How To Stretch Your Marketing Dollars And Have Fun Doing It!

As a small boutique owner I was always looking for ways to stretch my marketing dollars.   I didn’t have the marketing muscle of J Crew or Anthropologie so I always looked for a big idea with a little price tag.  It wasn’t easy but that expression “necessity is the mother of invention” is right on.  One time I had a hula hoop contest in the store to celebrate summer.  The Hula Hoops did triple duty.  I used them in the windows, used them for the contest and used them as prizes for the winners. Cost of Contest:$30 , Buzz: Priceless!

One year, three weeks before Mothers Day I started asking customers to write their moms words of wisdom to them on a slip of paper.  They wrote quotes like:

1. “Answer me and don’t you talk with food in your mouth”.  Sally Thompson’s Mom
2.“Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died”.  Holly Rubin’s Mom
3. “All of us have moments in out lives that test our courage and taking children into a house with a white carpet is one of them”.  Jenny Jone’s Mom

I took the quotes, rewrote them on big slips of paper and posted them in our windows daily.  I began to notice people gathering in front of the windows laughing, talking, and pointing at the wall of quotes.  Each day I noticed the groups multiplying and getting bigger.  The weekend before Mothers Day I bought a full-page ad in a local paper with all the words of wisdom listed with credits to Holly Rubins’s Mom, Jenny Jone’s Mom etc.  Suddenly Moms were my new BFF’s.  They had me on speed dial.  They gushed, no exaggeration, gushed might be an understatement.  The Mom’s loved the attention. I loved the traffic in my store.  And I really loved the sales figures the Saturday before Mothers Day.  Cost of Promotion: $500   Buzz: Priceless.

I recently read a story about Foursquare, the hot social media start-up that’s a cross between a friend-finder, a social city-guide and a game that rewards you for doing interesting things.  Their story is a perfect example of how to stretch your marketing dollars when the big guys are flexing their marketing muscle.  Foursquare was at a trade show where dozens of bigger competitors erected elaborate, costly booths and setups to attract attention.  Foursquare went for the big idea with a little price tag.

1.  They drew a Foursquare court outside of the trade show site with chalk (box $.89)  and played (yes the playground game) daily using rubber Foursquare balls ($7.99) for four days.

2. They handed out custom show badges, pins, stickers, temporary tattoos (cheap swag stuff) packaged in ziplock bags ($.12 each) whenever a user said they loved Foursquare.

Dennis Crowly, a cofounder of Foursquare was quoted in a blog as saying “The game was a huge hit and attracted the attention of conference goers and big media alike. Thousands of people stopped by to see what was going on, say hi, play a game or two, and pick up some swag.”

So the moral of this story is “the next time you start thinking you can’t compete with bigger stores or bigger brands at trade events , don’t try”.   Grab your staff, head to the playground, dream up a “big idea with a little price tag” and start having some fun.