed and I thought...let's see how we go. If I can double the investment, it will be a good result.

So how did we go?

Well, we ended up making awhopping $7,500 from those 250 letters. More than 7.5 times what we expected to make and 15 times what its cost was - a 1500% return on investment.

And if it had bombed? Well, we were only out $500.

And an interesting thing happened. It wasn't a lot of small donations - it was around 15 larger ones. So the same list will be worth targeting in another 6 months, as I only need another 15 generous people - 6% of the list - to donate and possibly hit a similar target.

So I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If you don't ask, you don't get!