Musing on marketing while standing in the post office queue
I’ve been having immense fun over the past couple of weeks promoting the launch of the book Earth TM, written by Etienne Kruger. It has been a great opportunity to experiment with using old and new marketing and PR tactics to drum up support for the book, and of course drive sales.
We’ve used Facebook, Twitter, old fashioned press releases, launch parties in gaming stores and such like to raise awareness in a short space of time, and on a tight budget. I’ve even found myself in the SA Post Office on more than one occasion sending books off for review – when last have you bought a postage stamp?
Professionally this has been an interesting lesson for me. Usually I tend towards B2B marketing, this is where most of my experience lies, and frankly if you asked me to market a lipstick or some similar FMCG product you wouldn’t see me for dust. (Hats off to the FMCG guys though, it’s just not my cup of tea). But, the lesson with Earth TM is, first and foremost I need to feel passionate and involved with the subject matter to be successful. This may appear self-evident, but it’s always useful to have a reminder of these things.
In Earth TM’s case, the book is a damn good read, written by an up and coming South African author, and has some interesting and worthwhile things to say, which it says well.
More generally, it’s a reminder to me that skills can be transferred, but passion, enthusiam and energy need to be authentic.
Useful stuff to take into 2009.
Meanwhile, have a look at Etienne Kruger chatting to Zoopy on their brand-spanking new site about some of the themes in the book.
December 10, 2008
Zoopy is a very powerful marketing tool indeed. I don’t think many bloggers or business owners have realized its potential quite yet, but after opening a profile on their site and submitting some content with a link on it there has been a nice spike in traffic to our site.
Advertising on the internet I have always felt is more about spreading your brand through users, blogs and social media.
btw we have placed your blog onto locallist.co.za
thanks for a nice local-only blog
December 10, 2008
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onMusing on marketing while standing in the post office queueHere’s a quick excerptIt has been a great opportunity to experiment with using old and new marketing and PR tactics to drum up support for the book, and of course drive sales. We’ve used Facebook, Twitter, old fashioned press releases, launch parties in … [...]
December 10, 2008
@ locallist thanks for dropping in and the comments. Agreed, used cleverly Zoopy is a great marketing tool, and if your audience is predominantly SA-based, why would you look at using anything else for this type of content?
Thanks for the listing