Street Sampling Blog

[wordofmouth]

Word-of-mouth advertising is a highly-valued concept to product and service marketers as it is traditionally the best and flexible promotional strategy. The “common folk” on the planet are more likely to be moved by word-of-mouth than by more formalized selling systems.

Put simply, if you can get folks talking about your service, product or message in a particularly positive way, you can bypass lots of other selling strategies – and their similar expenses.

The reason is very simple…  Read the rest of this entry »

[InnovativeWordofMouth]

Innovative marketing, often called experiential by nature, relates to a combination of methods to entice buyers. It is highly-valued because historically it is the most versatile, effective promotional method.

Innovative by nature, taking your marketing to the streets with brand ambassadors is highly effective. Types of marketing strategies defining word-of-mouth marketing include:

o Viral marketing
o Buzz marketing
o Blog
o Media of the social variety
o Interacting with the man on the street
o The use of brand ambassadors to interface with your potential customers

Experiential marketing means favorable reactions as brand ambassadors meet your client where they live and work. And, of course, your marketing must always maintain that narrow focus of gaining a new customer and getting the sale. Creating buzz nowadays is much more flexible than years gone by.

This take-it-to-the-street approach also works to some degree in cyberspace with places like Digg, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter as solid examples. However, it is important to meet your customer head on – on the sidewalks and busy street corners where they live, work and play.

[guerilla/buzz marketing Cricket Wireless campaign]

Street Sampling Inc. has announced that it is working with Cricket Wireless, one the ten largest wireless companies to launch service in Philadelphia, Atlantic City and Wilmington, DE.

In addition to the traditional media mix of TV, Billboards and radio, Cricket will be doing some unusual activities to create awareness around their new to market service. In preparation for launch week, Street Sampling is fielding a large street team. The brand ambassadors will utilize scratch & win tickets, perform random acts of consumer kindness and strategically place 50 four-color custom umbrellas on food carts within the footprint.

The umbrella idea came about from seeing the numerous food carts placed around the city in fantastic high traffic locations and noticing that most had a place for or were displaying an umbrella. By producing and placing these branded umbrellas, we are able to provide a constant stream of static messaging for our client, says Scott Thurston, President of Street Sampling. It is a win-win; the food cart vendor gets a terrific looking umbrella at no cost and out client gets high visibility on major street corners.

The project took three weeks to complete after production and really counted on the skills of our local manager. Most of these carts are owner-operated so we needed to quickly establish a partnership with each of them.

Total budget for production and placement of the umbrellas was $15,000.

[Experiential Marketing]

Note: This post picks up where the last one left off.

Having an accurately-preconceived notion of what the target will respond like allows the guerrilla marketer to stay a step or two ahead and lead the consumer the desired action – normally making a purchase. The marketer begins and ends the sales process by steering and consistently guiding the prospect to take the action desired. A desire to make an impulse purchase is created within the minds of prospects – that is experiential marketing in a nutshell.

It is important to appeal to as many of the consumer’s senses as possible in a simultaneous fashion. Brand marketers use visual aids, audible aids, memory-stimulating tricks and several other psychologically-tempting strategies to complete each sale. The goal is to make the prospective buyer remember pleasurable events and associate them with the message or product at hand. These customer-unique experiences are then naturally associated with the brand or product being represented and surges in sales are commonly seen. In addition, grass roots word-of-mouth advertising takes off like wildfire and is very difficult to slow. This equals advertising gold.

Time is of the essence in experiential marketing as well. People have become very resistant to traditional advertising approaches. Messages not only have to strike the emotional centers of potential consumers – they have to do so within a few seconds at most. The brand marketer must deliver a blow to the subconscious of the target that instantly compels them to take further notice of the message or product being presented. A rapid and seamless connection with the psyche of the target is essential for success.