Also in Ethical Marketplace

Grassroots Marketing

Getting Noticed in a Noisy World

by Shel Horowitz

Excerpt

From Chapter 1 Skeptics--Please Start Here
A ten-dollar marketing budget--are you kidding?
No, and I'm not crazy either.
In 1981, I started my business with an initial marketing investment of twelve dollars. It was enough to get started and keep me going over the first few months, until I could afford to put more into promotion. I didn't get my first computer until 1984.
Nearly twenty years later, I'm still running my business on an annual marketing investment of under two thousand dollars, or less than forty bucks a week. Yet my business is the busiest shop of its kind in a three-county territory, and I have clients on three continents. You too can learn to get this kind of return with easy and straightforward marketing.
Even in the year 2000, ten bucks is enough to get started. Obviously, your own marketing mix will vary depending on what you're selling, and to whom. But here are some ideas:
The $10 Marketing Budget
• Free e-mail and a free Web site
• A well-designed and compellingly written flier, photocopied on eye-catching paper and distributed on bulletin boards or under doorways
• A series of press releases, faxed locally, e-mailed, or hand-delivered
• Appearances as a talk show guest
• Articles in trade publications, on- or off-line
• Free classifieds
The $100 Marketing Budget
As above, but also including:
• Your own actively promoted Internet domain, with a small Web site and a newsletter
• Wider geographic reach for press releases and articles
• Conducting a small local seminar
• Walking the floor at one or more trade shows
• Ad swaps with other newsletters
The $1,000 Marketing Budget
As above, but also including:
• Sponsorship of targeted e-zines
• A carefully crafted in-column Yellow Pages ad
• An active program of appearances as a radio guest
• Bigger seminars
• A well-written and beautifully designed brochure
The $2,000-$10,000 Marketing Budget
As above, but also including:
• Small-space classified ads
• Experiments with short-run direct mail
• Radio advertising on shows that are a perfect fit for your message
• An active referral/affiliate program
By the time you're done reading this book, you'll know how to do all these, and a whole lot more.



From Chapter 8 Better Than the Grapevine: Writing Your Media Releases
Creating "News" What do you do if the media doesn't show at your event? Write up an article yourself, in the form of an extended press release (typically, two to three pages), and submit it immediately. Start with a tight lead describing the essence of the event. For example:
SPRINGDALE, June 30: Celebrated author Charles Dickens spoke on novel writing last night to over 150 people at Sinai Temple. Dickens, author of A Tale of Two Cities and almost twenty other novels, spoke both about his own process of self-discovery and his suggestions for budding writers.
That first sentence crams in four of the five Ws.
Your release would continue with themes and highlights from the talk, including a couple of good quotes from Dickens, and perhaps his response to a question. If the lecture was part of a series, end with a note about future events. And have it on the editor's desk before the close of business on the dateline day.
Sometimes you have to more or less invent the news hook. I was hired to promote a book that broke all the rules. As a dense philosophical work with twenty-eight pages of notes and a twenty-four-page bibliography, written by someone with no academic credentials, it didn't really fit into any standard categories. Here's what I did (yes, it did fit on one page, using carefully chosen type and a few formatting tricks):


The One Who Dies with the Most Toys--Is Just As Dead! Author Attacks Material Culture in Groundbreaking New Book
WASILLA, ALASKA: Every once in a while, a book comes along that can change the entire way society thinks. From Martin Luther to Harriet Beecher Stowe to Rachel Carson, and more recently, Christopher Lasch (Culture of Narcissism), John Naisbitt (Megatrends), and Alvin Toffler (Future Shock), certain authors have had a deep and lasting impact. Every thinking person needs to be familiar with the work of these writers.
Into this select group, from a small town in remote and rugged Alaska, comes a new contender: Charles D. Hayes and his new book, Beyond the American Dream.
Exhaustively researched--the 24-page bibliography cites authors as diverse as Einstein, Kant, Stephen Covey, Mario Cuomo, Deborah Tannen, Peter Drucker, Will Durant, Erich Fromm, Al Gore, Cornel West, Abraham Maslow, Jack London, and Gail Sheehy--this new and dramatic work explodes myth after myth of American society. Hayes is thoroughly unconventional and also unabashedly liberal; he makes the case that the materialist era is ending and a new era is dawning in America: the era of multicultural accommodation and lifelong learning.
"It is an inspiration to hear from someone who both cherishes and exemplifies independent thinking. A brilliant and moving work." --Philip Slater, author, The Pursuit of Loneliness
Beyond the American Dream is not a quick and easy read. Rather, it's a probing, intense examination of the entire American society; race relations and affirmative action (he's a strong proponent), environmental issues, fallacies of the New Age movement. It's a book that will be talked about for years to come.
"In a world of flabby, fragmentary, and postmodernist thinking, Hayes offers a glowing tribute to old-fashioned curiosity and reason." --Barbara Ehrenreich, author, Fear of Falling, Blood Rites
Journalists: to get your review copy of Beyond the American Dream, which will be released during Self-University Week, September 1-7, 1998, or to arrange an interview with Hayes, please contact the publisher at 907-376-2932 or by e-mail at autpress@alaska.net.
####


Using this release and several follow-up releases, the publisher was able to scoop up a number of excellent reviews and awards, which he then parlayed into sales success.
Even the right testimonial can be worthy of a news release. Here's one I did to promote my previous marketing book:
Accurate Writing & More
P.O. Box 1164, Northampton, MA 01061-1164, USA
(413) 586-2388 (voice) (617) 249-0153 (Fax)
e-mail: info@frugalfun.com; Web: http://www.frugalfun.com
ISBN Prefix: 0-9614666; SAN #692-4786
For Release: On Receipt Contact: Alan Friedman
German Business Owner Builds Million-Dollar Business with ZERO Advertising Expenditure By Reading Low-Cost Marketing Book
NORTHAMPTON, MA, USA: A very unusual testimonial from Germany came into the offices of Accurate Writing & More, distributors of Shel Horowitz's book, Marketing Without Megabucks: How to Sell Anything on a Shoestring: "Thank you for your wonderful book Marketing Without Megabucks. It is the single most profitable investment I've ever made. With its superb advice, I managed to build a small company turning over close to 1,000,000 US Dollars a year within 2 years and I have not spent a single penny on paid advertising! With our special computer-noise reduction products we have obtained front-page coverage with the most important German computer magazine, and have been featured in 13 other magazines and newspapers. We (rather the product) even have been featured twice on TV. . . "Starting this year, we employ 5 people, and estimated turnover for 1999 is 1,400,000 US Dollars. Most helpful were the chapters on working the media, and on customer service/referrals. (20% of our new business comes from referrals.)" --Georg Schlomka, A Conto GmbH, Germany, e-mail: nord@noisecontrol.de
The book, written by AWM's director, Shel Horowitz, is a 384-page comprehensive guide to inexpensive, effective marketing and publicity, including major sections on press coverage, advertising, direct mail, and self-made marketing. Originally published in 1993 by Simon & Schuster, it is now available exclusively through the author's firm, with an extensive update. Including shipping and the e-mail update, the book is $20 US in the US or Canada. A Korean-language edition has also been published.
Horowitz founded Accurate Writing & More in 1981, and has used the techniques in this book to turn his company into the largest firm of its type in a three-county service area. AWM now serves clients on three continents.
Horowitz is available for press interviews. Journalists may request a review copy of the book. For more information, call (413) 586-2388, visit http://www.frugalfun.com, or e-mail info@frualfun.com.
####



From Chapter 8 Domain Do's and Don'ts
Why bother with your own domain name? Here are several important reasons:
• When you do a Web site, your address will be significantly shorter, and thus easier for people to remember and type in. Make your domain name as intuitive as possible, especially if you have a well-known brand name.
• A short, memorable address can be used as a marketing tool on everything from radio appearances to billboards.
• If you change from one provider to another, you won't have to change your address with every contact you've had over perhaps years. And you might change providers frequently as your needs change, or if your original choice proves unreliable. (For these reasons, your own domain is also better than using a redirect service that points your old address to your current one.)
• How much pain are you avoiding? Longtime Net marketer Cliff Kurtzman says you'll not only have to reprint business cards, but also "hunt out and find all the hyperlinks on the Web that link to your old site address and ask the various Webmasters to revise their links (good luck!)"
• It's easier to register with certain search engines (the Web equivalent of telephone directories) with your own domain. Alta Vista, for instance, one of the most frequently used search engines, will index only a few hundred Web addresses (called URLs) from any one domain--so if you're using an AOL free Web site, you can't get listed there.
The letters after the last dot are called "top-level domains." In theory, they give a clue about the type of organization: com for commercial, net for system administrators, edu for colleges, gov for government, org for other nonprofits (though in recent years, many commercial enterprises have gotten .net or .org addresses, and many nonprofits have sprung for .com domains), mil for military. If there are only two letters at the end, it's a country code (ca for Canada, il for Israel, etc.). Either way, there's no period at the end of an address.



From Chapter 23 E-Mail Marketing Miracles
Targeted Personal E-Mail
One of the basic rules of cyberbusiness is to check your e-mail frequently; you never know what will be waiting for you! Monday through Friday, I typically bring in the mail between three and five times. On the weekends, I take one day off from the computer, and the other day I generally bring in the mail in the morning and evening.
And oh, the things I've found in my mailbox! Here's just the very tip of the iceberg:
• An offer from an Internet start-up company to be interim part-time Marketing Director--a few thousand dollars worth of work
• A new client in London who found my Web site and spent hundreds of dollars' on my marketing services
• Constant streams of messages from prospects--many of whom become clients, in part because they get a quick and appropriate answer
• Opportunities to generate free publicity through print and electronic media.
All of these were initiated by clients. Then there's the individual e-mail I initiate. That has brought me . . .
• Several thousand dollars for work I did on a book collaboration
• Many new places to publish my articles
• Tons of free content for my Web site, from some of the top names in marketing and small business
• Review copies of books I used while researching this book and other writing projects
• My first of several appearances as a chat guest in a business forum
• Partner relationships with all manner of business owners, some of which have led to paid consulting, new markets for my book, and many other opportunities
The list goes on and on and on.
When I see a posting of interest on one of the many e-publications I read, I often dash off a quick little note, spell-check it, and send it on its way. Sometimes these notes have led to amazing opportunities.
You don't always know where things will lead. Here's a correspondence I had in January 1999, starting with a simple request to reuse two different posts on my Web magazine, Down to Business. (Notice the online business card, or "sig," at the end of my message. Sigs are a vital marketing tool, and they get their own chapter).


Subject: Dear Dan and Anne--RE Your I-Adv posts
I'd like to combine these two into an article for my Down to Business magazine (http://www.frugalfun.com/dtb.html). May I have your permission? We're a nonpaying market but we give a blurb and hotlink, don't demand exclusivity, and put you in the company of some very well known names.
Best, Shel Horowitz
mailto:shel@frugalfun.com, 413-586-2388 (v) 617-249-0153 (f)
Editor/Publisher
Global ARTS Review