Chapter 7. Myth No. 7: It’s Almost Impossible for a New Business to Get Noticed
Truth No. 7: There Are Many Ways for New Businesses to Get Noticed and Recognized

Introduction

A deep-seated fear that many potential business owners have is that they will start their businesses, and no one will notice. Most of the time, the fear doesn’t originate from a lack of confidence in the product or service the business will sell. Business owners normally go to great lengths to make sure their initial products or services are right. Instead, the fear originates from a lack of knowledge about how to make people aware of their businesses and how to market the products. The fear is heightened the first time a prospective business owner checks into the cost of print and media advertising. In a mid-sized city, a large newspaper ad can run as high as $15,000. That’s more than the total start-up cost of many businesses! Another obstacle is the sheer tempo of ads in the marketplace. The average person is exposed to about 2,000 marketing messages a day.¹ It’s no wonder that prospective business owners are fearful about their businesses not getting noticed.

Fortunately, there are inexpensive ways for businesses to get noticed and for their messages to reach their target markets. But there is a problem. The problem is that the majority of business owners are familiar with the most expensive ways to get a business noticed—print and media advertising—and are less familiar with more cost-efficient alternatives. As a result, many businesses struggle to get noticed because they can’t afford to do a lot of advertising, and they either don’t know about or don’t take the time to pursue less expensive alternatives.

The truth is that it is possible for a new company to get noticed, but it takes three things to make it happen. First, it takes a business owner who is willing to learn about the full array of marketing-related techniques that are available. Second, it takes persistence and hard work. Many of the most cost-effective ways for a business to get noticed, from passing out brochures to writing a blog, are inexpensive, but they take time and effort. Third, it takes a focused and sensible marketing strategy.

To address these issues and further dispel the myth that it’s almost impossible for a new business to get noticed, this chapter is divided into three sections. The first section provides three rules-of-thumb for approaching the challenge of getting noticed. It’s important for a new business to approach this challenge carefully because an ill-advised approach to trying to get noticed can be costly and ineffective. The second section describes how a business establishes a brand. A brand is the set of attributes that people associate with a company. It’s important for a business to think about its brand as part of its strategy for getting noticed because it wants to be thought of in a certain way. The third section describes the most common tactics and techniques that businesses use to get recognized or get noticed.

Rules-of-Thumb for How to Approach the Challenge of Getting Noticed

As discussed, increasing the visibility of a new business takes three things—familiarity with the alternatives, hard work, and a sensible strategy. Ironically, once you start investigating the various alternatives, the task becomes harder rather than easier. There are dozens of alternatives for marketing and promoting a business, from traditional print advertising, to attending trade shows, to posting a video on YouTube.com. There are also thousands of books and Web sites dedicated to marketing, advertising, public relations, and other forms of promotions. While these resources are helpful, the advice they provide is so plentiful and varied that it’s hard for a new business owner to know where to start.

This section provides three rules-of-thumb for initiating the process of getting your business noticed.

Focus on a Niche Market and the Benefits Offered to Customers

The first rule-of-thumb is to focus singularly on your niche market and the benefits your business offers the targeted customers. While this advice sounds straightforward, not all businesses are clear regarding what their markets are and who they are trying to appeal to. As mentioned in previous chapters, a niche market is a place within a larger market segment that represents a narrow group of customers with similar needs. The reason it’s important to know your niche market is that it’s premature for a business to select, or even talk about, specific marketing techniques until it has a clear picture of who its customers will be. If a firm starts advertising or promoting its business before it’s sure who its customers are, it will not only waste money but can confuse people who are unsure whether the product is intended for them.

It’s also important for a business, as part of its initial efforts to get noticed, to draw attention to the factors that differentiate it from its competitors. This is a potentially make-it or break-it issue for many businesses. It’s hard to get people to try something new or change their habits and behaviors and switch from a product they’re currently using to a new one. As a result, you have to clearly explain how your a product is better or cheaper to get people to try it. It’s typically best to limit the points you focus on to two or three points to make them memorable and distinct.

For example, ZUCA, the backpack on rollers introduced in Chapter 5, has two distinct points of differentiation: It relieves back pain by putting the backpack on rollers, and it is sturdy enough for either a child or an adult to sit on. At the time the ZUCA was introduced, these attributes were different enough from anything else on the market that the company got noticed, and its product took off.

Another activity that’s important for a new business is to learn as much as it can about the people in its niche market, from how much disposable income they have to the periodicals they read and the Web sites they visit. This task can be completed by following prescriptions already discussed in this book. Laura Udall, the founder of ZUCA, conducted focus groups to learn about her target market.² She was also a mother, and her original insight for the ZUCA backpack came from watching her own daughter struggle with the backpacks she carried to school every day. Other methods, such as reading industry trade journals and surveying potential clients, are also good ideas.

The steps described here, which should precede your selection of specific tactics and techniques to get your business noticed, are shown in Figure 7.1.

Figure 7.1. Steps involved in initiating the process of getting a business noticed

Consider Diverse Marketing Methods

The second rule-of-thumb pertaining to the challenge of getting a business noticed is to consider diverse marketing methods. The best approaches for learning about the methods that are available are to look through books and magazines on marketing and promotions and take a class from your local Small Business Development Center. Also, study companies that are selling products in the same market you will be targeting to see how they are gaining visibility and how they are marketing their products.

It is advisable to consider as many alternatives as possible before settling on the techniques you’ll use to try to increase visibility. In some cases, the choices will be clear. For example, if you plan to launch a Web site to sell plus-sized clothing for children, the only way to reach your audience might be through pay-per-click Internet advertising (more about this option later). In other instances, the best choice or choices may be unclear, and it could take some guidance to find the best alternative. This scenario played out for Proactiv, the #1 seller of acne products in the United States, mentioned in Chapter 5. At one point early in the life of the company, it was suggested to Dr. Katie Rodan and Dr. Kathy Fields, the company’s founders, that the best way to get the word out about Proactiv was via infomercials. Initially, the two were shocked because they had a low opinion of infomercials. But they got to thinking that an infomercial might be the best way to educate people about their products. Proactiv was revolutionary in that it was designed to prevent rather than simply treat acne. As a result, the product needed more explaining than could be accomplished in a 30-second television spot or a print ad. Acne is also an embarrassing problem, which made it unlikely that people would go into a store and ask for a detailed explanation of how Proactiv should be used. The following bulleted list lays out the points in favor of using infomercials to sell Proactiv.

• People need to be reeducated about how to treat acne.
• The reeducation can’t be done in a 30-second or 60-second television commercial, or in a print ad.
• Acne is an embarrassing problem, so people will be most open to learning about it in the privacy of their homes.
• The demographic group that spends the most time watching infomercials, women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, are Proactiv’s market.
• Infomercials provide Proactiv the opportunity to show heartfelt testimonials of people who have used the product. Showing "before" and "after" pictures of people who have used the product and have experienced dramatic results has been a particularly persuasive tactic.

Proactiv launched its first infomercial in 1994, and the vast majority of its customers have been introduced to its products through this medium. Ironically, Rodan and Fields would have never come up with the idea of using infomercials on their own. It took a suggestion from an outside party to alert the two founders to this possibility.³

An additional piece of advice that’s provided to business owners when they’re looking for ways to stand out is to think creatively and try new tactics and techniques. The rationale behind this advice is that a new business has to find a way to stand out. There are many examples of businesses that have followed this advice and have created original and fun ideas to draw attention to themselves. For example, to generate interest in Cranium, a board game for adults, the founder borrowed a trick learned from the makers of Trivial Pursuit. For $15,000, they recruited 100 radio stations around the country to have their DJs read Cranium questions over the air. The callers who phoned in the correct answers got a copy of the game as a prize (and everyone listening got introduced to the company). A similarly creative technique was utilized by Zach Nelson, the founder of MyCIO.com (now called McAfee ASaP), to get his business noticed:

"One of the great things we did when we first launched MyCIO.com is that we draped our entire eleven-story building on Highway 101 with the MyCIO.com logo. It was the world’s largest billboard. The city of San Jose wasn’t very happy with us for doing it, but they let us keep it up for a month. Everyone that I called after we ran that giant billboard I received a return call back from."⁴

One pleasant surprise that many business owners experience when they start looking at the options for gaining visibility is that many of the alternatives are inexpensive. For example, 400,000 small businesses reportedly have blogs, which are inexpensive to create and maintain.⁵ Similarly, it costs a business owner nothing to speak to a community group or to give an interview to a business magazine. These approaches can be effective ways to get the word out about a new company.

Find Ways to Build Credibility and Support

The third rule-of-thumb pertaining to the challenge of getting your business noticed is to build credibility and support for your company from the beginning. This is most effectively done by finding ways to get others to talk about or validate the merits of your business. While there is nothing inherently wrong with advertising and similar forms of promotion, people know that ads and promotions are paid for, so they discount them to a certain degree. It’s normally much more persuasive when an unbiased third party talks about the merits of your product or service.

There are several ways to garner this type of support. Many businesses cultivate reference accounts. A reference account is an early user of a firm’s product who is willing to give a testimonial regarding his or her experience with the product. To obtain reference accounts, new firms must often offer their products to a group of customers for free or at a reduced price in exchange for their willingness to try the product and for their feedback. There is nothing improper about this process as long as everything is kept aboveboard and the business is not indirectly "paying" someone to offer a positive endorsement. Once the testimonials are collected, they are used in company brochures, advertisements, and by salespeople who are able to tell potential customers about the positive experiences that other customers have had.

There are more formal ways to build credibility and support. Some businesses sell products that can be certified by an agency and can then place the agency’s certification mark on their products. The most familiar certification mark is the UL mark, which certifies that a product meets the safety standards of Underwriters Laboratories. A similar example is the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. There are also industry-specific seals of authenticity or approval. An example is the "100 Percent Napa Valley" certification mark, which can only go on bottles of wine where 100% of the grapes used to produce the wine were grown in the Napa Valley of Northern California. If similar certifications are available for the product or service your business plans to offer, it is well worth your time to try to obtain the certification.

There are also occasions when a business benefits when a core aspect of what it’s doing meets a standard that is viewed favorably by the pubic. An example of this is provided by White Wave, a company that makes soy milk. In 1996, White Wave came up with a new idea for selling soymilk. It would produce a dry soy mixture, ship it to dairies, pay the dairies to add water, package the resulting soymilk in milk-like containers, and distribute the product. Initially, the going was slow. Then the company caught a big break. In October 1999, the FDA announced that soy was considered a heart-healthy substance that could lower cholesterol. This announcement provided the legitimacy White Wave needed to take its soymilk mainstream, which was its goal from the beginning. White Wave Silk Soymilk is now found in the dairy section of almost every grocery store in the United States.⁶

One additional way businesses build credibility and support, which is talked about in more depth later, is by having favorable articles written about them in newspapers, magazines, and trade journals.⁷ It also helps a business to win an award.

For example, in 2007 White Wave’s Silk Soymilk won the American Culinary ChefsBest Award for Best Taste. White Wave can now refer to the award in its advertising and has earned the right to display the ChefsBest seal of approval on its products.⁸

Establishing a Brand

A brand is a set of attributes—positive or negative—that people associate with a business. These attributes can be positive, such as trustworthy, innovative, dependable, or easy to deal with, or they can be negative, such as poor-quality, unreliable, sloppy, or difficult to deal with. In our experience, it’s important that a new business give thought to the brand it plans to develop before it initiates any marketing or promotional activities. The first impression that a business makes with its potential customers should convey the essence of how it wants to be viewed and seen.

New businesses must build a brand from scratch, which starts with selecting the company’s name. One of the keys to effective branding is to create a strong personality for a firm, designed to appeal to its target market. Southwest Airlines, for example, has created a brand that denotes fun. This is a good fit for its target market: people traveling for pleasure rather than business. Similarly, Starbucks has created a brand that denotes an experience framed around warmth and hospitality, encouraging people to linger and buy additional products. A business ultimately wants its customers to strongly identify with it—to see themselves as "Southwest Airlines flyers" or "Starbucks coffee drinkers." People won’t do this, however, unless they see a business as being different from its competitors in ways that create a special and valuable experience for them.

So how does a new business develop a brand? On a philosophical level, a business must have meaning in its customers’ lives. It must create value—something for which customers are willing to pay. Imagine a father shopping for airline tickets so that he can take his two children to see their grandparents for Christmas. If Southwest Airlines can get his family to their destination for $75 per ticket cheaper than its competitors, Southwest has real meaning in the father’s life. Similarly, if a young couple buys a Cranium board game, and playing the game with other couples results in lasting friendships, then Cranium will have a special place in their hearts. Firms that create meaning in their customers’ lives stand for something in terms of benefits, whether it is low prices, fun, fashion, quality, friendliness, improved health, or something else. This means creating a bond between a company and its customers.

On a more practical level, brands are built through the techniques we talked about in the third section of this chapter, which include advertising, public relations, media interviews, and other techniques. A firm’s name, logo, Web site design, and even its letterhead are part of its brand. The most powerful metaphor that can be used to describe a brand is that it’s a promise that a business makes to its customers. Other ways of thinking about the meaning of a brand are included in the following bulleted list.⁹

• A brand is a promise.
• A brand is a guarantee.
• A brand is a pledge.
• A brand is a reputation.
• A brand is an unwritten warrantee.
• A brand is an expectation of performance.
• A brand is a presentation of credentials.
• A brand is a mark of trust and reduced risk.
• A brand is a collection of memories.
• A brand is a handshake between a company and its customers.

The Most Common Tactics and Techniques for Getting a New Business Noticed

There are a number of tactics and techniques available to business owners to get their businesses noticed. Because most businesses are started with limited funds, as many alternatives as possible should be considered. In the majority of cases, a business will use a combination of techniques rather than rely on one or two. Serendipity and luck also play a role. Once the word gets out about a new product, like the ZUCA rolling backpack, the company is often contacted and asked for interviews and similar opportunities. It is normally to a business owner’s advantage to pursue as many of these opportunities as possible, as long as the end-result positively reflects on the business and its brand.

This section discusses the most commonly used techniques for getting a business noticed. The section is divided into four categories: advertising, public relations, Internet-related methods (other than pay-per-click advertising), and word-of-mouth marketing.

Advertising

There are many different ways that businesses advertise. While it’s normally cost-prohibitive for a new business to advertise on television and in major newspapers and magazines, there are other alternatives that are less expensive or free. The two major categories of advertising include print and media advertising and Internet advertising. The following is a discussion of each category with an emphasis on the alternatives most suitable for new businesses.

Print and Media Advertising

Print and media advertising runs the gamut from television ads to posting flyers on grocery store bulletin boards. The type of advertising a firm selects hinges largely on whether it is targeting a national audience, like an e-commerce site that plans to sell hunting and fishing gear, or a local clientele, like a single-store woman’s clothing boutique. There are some advertising-related initiatives that all new businesses should take advantage of. For example, the major Internet search engines, like Google and Yahoo!, have business directories that list local businesses and in some cases even provide a map to show where they are located. You can get your business listed but have to go to the Web sites and sign up. The listings are either free or are subject to a small yearly charge. If you want to see how this works, type "hardware stores in Wichita, Kansas" into the Google search engine and see what happens. The names of the "local businesses" that appear have registered their businesses in the Google business directory.

New businesses that plan to target a local clientele typically avoid television, newspaper, and magazine advertising because of the costs involved. As mentioned earlier, a large ad in the newspaper of a mid-sized city can cost as much as $15,000. Radio advertising is effective for many businesses that have a local station with a listening audience that reflects the demographic they’re trying to reach. Classified ads, either in local newspapers or online, remain effective in many instances. Direct mail, placing an ad in a local business directory, and advertising in publications such as local homeowners’ association newsletters are additional choices. A business’s own signage and visibility can be its most important form of advertising. Some home remodeling businesses, for example, report that their #1 source for getting new business is people who see their trucks parked in neighborhoods and call the phone number displayed on the sides of the trucks.

Television, newspaper, and mainstream magazine advertising is also avoided by businesses that plan to target a national clientele. The challenges these businesses have is how to reach their specific niche market. There are several ways to do this. There are literally thousands of magazines that target narrow niches. In some cases, a magazine might even help finance a company’s initial ads if it thinks the company looks promising and could become a regular advertiser. Another option is to advertise in industry trade journals, if that’s a good fit. A trade journal is a periodical, magazine, or publication that focuses on a specific industry, trade, or type of business. A directory of trade associations (which publish trade journals) is available through Weddle’s at www.weddles.com/associations/index.cfm. Many trade associations also sponsor trade shows and conferences where new businesses can gain visibility and display their products.

Internet Advertising

An increasingly effective way for all new businesses to get noticed and sell their products is via pay-per-click Internet advertising. This type of advertising is provided by the major search engines, such as Google, Yahoo!, and MSN. Google has two pay-per-click programs—AdWords and AdSense. AdWords allows an advertiser to buy keywords on Google’s home page, which triggers text-based ads to the side (and sometimes above) the search results when the keyword is used. So if you type "fishing equipment" into the Google search bar, you will see ads from Bass Pro Shop, Cabela’s, and other companies that have fishing equipment to sell. Many businesses report impressive results utilizing this approach, presumably because they are able to place their ads in front of people who are already searching for information about their products. Google’s other pay-per-click program is called AdSense. It is similar to AdWords, except the advertiser’s ads appear on other Web sites instead of Google’s home page. A full explanation of how AdSense works is provided in Chapter 8.

There are businesses that have relied almost exclusively on pay-per-click advertising to get noticed and to sell their products. These businesses often sell a product that wouldn’t sell in sufficient volume to support a brick-and-mortar store. For example, Oddball Shoe Company (www.oddballshoe.com), an online shoe store, sells a size 16 EEEE athletic shoe for men and similar odd sized shoes. People find out about Oddball Shoe when they search for unusual sized shoes on Google and see the company’s ad alongside their search results. Pay-per-click advertising has also allowed some people to turn their hobbies into businesses. For example, a Web site named SeatGuru (www.seatguru.com) was started by a flying enthusiast and lists the best seats and the worst seats (in terms of comfort) for each airline by type of aircraft. Prior to the advent of the Google AdSense program, the site had no practical way of making money. Now the site is viable as a for-profit business as a result of participating in the Google AdSense program. If you look at the site, you’ll see a number of targeted ads sponsored by the Google AdSense program.

Public Relations

One of the most cost-effective ways for a new business to get noticed and to continually promote its products is through public relations. Public relations refers to efforts to establish and maintain a company’s brand and the image associated with the brand to the public. The major difference between public relations and advertising is that public relations is not paid for—directly. The cost of public relations to a business is the effort it takes to network with journalists and other people to try to interest them in saying or writing good things about a company and its products. Examples of public relations techniques include:

• Press releases
• Media coverage
• Articles about the business in local newspapers, national magazines, or industry press
• Monthly newsletter
• Sponsor free seminars
• Contribute expert "how-to" or advice articles in your local newspaper
• Civic, social, and community involvement

In most cases, public relations is better than advertising because it is more grass roots and isn’t seen as self-serving as advertising. The key to getting good public relations, such as a newspaper or magazine article written about your company, is to create a human-interest story that’s associated with your firm. It also helps to be proactive in regard to speaking out on behalf of your industry and talking to trade groups and civic groups about your industry or area of expertise.

An example of how these efforts come together to create positive public relations and help a business get noticed is provided by Lisa Druxman, the founder of Stroller Strides (www.strollerstrides.com), a franchise organization for new mothers. Stroller Strides is a concept that Druxman developed to get herself back in shape after her first baby was born. It is an organized workout class where women push strollers, power-walk, and exercise outdoors to meet their fitness goals and socialize with other mothers. Prior to starting Stroller Strides, Druxman was the general manager of a health club. Druxman’s story is a classic illustration of how public relations works and the potential payoffs involved:

"When I (was) the general manager at the health club, I would regularly go on the news promoting new workouts. One day the TV station called me and asked, ’Would you mind coming in with your baby and give (some) tips on how to get back in shape?’ So I did, and I promoted my class as if it were this big business—I gave out my home e-mail and personal cell phone number. By the time I got home from the station, I had 75 calls and emails from all over San Diego from people who were interested in taking my class. I had my grand opening class three weeks after that, with 40 people there and more news coverage."¹⁰

The key to Druxman’s success, in this instance, was that she was able to tell her story through an unbiased third party, the TV program. Her story was compelling enough that it drew more free publicity in the form of news coverage of her grand opening. Many startups seek similar types of public relations through stories in local newspapers or business journals or through a national publication like Fortune Small Business or Entrepreneur. The key to getting this type of coverage is to have an interesting story to tell rather than simply extolling the value of your product or service.

There are many other ways in which a new business can enhance its chances of getting recognized by the press. One technique is to prepare a press kit, which is a folder that contains background information about the company and includes a list of its most recent accomplishments. The kit is normally distributed to journalists and is placed on the business’s Web site. In fact, if you’ve ever picked up a national magazine and read an article about a business in a small town and wondered how the magazine knew about the business, it’s typically because the business sent the magazine a press kit and the business’s story (or product or service) fit the article the magazine was interested in writing. Another technique is to attend industry trade shows. Members of the media often attend trade shows to get the latest industry news. For example, the largest trade show for consumer electronics is International CES, which is held in Las Vegas every January. Many new technology firms use this show to present their products to the public for the first time. They do this in part because they have a captive media audience that is eager to find interesting stories to write about.

Internet-Related Methods (Other Than Pay-Per-Click Advertising)

Business owners are increasing utilizing the Internet as a medium for increasing their visibility. Two techniques, other than pay-per-click advertising, are blogging and social networking.

Blogging

As mentioned earlier, approximately 400,000 businesses now maintain blogs. A blog is a Web site where entries are written in chronological order (similar to a diary). A typical blog contains text entries, images, links to other blogs, and space for readers to leave comments in an interactive format.

The idea behind blogs, in regard to helping a business get noticed, is they familiarize people with a business and help build an emotional bond between a business and its customers. An example is a blog written by Mary Baker, the co-owner of Dover Canyon Winery (http://dovercanyon.typepad.com/dover_canyon). Baker started her blog in April, 2006, using a software package called TypePad Pro that costs her $149.50 a year to maintain. She uses the blog to give her readers periodic updates on what’s happening at the winery and how she feels about her life and her business. She also posts pictures of herself, her pets, her family, and daily life at the winery. To make her customers aware of the blog, she drops a postcard with the blog’s address into bags with customer purchases. There is also a link to the blog on Dover Canyon Winery’s Web site. Mail-order sales for the winery almost doubled from 2006 to 2007.¹¹

An example of a business owner who credits his blog for the success of his business is Steve Spangler, the owner of Steve Spangler Science. Spangler’s Web site sells science kits and experiments for children and adults. In his blog, titled Steve Spangler’s Secrets (www.stevespangler.com), he talks about science and describes experiments that can be done safely with common everyday household items. Spangler gained national attention after a video of him demonstrating the explosive effects of dropping Mentos into two liter bottles of soda spread across the Internet. If you haven’t seen the video, it is really fun. Just go to YouTube.com and type in "the original mentos geyser video." The spread of the video and the recognition it has brought him sold Spangler on the value of the Internet for getting the word out about a company. Steve Spangler Science is reportedly generating more than $5 million in annual sales.¹²

Social Networking

Social Networking Web sites are ones that bring together people with common interests to share those interests and interact with one another. Most sites provide a variety of ways for users to interact and get to know one another including chat, messaging, e-mail, video, voice chat, file sharing, and discussion groups. Users are generally permitted to build their own profile pages where they can post information about themselves. Most social networking sites are free and have a directory that makes it easy for a user to zero-in on a specific area of interest.

An example of a social networking site is CraftBuddy.com, a site specifically designed for people who make, enjoy, and sell crafts. On the site, users can easily identify crafters with similar interests, view their profiles to learn more about them, and look at photos of their crafts. As a result, it’s a good place for anyone starting a craft or craft-related business to showcase his or her company and get feedback on products. Social networking sites vary in terms of whether they allow advertising and e-commerce to take place. Some sites do not allow their users to advertise, overtly promote their products, or conduct e-commerce on their sites. Others sites, like CraftBuddy.com, have a business directory where members can post links to their commercial Web sites.

There are also more broad-based social networking sites like MySpace.com and Facebook (www.facebook.com). These sites are multifunctional platforms that allow their users to collect friends, build professional networks, and create or join groups of similarly minded people. MySpace has approximately 200 million users worldwide. While MySpace is technically intended for noncommercial use, many businesses post pictures of their products and subtly advertise on their MySpace profiles. MySpace has a feature called "Bulletin" that allows you to post messages which are broadcast to every person on your friends list. You can also set up a blog. Many people that write about MySpace warn against building a large network of friends and then spamming them with subtle advertisements and product promotions. Starbuck’s MySpace profile is an example of a well-done business profile. You can view it by going to MySpace.com and typing Starbucks in the search engine. Creating a Facebook profile is similar to MySpace and provides many of the same advantages.

The key to determining whether it’s worth your effort to set up a MySpace or Facebook profile is whether you think people in your niche market would find you on the site and participate in your network.

Word-of-Mouth Marketing

The fourth category of techniques that business owners use to get their businesses noticed is word-of-mouth marketing. This technique, which is also called buzz or viral marketing, involves getting people to spread the word about a new product or service via face-to-face conversations, e-mail, text messaging, or through other means. Word-of-mouth marketing is effective in part because people are more inclined to follow-up on a product recommendation from a friend or acquaintance than a paid advertisement.

Most word-of-mouth campaigns are initiated through some form of "seeding" in which key individuals or groups of individuals are utilized to get the initiative going. Seeding typically involves giving away samples of products or allowing people to preview a product before it is available to the general public. It also involves steps that reinforce or encourage the word-of-mouth once it’s started.

An example of a successful word-of-mouth campaign is provided by PowerBar, the first energy bar on the market. PowerBar’s founder, Brian Maxwell, couldn’t afford to advertise his product, so he launched what he referred to as a "grass roots seeding" effort to get the company noticed. The first thing Maxwell did, with the help of his girlfriend (and later wife) Jennifer Biddulph, was to go to every sporting event in the San Francisco area (which is where they lived) and talk to people about the product. Between the two of them, they spoke to over 1,200 people. Once the product was ready, Maxwell sent the people they talked to a little box containing five PowerBars and a follow-up survey. This got people talking about PowerBar and sharing the product with their friends. The next move is legendary. To stimulate word-of-mouth in other areas of the country, Maxwell sent a letter to his existing customers offering to send five PowerBars on their behalf to anyone in the United States for just a $3.00 shipping fee. He even put a note in every box that said "To Brian from Sarah in San Francisco" (or whatever the applicable names were). This effort jump-started word-of-mouth about PowerBar in different parts of the country.

As the word-of-mouth surrounding PowerBar grew, Maxwell turned his focus to "seeding" various sports. He identified influential people in each sport and hired them to be PowerBar spokespersons and gave them a certain number of PowerBars to give away. This effort stimulated word-of-mouth surrounding PowerBar in multiple sports. At one point early in the life of PowerBar, Maxwell was approached by the captain of the U.S. Cycling Team that was preparing to represent the United States in the Tour de France. The person asked Maxwell to donate 1,000 PowerBars to the team. Maxwell hesitated but agreed. On a Saturday, three weeks later, right in the middle of the Tour de France, CBS, which was covering the event, did a three-minute segment on PowerBar, a new "energy bar" the U.S. team was eating. Maxwell couldn’t believe his good fortune. That single broadcast created word-of-mouth discussions about PowerBar in thousands of different places.¹³

While not all word-of-mouth campaigns will contain the same elements as the PowerBar campaign, the gist of what Maxwell did is reflective of successful word-of-mouth campaigns. He "seeded" initial users of his product and then created incentives to encourage them to talk up the product among their friends and acquaintances.

Summary

This chapter illustrates the importance of being familiar with the start-up process. A simple awareness of the most cost-effective ways to getting noticed and how to go about implementing them can save a business owner a substantial amount of money and produce better results in the long run. It’s simply no longer necessary for a new business to rely strictly on print and media advertising to gain visibility. Many of the methods discussed in this chapter, some of which are virtually free, are equally effective in increasing the visibility and legitimacy of a new business.

The next chapter focuses on the myth that the Internet isn’t all it was hyped up to be. Actually, we think you’ll come away from reading the chapter with just the opposite impression—that the Internet is a marvelous tool. In the chapter, we discuss the factors that facilitate Internet business success along with the most common ways that businesses and individuals make money online.

Endnotes

1. Shel Horowitz, Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World (New York: Chelsea Green, 2000).

2. ZUCA home page, http://www.zuca.com (accessed October 15, 2007).

3. Proactiv home page, http://www.proactiv.com (accessed October 15, 2007); K. Rodan, "Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders."

4. M.W. Ragas, Lessons From the eFront (New York: Prima Publishing, 2001), 181.

5. Rachael King, "Make Some Noise," BusinessWeek SmallBiz, August/September 2007, 71.

6. Emanuel Rosen, The Anatomy of Buzz (New York: Doubleday, 2000).

7. Al Ries and Laura Ries, The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR (New York: HarperCollins, 2002).

8. Silk Soymilk home page, http://www.silksoymild.com (accessed October 18, 2007).

9. Source: Adapted from D. Travis, Emotional Branding: How Successful Brands Gain the Irrational Edge (Roseville, CA: Prima Ventures, 2000).

10. Ladies Who Launch, accessed June 27, 2007 (see chap. 1, n. 4).

11. "Tram the Grapes, Write the Blog," BusinessWeek SmallBiz, August/September 2007, 72.

12. Business-Opportunities home page, http://www.husiness-opportunities.biz, (accessed October 15, 2007).

13. J.F. Kelly, The Breakaway Brand (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005); Rosen, The Anatomy of Buzz.