helloMoni

Marketing

Tuesday, September 30 2008

I enjoyed taking Marketing courses in college. In fact, I enjoyed it so much, that I earned one of my MBAs from Goldey-Beacom College in Marketing. Then why, when it comes to marketing my own business, do I feel so completely clueless? I had business cards made up early on and hand them out when it feels appropriate but I’m not a business card pusher – I don’t want to come across as a used car salesman. I’ve explored advertising options but they are SO EXPENSIVE. Early in the summer, I explored advertising with The Knot, which is one of the most popular wedding websites. It runs over $100 a month. Are you kidding me? That’s just crazy. The one advertising option that seems like somewhat of a reasonable idea is Google AdWords. You only pay when people click your ad and you can specify that your ads only appear to people searching in a particular state, city, or region which sounds like a really cool idea to me. You can set a daily budget as well which sounds like an even cooler idea to me. So, I’m seriously thinking of giving it a try.

Last night, while eating dinner at Chili’s with Peter (they had a promo going last night where they’d donate your entire tab to the St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital to help fight childhood cancer), we started talking about my Family Portrait Month Promotion. How was I going to get the word out that I was helping Operation Smile? Who could I tell about my promotion? I’m in this kind of awkward situation where I know like a ton of people and have a ton of e-mail addresses because I’m a full time teacher, but it’s not appropriate to send a blast e-mail out to all of them. I’ll tell a couple of them and hand out a few select cards, but I can’t go stuffing mail boxes.

I had 25-5x7 cards and 150-4x6 cards printed up advertising my promotion. But what to do with the cards? I have a couple of friends I’ll be mailing copies out to tomorrow, but then I’ll still have about 170 left. Peter suggested I put together small bundles like tear off packets and put them up on local community boards. I love this idea because it’s free! I’m going to put some up at our local Acme as well as the Borders and Barnes and Noble bookstores. I think our local libraries have community boards too so I’m going to check the Newark Library out, probably Thursday. I’d love to be able to approach local boutiques, but I’m really at a loss as to what to say. I know I should be able to just walk in, introduce myself, explain that I’m donating 100% of my family portrait session fees during the month of October to Operation Smile and could I please leave some promo cards by their register – but that sounds a lot easier in my head than actually approaching someone to say it.

Do you remember that Seinfeld episode when Frank was advised to say “Serenity now!” every time his blood pressure was in danger of going up? I feel like I should be saying “Confidence now!” and charging ahead into local boutiques. Maybe I’ll give it a try.