Build a Team (Part 1)

All over the country, entrepreneurs and small businesses are teaming up to spread the word about their businesses. As marketing budgets are drying, clever small businesses are learning to work together to share the expense of an advertising campaign which decreases the expense for all parties involved. These companies are leveraging their skills, and in some cases, the skills of their “competitors” in order to increase the size of their respective industries.

A Doggy Bag

Jason Keith, a senior public relations manager at Vista Print introduced me to the story of Sara Fontanez, the owner of Fontanez Photography. Because she photographs many different things, including people and their pets, she coordinated a pet photography day called “Pets & People - Paws for Pics” to raise her visibility and acquire new customers locally. A local groomer cosponsored the event with her and allowed Sara to use her facility. The two businesses promoted the event using postcards for under $50 by taking advantage of free offers.

Not only did the event allow both Sara and the local groomer to meet and acquire new customers, it also introduced them to other local pet services such as veterinarians, pet sitters, and even home-made dog food vendors. Marketing material from all of the vendors were collected and placed into a “doggy bag”.

Scaling the Doggy Bag

Because the “Doggy Bag” concept was such a success, Sara has taken it to a new level. Now all of the small businesses are coordinating efforts to produce 4,000 of these bags to distribute to local homes. In the bag will be a postcard or rack card from each company (none of which who are direct competitors), a business card with each company’s contact information, and a raffle ticket. Not only do customers now have their contact information, but they are encouraged to call each company listed in the bag to see if they’ve won a prize. Everyone had agreed to donate 5 prizes.

And since many of the businesses involved already had postcards and printed marketing materials, the cost was minimal. With creative thinking, Sara has taken a simple campaign and evolved it into a true community wide partnership that can benefit each business as well as many customers.

A Television Show

If you don’t think you have the money to run a 30 minute television show on Saturday mornings, allow me to introduce you to Tracy True Dismukes, owner of Collage Designer Consignment a chain of three women’s designer consignment boutiques. Tracy is also the Past President of NARTS, the National Association of Resale and Thrift Stores. A few months ago, she decided to create a 30 minute, weekly television show, “Consignment Chic”, and website about consignment. To do this, she teamed up with a local producer/promotions expert and found a local television station she could purchase time from for a relatively reasonable rate. However, she was not able to afford it on her own.

Partnering with the competition

To raise the funds to purchase the air time, Tracy made a list of all the consignment shops (her competitors) within the viewing area of the television station. Tracy and her producer put together a video pitch to the other consignment shops and emailed them her proposal. They followed up by phone with these stores and built a base of support.

The team is in week 3 on the air and Tracy confesses that response has been phenomenal! The shop owners are doing a bus tour of consignment shops on January 24^th and a writer for Southern Living Magazine is going on the tour with them.

Tagged as: Marketing in a recession