Monday, March 31, 2008

Marketing 101 – Internal Cross Promotion

Today’s lesson is a simple one. If you are promoting something offline, you should promote it online and vice versa. Makes sense, right? What about something that you build online, would you or should you promote it offline?

I read a great article today from Debra Mastaler about Starbucks, you know the McDonald’s of coffee, and their new Social Site, MyStarBucksIdea. In the article, Debra says she went to Starbucks and the minimum wage, tip hawking workers had never heard of the site. There were no signs, banners or excitement. What a shame. :(

Didn’t this thing cost money to make?
What about that online PR campaign?

photo courtesy of baslow

I don’t know about you but Starbucks is pretty well know for marketing products in their stores (Starbucks Records anyone?). Why wouldn’t they use their humongous in-store customer base to get attention and users on their site?

What about you? Did you make a great product and fail to take advantage of your strengths in marketing?

Do you have a CD and forget to sell it at your live shows? Oh, you must have forgotten them, right? Or if you have them at your shows, are you selling them online where you just told 300 people to go to find out more about you and your music?

Do you have a website that could use traffic from a print publication, or vice verse?

Do you have an opportunity to become an industry leader instead of just another face? Are you promoting that on every site you have a profile on?

What about widgets and applications? Are you using your homepage to promote them? I remember when Career Builder launched its Facebook application. Great concept and cool app, but no mention the application on the Career Builder website. It was buried in the CBCampus section with a bland press release. No wonder it didn’t work or gain the users. There is no reason than it couldn’t succeed and monetize if they put the same effort in building the application as to how and where to put it.

Why spend time developing something if you aren’t going to share it with everyone that you possibly can? More eyeballs = more money. Simple, I know. That’s why it’s so important to know where your potential and current clients / fans are.

What do you think? Where have you seen other companies go right or wrong in the marketing of new products? Join the convo folks!

Greg Rollett

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