Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with promotion and marketing

How to be young again?

colgate — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:19:09 -0800

As an 18-year old male I received a free razor from Gillette. Internet digging tells me Gillette uses an outside source to determine men's birthdays, but no one actually knows. There are tons of blog comments, all of which can be summarized as either "Maybe it's Selective Service" or "Yeah, I got one too, X years ago!" How do I get myself back on the list of 18-year olds for the next razor shipment?

Now that I have my red nose, how do I get paid to wear it?!

iliketolaughalot — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:25:52 -0800

After a year and a half of teaching myself to do balloon art, I bit the bullet and went to clown school! It was a ton of fun, and I am now officially a clown! The problem is that now I have to book some gigs! I have a website, a Twitter account, aFacebook page, and business cards on the way. Still, I don't really know how to market myself effectively. It's a competitive market (NYC) so I'm wondering what I can do to get the word out! I've posted on Craigslist, but I'm competing with big companies that have hordes of clowns and other entertainers. While I'm new to clowning, I have been working with kids forever and have tons of experience in that. I've also been a pre-clown for some time, working at birthday parties of friends' kids, which I can use on my resume.

While I have applied for some jobs with existing companies, they pay really poorly compared to what I could make on y own. Of course, in order to make that money on my own, I'd have to get some jobs.

I joined the NY Clown Alley to try to network, but it hasn't gotten me very far.

Help me clown around! Will provide silly jokes in response to your suggestions of course!

Software Marketing Ideas

jasondigitized — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 05:43:02 -0800

I have created a website and software that I would like to promote and market. What are some creative ways to drive more traffic to my website and get people to buy my software? How does one go about getting write-ups in industry trade mags, ezines, and blogs? I am interested in learning more about ethical SEO, PR Campaigns, Affiliates, Guerilla Marketing, etc. If you created a piece of software, how would you get the word out?

How to promote companies product with zero dollars online?

UMDirector — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 11:14:35 -0800

Having trouble getting promotional traction for new webservice, despite being an avid blog reader, possibly because of split audiences. Any suggestions? So we have a new site that combines AI with actual advice from experts to help people make decisions, especially on product purchases. I am having a very difficult problem driving much traffic as we have almost no promotional budget. I think this may be related to having to promote two websites.

1) Our corporate website is for business clients and partners. We would love for them to use our tech on their website to promote their product or create a new advertising platform for themselves.

2) Our actual guides such as our HDTV Buying Guide for actual end users.

The problem is it seems if we promote one it is at the expense of the other especially with our no budget advertising. You can get to the guides via the home page, but it is not as easy as posting just the guide link. My guess is this could also hurt our SEO.

Problem number 2 is that I can't seem to get any traction. Our product is truly far better than a normal filter as it helps people find what they actually need, not just what they think they want. As someone told me," Most other websites would be as if you went to the doctor as told him what medication you want whereas your guides are like going to the doctor telling him your symptoms and he, as a professional, telling you what to take". So we offer people a good thing. We also offer businesses a good thing as a new advertising platform for a portal or increased sales and brand interaction for manufacturers or online retailers. Yet I can't get any traction.

Most people I email simply ignore me. I am trying not to be that annoying Press Release PR guy and actually contact these people as a human but they ignore me. Even blogs I read religiously like Gizmodo, don't seem to be doing much. Sometimes they email me back but when I send more info I tend to not hear back. I would love to contact TechCrunch and the like but now worry I may waste my one shot.

We do have a sales guy, but he is only dealing with larger companies while I am trying to drive traffic to the website and guides themselves.

So questions:

1) What else should I try? We have a twitter feed and a facebook page.

2) Can anyone suggest any other blogs I should target? Less obvious ones than TechCrunch, Gizmodo, Engadget, etc?

3) What are your thoughts on the balance of human conversation versus a press release or story pitch?

4) Any other recommended resources?

Thanks!

Help me promote my baby!

mhp — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 15:42:53 -0800

We have a great opportunity to promote our fledgling video production company with a booth at a large concert. But we're not sure exactly what to do with it. We don't have much footage to show at this point, but we have a short film written, and a full length in development. We were trying to think of ideas in order to promote it.

The main problem we have is that we'll actually not really be able to hang around the booth, because we will have our hands full with actually filming the concert. We are filming a documentary documenting the project, from execution to promotion, so anything we do will have to speak on it's own.

We have a short spoken word audio piece that we were considering leaving looping with headphones on, with a little bit of info on it for people to read, along with a link to the website.

Some other ideas we were considering include:
Setting up a photobooth, complete with email capabilities, and an option to set up to subscribe to our newsletter. Our concern at this point is mainly getting awareness out there, so the fact that it doesn't directly relate to video is not such a huge problem.

Another option would be something along the lines of You Move You Interact, an interactive video piece developed using Processing. Basically, just a little something to catch people's eye, and get our name into their head.

But most of our ideas we really cannot execute properly because we won't be able to be physically present. So that, in essence, is my question: How can we best promote ourselves without being physically present in a memorable and relevant way?

Any ideas would be very much appreciated, but keep in mind we're trying to keep it relatively low budget, say $250 max

Thank you very much

In search of marketing case studies: Traditional vs. New Media

wmeredith — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:04:22 -0800

I'm trying to locate a couple of case studies that speak to old school traditional marketing versus the benefits of new media and integrated marketing campaigns ... especially online marketing. Googling has left me wanting, does anyone know of any such case studies available online?

Biz travel: little time, big splash?

diastematic — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:00:13 -0800

How should we make the most of our business trip? Two partners and I are visiting NY next week for a client meeting. (We're normally in London and US West Coast.) We may have a spare couple of days, and I'd like to make those as productive as possible from a networking perspective. Suggestions? (More inside.) We already have a healthy dose of dinners, lunches, etc. scheduled with our contacts, but we may still have some gaps in our calendar. Should we...host a cocktail hour at a bar and see who drops in? Invite distant contacts to a salon-style group dinner?

We're also quite visible online for our small industry and have a healthy email list for friends, clients, associates. We can put this to work for us in making any announcements for whatever events we can whip up.

Ideas appreciated. Thanks!

Help me find great science, environment, and food blogs (please!)

soulbarn — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 11:18:52 -0800

I have a book (non-fiction) coming out that combines environmental history with science and food culture. (The book is about bananas; I don't know if I'm allowed to post a link to my Web site, so I'll refrain.) I've been reading about "blog book tours," where authors work with bloggers to provide interviews, excerpts. or just about anything else relevant to a specific blog's audience. So...I'm asking for people's favorite science (specifically natural science), environmental, and food (food culture and eclectic stuff) blogs. Thanks.

What blogs/online magazines can I contact to promote a firm that specializes in modern residential architecture?

serial_consign — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 07:47:53 -0800

I'm compiling a list of architecture sites/blogs/magazines to promote the architecture firm I'm working for. The firm does idiosyncratic, residential work that is a modern take on generic residential vernacular (their houses look a bit like Atelier Bow-Wow's residential design). What publications and blogs should I get in touch with? I'm looking for sites like Daily Dose of Architecture, but not also more accessible less design-cognoscenti sites as well.. so any "progressive housing & interior
type resources. Any suggestions and links would be appreciated.

How I do I turn my audience into loyal fans?

barmaljova — Sun, 20 May 2007 01:46:05 -0800

How I do I turn my audience into loyal fans? We have several concerts coming up, and though we've got a handle on promoting shows (getting people to come out), our questions are: (1) how do we get them to run home and tell their friends to go to our next show? (2) and how do we learn more about people who come? Looking for personal experiences from concert-goers and tips from musicians and other industries - Here's where I'm coming from: many times we play shows to packed enthusiastic crowds. We do all the typical things to get and retain the contact with those people - we have them sign a mailing list and buy our CDs. But I always wonder what more I could be doing - I always wonder how these people who did come out hear about us, what made them check it out, and what would make them help spread the word.

I realize that some of the answer lies in the quality of the show, the energy, intensity, and integrity of the artist. That's the obvious part of the answer, but I know there is more - people are just too busy and too caught up in their own lives, and it is something beyond the sheer quality that makes them go an extra mile. Very often, even if I'm blown away by a performer, I just don't make the time to look up the artist's next show, and it's rare that I forward friends event listings or CD recommendations.

So I am looking for ideas from any industry (not just music), and your personal experiences.
---How do we make everyone who comes to our show make that extra step to help us spread our music - buy a CD, tell their friends to buy a CD, call up their radio station, host a house concert, etc etc etc?
--Ideas for stuff to hand out/sell at shows (beyond t-shirts :) , other ways to engage the audience
--In your experience, what are some ways an indie artist has encouraged you to help them spread the word?
--On the other hand, what turns you off when artist attempt to self-promote?

Looking forward to hearing about your experiences!

Affordable B2B Promotional Concepts for software company?

UMDirector — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 13:33:07 -0800

Where can I find B2B concepts/ideas/thought/inspiration for low/no budget promotional, marketing activities for a software company? We are trying to do some promotion for a software company and have basically no budget. There seem to be a lot of places on the web for B2C promotion, but can't seem to find much for B2B. We certainly can't afford to place ads in trade magazines or anything like that. Most B2B searches pull up links to service companies that will do that word for you...which is not what we are looking for.

How do I cheaply promote a compilation CD?

cortex — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 07:05:26 -0800

How can I promote a small CD release on the extremely cheap? For those playing along at home, yes, I'm talking about meficomp.

Initial disclaimer: I know nothing, nothing, about promotion. It is not my forte. It is possibly my antiforte, even.

This CD isn't a for-profit release, which puts me in a different boat than if I were trying to, say, self-release my own album. Profits from the project are going to charity, so I'm disinclined to cut deeply into that by spending any significant money on promotion. At the same time, selling all 1000 units, less a bit of promotional spending, will raise more money for the charity than selling 200 units and sitting on the rest.

Selling all the units would also be much more exciting for the two dozen musicians/bands involved.

And it's a compilation album—the notable feature is not a specific genre or or sound, but the excellent variety of sounds and artists and the specific compilation hook (in this case, the Metafilterness).

So: what sort of things can I do to promote this release on the cheap? To whom? How? When? Educate me.

I need new ideas and different angles to website promotion.

rinkjustice — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 06:44:29 -0800

I need new ideas and different angles to website promotion, and since I don't have two nickles to rub together, it's gotta be free. Help me Obi-Wan-Kenobi, you're my only hope! Maybe I'm still in the dark ages. Maybe I'm still stuck inside Web 1.0 when Web 2.0 is just outside my (browser) window, but I think my methods of website promotion are pretty old world. Done the search engine/directory/meta tag thing, done the reciprocal link thing, done the lame alt.website.announce thing and I have sizable and relevant content. Is there any free, effective and ethical ways of promoting a website online? Or maybe good discussion forums to discuss innovative marketing and promtion techniques?

How do I get my mitts on good, local, legal email lists?

By The Grace of God — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 13:19:49 -0800

I'm trying to market cool events happening at my (reputable) workplace to families with young children, and some other cool events to young professionals. We have a lovely and responsibly kept email list here of our own constituents, but we want to expand into new territory to promote events. This is a sort of a marketing experiment. We've discovered that our email marketing has a better response rate than our dead tree marketing, plus it gives us better information (clickthru and open rates, etc.) so we'd like to try marketing this brand new thing to some brand new people in the area. Are there reputable, localized list buyers or traders out there whose opt-in lists really are opt-in? Should I stick with trading lists with other reputable businesses? For list trading is there any particular procedure or method that is best?

How do I get a hypothetical product in front of an actual audience of pro and amateur video editors?

coudal — Tue, 23 Mar 2004 07:38:47 -0800

If I wanted to get a hypothetical product, created by a hypothetical design studio, in front of a non-hypothetical audience of professional and amateur video editors, how would you suggest I reach them? I have found a short-list of forums and how-to sites but feel I must be missing some other resources and/or online communities. Thnx.