Advertising for Growth

On July 18, 2010, in Business Development, by Chris Culos

Part One: Guerrilla Marketing

Guerrilla MarketingGuerrilla Marketing is an essential part of any advertisers plan of attack; be it on online only business or a company looking to establish it’s brand into the virtual space, Guerrilla Marketing cannot be ignored. In the first installment of this series, I spoke about defining a advertising budget and briefly outlined a few aspects of marketing that I believe are proven and mainstream. The first of which is Guerrilla Marketing techniques.

For anyone that needs a definition of Guerrilla Marketing, simply look to YouTube for examples. In my previous blog entry, I mention how companies such as Old Spice understands the value of viral marketing, (in this case, in a video format), and is considered a form of Guerrilla Marketing.

Guerrilla Marketing is often times relatively free if you’re willing to do the ground work yourself. As marketers, it’s your job to spread the word about the company you own, or work for. As such, taking advantage of free measures such as YouTube and Blog entries (eh hem), is powerful because it not only shows that it’s possible to create something out of nothing, but that the traditional model of marketing doesn’t always need to be pursued in order to be noticed. Why pay thousands of dollars on commercial and TV placements when you’ve got YouTube? (Admittedly, this is a bit of a gross generalization, but the point still stands). For those looking for an official definition of Guerrilla Marketing:

  • The concept of guerrilla marketing was invented as an unconventional system of promotions that relies on time, energy and imagination rather than a big marketing budget. Typically, guerrilla marketing campaigns are unexpected and unconventional; potentially interactive; and consumers are targeted in unexpected places. The objective of guerrilla marketing is to create a unique, engaging and thought-provoking concept to generate buzz, and consequently turn viral.

    • The value of this can be immense if properly put together. Outside of the typical viral marketing video, however, are some other efforts that can be utilized. These include:

  • Internet Forums – Being an active part of a community which you seek to serve is often times a great way to earn recognition. Establishing yourself as an expert (without resorting to putting your fingers in your ears or saying ‘Told ya so!’) can be a great way to earn trust in a community that is seeking advice on topics that you may know more about than the average person. Tailoring your forum persona and profile are critical in this step. Also, this is a great way to build in-bound links in the SEO aspect of Guerrilla marketing.
  • Blog Posts – It’s not exactly news that fresh content is what’s best when considering natural rankings in Google. Natural ranking improvements, often referred to as Search Engine Optimization (SEO), can be considered a form of Guerrilla Marketing; it doesn’t cost anything (if you know what you’re doing) to implement, and writing a paragraph or two a day (or if you can’t learn to shorten your entries, like myself, a daily thesis would work) is a great way to push the idea that you know what you’re doing, but also a great way to show up in search results naturally. Typically, my blog posts, when searched by Google by the title, are indexed and ranked in 2 minutes. That’s power.Advice to Business Owners on Guerrilla Marketing techniques: I’m not an expert, and the best thing you can do to capitalize on this phenomenon is to educate yourselves. Find out what makes your niche tick. Chances are, you alreayd have this information cached somewhere in the back of your brain and don’t realize it. Once you dig that up, you can begin to understand what it is you would need to do to effectively implement a Guerrilla Marketing scenario. And since you’re actively working in a field which the primary audience has something in common with your personality, ask yourself: What would I like to see?Until Next Time,– Chris
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    Advertising is the foundation of a successful internet business

    On July 18, 2010, in Business Development, by Chris Culos

    Great advertising can make all of the differenceThe Importance of Advertising Budgets in an online Business

    Most everyone can agree that advertising a business is extremely important. The same goes for an internet business almost doubly so, simply because of the sheer volume of companies out there doing, likely, the same exact thing you’re doing. How do you stand out in this jungle of wares?

    As I had mentioned a few days ago, Growing Your internet Business Organically is something that needs to be taken into consideration, and should be second to none – the first line of attack for generating business of average passers-by. But how do you give that extra boost your company may need to live up to it’s potential? Before you get started plummeting all of your money in to Google AdWords, there are a few steps you’ll need to take into consideration:

    Financially Planning your Business

  • Where are your costs? In order to figure out what you can devote to advertising, you must first figure out where your overhead lies. Chances are, if you’ve made it this far into the game you already have a pretty fair idea of what percentage you can play around with: things like rent, payroll, expenses, and debt management should all be factors when taking advertising into consideration. As for Studio Symposium, we have no overhead really to speak of, the only cost being Payroll. Since we started the company without any capital infusion to date, and have purely funded the project out of our own (nearly empty) pockets, we’ve already made our money back, so there are no other primary concerns.
  • Are your clients succeptable to advertising? This may sound strange, but not all companies are alike. Some have very particular customers who already know what they want before they get into the “door” (being your website, in this case). Example: How many Toyota advertisements do you see on TV currently? Chances are you can’t go a channel or two without seeing some sort of reference. The same goes for the likes of Honda and Hyundai. This is because they’re all in the same market, competing with relatively the same target demographic. Conversely, how many advertisements do you see on TV for Porsche? Chances are you can’t remember the last time you’ve seen a Porsche commercial, and there’s a reason for that. The company is in an extremely Niche market whos customer base isn’t easily swayed to and from one particular brand to another. They have their market share, and rarely need to advertise (outside of print publications reviewing or test-driving the cars) that they’re introducing new models. The same goes for your internet business – are your customers the kind to be easily swayed by brand agnosticism? Or have you ammassed a large, devoted fan base to your particular product or service that will follow you to the edge of the earth?
  • How much of a value-adder is advertising to your company? See above; essentially the more you know about how to advertise to your customers (potential or existing) the better off you’re going to be. Advertising is almost always a value-adder, especially in the internet days where literally everything is measured. This is a good thing because it allows you to trim, or add, different marketing techniques as needed. If marketing and advertising is almost your sole means of gaining new business, I would suggest a high budget for advertising.
  • After taking these things into consideration, you should be able to sit down and figure out what the minimum and maximum is for your spending budget on advertising. As noted before, because Studio Symposium has non-existant overhead, we worked out what I consider to be a very generous (and exciting!) advertising budget of 20%. For contrast, I know a few restaurant owners in the area that only spend about 1-2% on advertising. Naturally, a lower overhead means a much stronger budget for advertising.Now that you’ve got your advertising budget figured out – write it down. It’s best (I feel) to stick to a percentage of your inccome rather than a fixed amount. This way, the larger you get, the more you’ll be able to spend on expansion. How do you deal with advertising after all of the math is figured out? I’m going to outline techniques in 3 sections: Guerrilla, Standard, and Public Relations. Over the next few days, I will detail the different aspects of making the most of your newly-found advertising budget. Until then, good luck figuring everything out, and remember that advertising is an area of your business that should never be ignored.– Chris
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    Studio Symposium is On The Map!

    Growing Your Internet Business Organically

    On July 15, 2010, in Business Development, SEO, Software, Website Design, by Chris Culos

    Growing Your business organically is one of the best forms of recognition, and is incredibly satisfying, but it’s not easy. Here I will detail what measures we have taken as Studio Symposium to organically grow our business without spending a dime.

    Here is a quick bulleted list of efforts that can be done for free that have been gratifying to take part in with Studio Symposium:

  • TheyMakeApps.com – Free directory listing service that allows you to set your typical project budget and display an application as your portfolio picture. Also allows you to customize which platforms you’re accustomed to, and is easily searchable. Studio Symposium obtained RightAnswers.com from this service.
  • Sortfolio.com – Another Free directory service focusing specifically on website designers in your area. Upload an image for your profile of your best work, set a price range and an area, contact info, and you’re good to go. No contracts as of yet from Sortfolio, but seems promising. And for a free service, it can’t be beat.
  • Google Local Business Directory – Google completely comes through for this service. You can list every detail about your business – it’s location, website, operating hours, payment methods, coupons, and even map directions, all for the low price of Free. As with anything Google, complete metrics and analytics for viewers and actions included in the service.
  • Various internet forums – Working with an internet forum can be a tricky business. Often times you have to read the posting rules very carefully, but try to pick a community that associates with your chosen field, and start to make a name for yourself, even if it isn’t to solicit business. Answer questions, and establish yourself as a well-known identity within the community. Make sure your profile is tailored to convert as precisely as possible, leaving no guesswork as to the nature of your enrollment in the community.

    • I refuse to stand here and tell you that if you follow these steps that you’ll be an internet millionaire in 6 months, but I highly suggest that if you’re a business owner like me, you take advantage of everything free before you start digging around for services that are paid for. Everyone wants to get paid, but you don’t have to pay to get noticed in your industry, that I can guarantee. Good luck!

    – Chris

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