Marketing Virgin

Merry Christmas! This is a great time of the year to catch up on a little reading. Feel free to look around on my blog, or visit other great sites like MarketingSherpa, MarketingProfs, or Mashable.

After it was announced that my company was being acquired, we knew we had to come up with a way to show the world that we were excited about this new venture, while staying true to our lighthearted culture. With only 8 days before the deal was set to close, we met to discuss ways to make this happen. After throwing around several ideas, we came up with an image of a bride and groom, driving away from their ceremony, with the words “Just Acquired” across the back.

Naturally, we didn’t want to release just a single image, so we decided to produce an entire ceremony. Just four short days later, we had the script, camera, decorations, and cast. The images we captured that day were made into a video.

We uploaded the video to our corporate blog on the day of our acquisition and watched as it was shared across social media outlets including Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Our entire cost for the video was $98. Not bad.

Want to see the video? Check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGSviXSLKsI 

I recently completed a project that I had been working on since January. My friend Emily and I were asked to Co-Chair an event that would raise money for a local organization that provides scholarships for deserving young women in college.

This was a new challenge for me. I have experience running events for a company, but not for a non-profit. With a budget of $500, how was I going to sell 250 $25 tickets to a charity Fashion Show?

Here are a few of the things that we did to accomplish this goal:
>Facebook: We created a “Facebook Event” and we asked all of our members to pass it around. We advertised the event on our organization’s Facebook Fan page.
>Twitter: We tweeted about the event, and asked all of our members to RT our messages.
>Email: We sent monthly emails to all 375 members and asked them to share the Fashion Show information with their friends.
>PR: We found the best bloggers and online “local news” websites and asked them to share our event with their subscribers. We also found some of the top local “tweeters” on Twitter and asked them to give away a few tickets to the Fashion Show. Their Twitter followers were required to RT their message, for a chance to be selected as a ticket winner.
>Community Calendars: We went to everyone online newspaper and added ourselves to the community calendar section. Some websites will allow you to “vote up” or “vote down” events. We asked our members to vote our event up, which caused it to appear first on each webpage.
>Direct marketing: We printed promotional business cards and posters and then asked each boutique that we were planning to feature in the Fashion Show to keep them by the register, and in their store windows. We also asked each company that either donated money or a product to promote the event on their website.
>Do a Preview: We held a “Fashion Show Launch Happy Hour” one month before the actual event. We encouraged people to come out and purchase their tickets early. In doing so, attendees received a special VIP pass to the Fashion Show. The happy hour generated a lot of buzz and excitement for the show.

Follow the link to see the results, and to view more pictures. Read the rest of this entry »

Some people think that the Marketing department has all of the fun. Well, in the case of the company I work for, it’s true. Here are some outtakes…

Wear your Snuggie to work day

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I registered for the Marketing Sherpa B2B Demand Generation Marketing Summit yesterday. I’ve heard great things about it, and I’m looking forward to going in September.

 Are there any marketing conferences you would recommend?

Check it out here: http://www.pinpointe.com/blog/10-best-performing-email-subject-lines 

Bob Garfield of Advertising Age wrote an interesting article on the future of media and marketing. Although the outlook is grim, the future for digital media is bright. How do you feel about the article?

Read it now.

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If you’ve lost your job and can’t afford a wristband to get into SXSW Interactive, check out this free list parties and start networking!

Tired of attending boring conferences? Check out SXSW Interactive which will be held March 13-17, 2009 in Austin, Texas. Enjoy five days of interesting panels and fun parties. The SXSW Interactive Festival brings together the world’s most creative web developers, designers, bloggers, and new media entrepreneurs.

I recently read an article about “Tweetbacks” (when people add a link to your website on Twitter). Dan Zarrella built an application for WordPress that allows bloggers to embed a small code in their website that allows Tweetbacks to post in the form of comments on their blogs. This is a great idea! For those of you who have built your blogs using other programs such as MovableType, there isn’t an application for you just yet, but I’m sure there will be soon.

Read more on Mashable.