Scrappy Marketing Solutions Blog

Shameless Self-Promotion with New Year’s Resolutions

In the words of Photojojo blogger Nichole Esmon, "Goodbye 2007, Hello Two Thousand and Awesome!"  (love the phrasing of that)

It's New Year's Eve, and many people's thoughts turn to resolutions.  Why not take a cue from Esmon and the Photojojo blog, and use resolutions to remind your customers of the great content you've been offering them?

A little background...Photojojo.com is an online store that sells photo-related products.  As such, their blog offers tons of valuable photo-related resources, presented in a fun, edgy writing style.  For New Year's, Esmon compiled a tip list of 19 photo resolutions for Photojojo's blog/newsletter.  Many of the tips refer back to content previously posted on Photojojo's blog. 

Very clever - a Scrappy Marketer's Hat Tip for this marketing-via-resolution-tipsheet idea.  It's actually quite useful for their readers - the tip list provides links to posts readers may have previously missed, or forgotten to follow up on.  But putting all these links in one post also reminds readers how much they enjoy reading Photojojo, and that oh yeah, they've been meaning to check out that cool gadget in the store.  Plus, all the internal links to specific posts also help with search engine juice.  Win Win.

So - what kind of resolutions list can you come up with for your business?  Triscape, makers of digital scrapbooking software FxFoto, could provide a list of "5 Photo Organization Resolutions for 2008".  Author Lisa Sanford could write up, "10 Cultural Holidays Not to Miss in 2008".  A local scrapbooking store could put together a simple "Getting to Done - 10 Scrapbooking Resolutions", with tips on quickly working through your stash (of photos AND/OR supplies!). 

What tips could you offer that would highlight content you've already written, and that would point people to the products/services you offer?  Give it some thought and get posting!  Feel free to leave a link to your professional resolution list in the Comments!

Email & White Paper Marketing Idea from Carolee's Creations

A great email marketing idea recently arrived in my inbox from Carolee's Creations.  Essentially they've created a whitepaper to address a common concern for their target audience  (In scrapbook speak...they created an idea sheet to help use your stash.)  Then they sent out an email blast to let people know the white paper was available.  Georgana also posted about it on her blog.

According to Wikipedia, a white paper "is an authoritative report. White papers are used to educate customers, collect leads for a company or help people make decisions."  Whitepapers are typically offered by companies as a marketing tool.  They are written in article format, presenting a problem, then offering a solution.  That solution is usually points to a product or service that the company offers.

In this case, the white paper/tipsheet/idea sheet [PDF] addresses how to get past "Christmas Card Chagrin" - "that sick gnawing feeling in the pit of your stomach [when] thinking about the expense" of sending out handmade Christmas cards. The four-page PDF describes creative ways to work past that problem, including specific examples (with sketches) of 15 cards created using one sheet of stickers, four sheets of cardstock, and one stamp (all Carolee's Creation products).

Try this marketing technique yourself!  Think about what concerns your target market has, and put together a white paper describing how to solve it, and how you can help.  Then send out an email and post to your blog to tell everyone that the paper is available.

A Scrappy Marketer's Hat Tip to Carolee's Creations for this marketing "hat trick" - marketing by white paper, email newsletter, AND blog.

Newsletter Marketing: Reward Your Ambassadors

I subscribe to lots of e-newsletters, to keep up with industry buzz and happenings, as well as to get promotional ideas.  I noticed a cool promotional technique in the recent e-newsletter from ScrapWords.com.

In her newsletter, owner Leslie Ackman offered incentives to helping her build buzz about her site:

Scrapwords is a very new community on the Web...With that being said, it is TOUGH to get our name out there! So far you can find me in all the major scrap mags and websites but that's not enough!! I need YOU!

Please tell your friends about us and send them our way. For every person that you send to Scrapwords that creates a Blog, posts on the forums, etc. I'll give you $2.00 credit in the Store. Send me 5 people that become active on the site and you'll get $10 bucks to spend...send me 10 people that become active you'll get $20 bucks!!  If you are interested in participating in this program e-mail me.

**An active member create a Blog, posts at least 5 times in that Blog and posts in our Forums at least 25 times.

I like these points about this promotion:

• Leslie recognizes that she needs to build traffic for her site, so she asks her loyal customers for help.
• To encourage her customers to help her, she offers an enticement.
• That enticement comes from her own inventory, minimizing the cost of the promotion, plus there's no initial investment while hoping the promotion produces results.  It's almost like promotion on consignment - you don't pay until you get the results you want.
• She provided tangible measurement of what she is looking for - how many posts a new site member must make to make their "ambassador" eligible for the reward.
• AND she used her e-newsletter to spread the word about the promotion.

A couple of suggestions if you're considering a similar "Be My Ambassador" promotion - definitely announce it in your e-newsletter, as Leslie did, but also post about it on your blog, on your message board (if applicable), and on the homepage of your website.  If you're going to spread the word about something, spread it as far as you can with all the tools that you have!

A Scrappy Marketer's Hat Tip to Leslie!  Way to be an Ambassador-Maker!

Marketing by Customer Review: Scrapbook.com

Another great marketing idea, this one from Scrapbook.com: Review A Product Win $25!

Scrapbook.com is giving away (3) $25 superstore-shopping-sprees to three lucky product reviewers!

Here’s what you need to do to be eligible to WIN:

1. Choose an E-book or digital product from the superstore that you own (or will soon own)
2. Go to that products page in the Scrapbook.com Superstore
3. Write a 50 word (minimum) review of the product (posted to the product page)

All reviews are eligible provided that they would likely be deemed helpful and informative by a person who does not yet own the product.
That’s it! Simple, right?

Clever marketing - offer an incentive to get your customers to dish on your products!  Since the contest does not imply the review must be positive, I don’t see any ethical problems.

Here’s what I like about this promotion:

• it will (most likely) provide lots of reviews in their online storefront, which boosts the confidence level of “looky-loo’s” - they see lots of reviews, they think a lot of people must shop here, they feel secure doing business with the site.
• they specified that the review must “likely be deemed helpful and informative by a person who does not yet own the product”.  That kind of guideline will help someone write a review.
• they asked for reviews on their *digital* products.  What a great way to highlight a specific segment of their business!
• they included this promotion in their e-newsletter, which is also archived online - instant search engine mojo, and easy to pass the word along to friends (viral marketing)!

You could do something similar in your business:

• every other month, solicit reviews/testimonials about a specific type of product or service - paper one month, classes another month
• change up the incentive every so often - store credit one month, personal consulting session another month.
• have customers apply to be on a rotating “Review Board”, of say, a three to six-month term.  During that term, they get special goodies for their service.
• definitely post about any kind of contest/promotion on your blog and in your newsletter

A Scrappy Marketer’s Hat Tip to Scrapbook.com!

Viral Scrapbook Marketing: Tinkering Ink Blinkies

I recently spotted a great grassroots/viral marketing idea on the Tinkering Ink BLOG. They are offering “blinkies” graphics for people to post in their message board signature lines (aka “sigs”). The little animated graphics scroll through various marketing slogans and feature some branded Tinkering Ink images.

TI goes a step further by providing coding instructions on their blog and on their message board, specifying how to post a blinkie to a message board sig.

THEN they go even another step further, and declare that they “will be hunting down Tinkering Ink blinkies online and giving away prize packs filled with Tinkering Ink goodies to random customers we find displaying our blinkie on their signature”. By choosing random winners (instead of submissions, or a talent contest), people are more likely to use the blinkie, in hopes that they could be noticed and chosen. And every time someone uses the TI blinkie, the marketing message is passed further down the pipeline.

A Scrappy Marketer’s Hat Tip to Tinkering Ink!

Stumped When Writing Effective Article Headlines?

Great 4-part series of articles on writing article headlines over at dsd-professionals.com: How to Write Headlines that Keep Customers Coming Back for More.

It’s always helpful to find business/marketing resources that are addressed to scrapbooking industry professionals - you don’t have to do any fancy mind tricks to figure out how generalized small business advice applies to YOUR business.

Here’s the intro to the article series:

This is the first article in a series that will give you a steady stream of headline-writing ideas and proven techniques that are sure to increase your readership.  Whether you are writing blog articles, advertising for your digi-scrap business, or announcements in your community forums - these formulas will become some of your best friends.  Because they will give extra power to your writing skills and produce the results you are looking for. Through this series I will share with you tips and techniques on how to write better headlines for your blogs, on your websites, and in your advertising campaigns.

A Scrappy Marketer's Hat Tip to Cindy (aka PaintChip) for providing these resources.