IF YOU’VE got it, flaunt it. Whether you’re a lone copywriter filing from the
kitchen table or an events entrepreneur organising a party for 50,000
people, you need customers. And unless you plan to sell solely to your mum,
that means marketing.
In this brand-obsessed world your logo is all. If you’re flash you can use a
brand strategist, but most people opt for the group-of-mates-and-a-pint
approach. Ben Hart and Kevin Eade, partners at Glass, a design and
interactive marketing agency, say that their company name was the result of
a “flash of inspiration in the pub”. That is not to say that it hasn’t been
thought through. Hart says: “The idea is (that) there is the audience on one
side and us working on the other and we connect via screen-based media. We
also liked the intrinstic qualities associated with it; fluidity,
transparency and beauty.”
The next step is to get the name out there. Hart and Eade use targeted
mailshots, a website and online marketing. Hart also says that they have met
some good people using online business networking: “Dating sites for
business professionals without the dating.” He is also a fan of
old-fashioned face-to-face meetings and talking on the telephone.
Word of mouth also works well for Dan O’Neill, a co-founder of Feast
Promotions, events and festival organisers (“the name needed to encompass
food, drink and partying”). “We never advertise . . . the combination of an
initial nucleus of friends and friends-of-friends has been compounded by a
PR strategy and a website, plus partnerships with other relevant
businesses.”
David Simmons, the CEO of Juice Mobile Entertainment (he wanted to call it
Ultra Cool Mobile but his brand strategist daughter had other ideas) uses
trade shows successfully to raise his profile.
“Trade shows are expensive and hard work but they help you to build a
presence. I also speak on panels at these events to build my profile,” he
says. Nothing beats a juicy bit of media interest, though. Simmons gained
international coverage after Mobile Entertainment Forum, a trade
organisation, took up his suggestion for the first UK ringtones chart: “It’s
a crowded space and you need to get noticed.”
Mark Champkins, a director of Concentrate, a design company (“the name
embodies the simple approach I am using to help children to concentrate”)
has also been successful in gaining column inches. “I sent out lots of press
releases to Sunday supplements and parenting magazines on the back of Jamie
Oliver’s healthy eating campaign about drinking more water, and ended up
doing a piece for the BBC.” Champkins hopes to use the coverage to generate
investor interest. “I can go to them and say ‘look at the level of interest
I have raised on my own; imagine how much more I could do with your help’.”
Putting it about can certainly pay, so don’t be shy.
