Marketing On A Shoe String Budget

(Article by Guest Blogger, Ann LaGoy of Sound Earth LLC)

Marketing on a shoe string budget can be tough; creativity, passion and a whole lot of social media can make up for budget restrictions.

This summer, in an effort to expand Sound Earth’s reach within our target market of animal lovers and pet owners, I came up with the idea to sponsor a contest – The First Annual Best Animal Rescue Contest. I set out with the goal of “capturing” new followers and email subscribers.

Marketing Café worked with us to develop a strategy around our goals that was simple to implement and easy on the budget.

The first step was to set up a WordPress photo contest requiring people to signup for our email list before submitting their rescued animal – casting the first net.

Promoting the contest to get submissions was done without spending a penny. I reached out to my contact groups, friends, my friend’s friends; posted on facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and I submitted press releases. It was a lot of heavy lifting, but I exceeded my first goal of 25 contestants by 40%.

The second net was cast as other passionate animal lovers promoted their rescued animal to try to win the contest. Although voters are not required to sign the email list before casting their votes, many of them do because the process is super short and easy; and the audience is highly targeted towards those passionate about their pets. Voters also have plenty of opportunity to  “like” the Sound Earth FaceBook page via widget and to encourage others to get involved and vote by “liking” the page for their favorite animal rescue story. I have a feeling I’ll be exceeding my goal here as well; we already have increase our Facebook fan base by 15%.

Things I found helpful:

• I had a mindful intention of my effort, and desired outcome
• I mapped out how to get there with daily tasks
• I worked with a pro – what do I know from coding and widgets?

So, all in all, this was a relatively simple and cheap way to increase my potential customer base. The next effort will be converting them to paying customers!

Get your vote on at the Best Animal Rescue Contest between August 1 and August 31! SoundEarth.com/BARC

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