Make like a graffiti artist and splash yourself all over town! If you have ever paid attention to billboards, sidewalls, old buildings, or depilated houses you may have well seen the artwork of a local artist. The angular lines, bright colors and cut out letters of someone’s name, gang or passion of the moment sprayed across their canvas of choice. These “logos” are not that hard to miss and in fact are made this way so you won’t miss them. The artist wants you to know who he/she is, what they’re passionate about or who they represent. They’ve done what most marketers think about doing but legally can’t. They’ve BRANDED themselves on a large canvas so the world knows who they are, or at least the neighborhood of choice. Although I don’t suggest running out and hiring a graffiti artist to splash your company’s name across the freeway billboards, I will suggest that you start thinking like a graffiti artist and contemplate how and where you can “spray” your name legally and at a relatively low cost. Just to get you started here some suggestions:
- Start in your company’s area. Find out what companies would be willing to display flyers or signage in their storefronts or business offices. Think trade. What can you offer at a relatively low cost or no cost to a business owner to entice them to display your signage or flyers in their place of business? Sometimes, offering to do the same for them is enough.
- Work your neighborhood and ask your employees to do the same. Have them and you, post flyers in residential stores, other small non-competitive businesses and community gathering places, like coffee shops and community centers. Maybe even post your company sign on your lawn. It shows you’re dedicated. Most personnel live within a 25 to 45 minute drive from the office. If they’ll drive in to work with you, it’s possible people in their neighborhoods will drive in for your services as well. If your employees are not comfortable, respect their decision and move on.
- Leave your calling card everywhere. Whether it’s your business card, post card, brochures that never made it to that tradeshow, one sheet, it doesn’t matter, just leave it. Most coffee shops don’t care what you leave behind, just ask permission first. The same goes for small restaurants, nail salons, delis, drycleaners and gas stations. As long as you have your own holders, they won’t mind. Again, think trade. Do the same for them.
- Community bulletin boards. Think libraries, college campuses, high school campuses, HOA newsletters, Condo newsletters. Don’t limit yourselves. If you think of something weird, don’t dismiss it. There’s a 50/50 that it’s already out there and waiting for your business stamp.
- Think non-profit. What non-profits in your area could benefit from your business but don’t necessarily have the money to pay for your services? Whoever they are, start a relationship with them, offer your services, gratis of course, and in exchange they place your logo in their newsletters, brochures, or signage at one or some of their events. It will all depend on the value of your service of course. You’re smart, now go negotiate.
- Be bold. You’re a graffiti artist remember? Instead of your traditional logo, have a designer re-create your logo in a graffiti inspired art form. Too bold for you? Then, have some, not all of your text in a readable graffiti font or other non-traditional font somewhere on your flyer. Or just use bold colors or colored paper.
You’ll notice that I didn’t include anything about online social media. The reasons being that one, we’re thinking like a graffiti artist and two, everyone has a tendency to just focus now on being online rather than continuing to incorporate all types of marketing into their business and marketing plans. Not everyone has time to spend hours on end being online, answering questions, blogging, tweeting, and posting. So, you still need to think along the traditional paths of marketing. Where can your presence be felt other than online that is still relatively cheap? However, if you’re smart, and I know you are, you put your website, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn information on all of your signage and flyers, just in case someone doesn’t want to call but wants to connect online instead :-)
Check back in a day or two for the next lesson: Pimp Your Friends.
