Creative Agency Secrets was asked to prove its salt by giving some free consulting to a new organisation, DirtyMan.co.nz Perversely, it is all about keeping men clean!

Avoiding costly product launches

The team is a start-up and was looking to gain profile without too much hard cost.  Our suggestions included:

• Painting up an old caravan to take to events
• Asking supermarkets about promotions based not in-store ($$$) but in the car park
• Setting up google alerts for three phrases aligned to the 3 personae of their ‘ideal customer’ profiles
• Set up a press or media page on the website to host high resolution pack images, past coverage and background information
• Print A5 leaflets on light card single sided and then use the back for several different purposes: a Postcard; letterbox maildrops; product information – just overprint in black when you need them

Prioritising your time and money

We time showing DirtyMan how to prioritise their decisions with regard to which promotions to spend money on and how to pick the ones that would give the best return.  They were considering a radio show sponsorship, leaflet drops to households and joint promotions with other non-competing brands.

For a startup, we think the best promotions are those that

1. Bring a customer face to face with the brand
2. Drive awareness to a new audience based on someone else’s data list

We recommended assessing any joint promotion based on the size and quality of the database of the other company.  And so a sports team sponsorship that has a supporting newsletter (especially an electronic one) and a Facebook fan group is probably worth more than a radio show with no mailing list.

What were the outcomes?

Here’s what Tracey Orange, the owner had to say after the briefing with Creative Agency Secrets:

Yes I did find my meeting with Rebecca useful, we have been busy talking to lots of people over the last week or so and I guess I am taking bits from everyone I speak to, and then formulating our plan from here.

After meeting Rebecca we are going to use some of her suggestions, one was to get out and meet our customers face to face and we now are looking for a cheap promo vehicle brand up and use for onsite promos and events, (if you know of any old land rovers for sale please let Mike know), she also gave me some good things to be talking to organisations we want to align with and not to be just giving stuff away but to leverage product for contacts database names and she also suggested getting hooked up with a clothing brand or similar and then the next day we spoke to someone who is going to see about hooking us up with a menswear clothing brand so fingers crossed.

Would you like access to our ideas?  Think about how to apply these to your own brand.

Get in touch and ask for a FREE 20 minute chat on the phone or Skype.

If you ever come across, or know of, a small brand/packaging focused company, or unit, or team, who would be up for a discussion do let me know. I have a client who wants to bring such a unit into his company.

Small units in the sector are going to find it tough going this year and next as the economy worsens and projects get cancelled or delayed so there may be a mutuality of interest here. Anyway, as I said, probably a long shot but do keep in mind in your travels round the industry.  

And so here's the challenge.  Can we, using social media tools, find the perfect team for him?

Firstly - get in touch if you are a team who want a conversation about being acquired 

Secondly - spread the word.  Tweet, Jaiku, blog, email and ole fashioned phone.  Let's use the network to find the perfect team for this job. If you can keep track of the chain of connections, that'll help me illustrate the power of the network later on.

P.S. any replies are strictly confidential.  I reserve the right to write a future blog post about how this progresses but you can remain anonymous if you choose.