May 22

May 22 The Flow of Unexpected Marketing

This morning I did some good ol' fashioned offline postering for a yoga class I run.

I run it in a small, boutique gym. They're open early morning and evening and closed during the day. My class is midmorning while the gym is closed to the public and quiet. This suits me as it means I can run the class while my kids are at school.

However my hoped for synergies (the balance of yoga and gym training) didn't eventuate as most of the gym clientele are at work during my class time.

Clearly I needed to re-evaluate my marketing communications.

I thought about my target market. I needed to communicate with people who have free time on a Thursday morning... My expectation was that I'd put up my posters in shops that were open during this time and that my marketing would occur via people reading my poster...

What I didn't expect was the power and immediacy of face to face marketing.

The barista in the first cafe I entered was happy for me to put up my poster and asked about the class. I gave her a bit of info but assumed she'd be working and was simply being polite.

Turns out she owned the cafe and would arrange for her brother to cover the Thursday morning shift so she could come to the class.

Meanwhile another woman who had just arrived to order her morning coffee expressed her interest and said she would also come.

Next I walked into a medical centre and asked the receptionist if I could put up a poster. She said it was their policy not to have any advertising in the clinic but that she would put it up in the staff lunch room. She then admitted she'd been wanting to get back into yoga, swivelled around to the photocopier beside her, made a copy for herself and said she had Thursday mornings free.

After that I noticed the supermarket had a noticeboard and checked that it was okay for me to put up one of my flyers... The girl I spoke to said I could put it on the front door!

I then tried a florist / gift shop. They didn't want advertising in their shop, but as I was about to leave, a customer there chirped in that she was interested in doing yoga and took a photo of my poster with her phone for future reference.

I stuck my last remaining poster on a noticeboard outside a farm supplies retailer, right under the nose of a farmer perusing the ads... With this unexpected flow I won't be surprised to see him on Thursday too!

From my 20 minutes of hitting the sidewalk and chatting to people I have four unexpected, directly interested prospects plus whoever sees my posters in prime locations around the main street.

This may sound like small bickies, but I really only have space for 10 people in the class so this style of footwork marketing may just be the perfect strategy for my class.

I took two lessons from this morning's escapade which may also help if you run a small business:

1. Make sure your marketing communications hit your target market.

2. Be prepared for some unexpected flow when you simply get into action and tell the world what you do. :)

>>> Leonie Orton (who sometimes likes to talk about herself in the third person) is a writer, editor and marketing communications consultant. She'll create for you, connecting communication in the shape of words, graphics and webs - whatever it takes to hook you up with the people who need what you have. If you'll have what she's having, drop her a line, she'd like that... Other identity suits hanging in her life closet include mother, yoga teacher, and permaculture enthusiast. She's also pretty nifty with a four letter word, but let's leave that one in the closet ;)