As an ecommerce startup -- selling a socially conscious jewelry line from Kenya -- and a business with a limited marketing budget, we devote a lot of energy to thinking up ways to creatively (i.e., cheaply) yet effectively market our company and expand our customer base.
We’ve found that planning promotional events is one of the best ways to meet our customers face-to-face and simultaneously control our brand messaging, thereby accomplishing something so important for a young company without an established brand: speaking for itself.
Viral marketing and word-of-mouth marketing are two of the most underrated and least costly marketing strategies. As we thought about how we could raise brand awareness and create buzz around our mission, we drew upon the “ALS Ice Bucket Challenge” and the Dark Knight Rises viral video campaign for inspiration.
When we launched a grassroots PR stunt in Central Park last year and asked people to share their dreams with us, we discovered how to deliver our message to engage with potential customers and also gathered behavioral data points to help drive our future marketing decisions. Here are six key things we learned along the way:
