Turning your Business into a Local, National and International Buzz

By Andrew

It was almost two years ago at a cocktail party, when I was surprised to see none other than, Secretary of Commerce, Carlos Gutierrez, walk through the door. Though I am a person that generally rides the “left” side of the street, I have a lot of respect for the guy. Not being shy, I walked up to him and introduced myself. He asked me about my business and if I did any international business. I said yes, that about half our business is international; and that we have representatives headquartered, and selling our products in some 88 countries. He was intrigued because, although a lot of small businesses export, in his experience, they only export to one or two countries because they have a friend or relative living there. His next question was: “How did you get started and how did you get our name out there?”

We started building wind generators in a small garage in 1987 with a few credit cards, a tiny bit of family money and the absence of fear in our hearts. We knew that we had a great idea even though, at the time, the Regan administration had just put the last nail into the renewable energy industry’s coffin.

Without much of a marketing or advertising budget, I thought the best way to get the message out was to first understand what would excite people about our product. Of course, a few of the things that spark interest in people are health, wealth, sex, happiness and yes, sex. I felt being able to produce free electricity with a wind generator would bring people a feeling of health, wealth, happiness and well… the sex part was tough, as our first machine was very ugly. Undaunted by our ugly duckling, I went to the library (the web works well today) and went through every volume of “Standard Rate and Data.” This is a publication that tracks all magazines and what they charge for advertising. I copied down every magazine that might be interested in talking about our product. Many magazines do “editorial mentions” on products. In Popular Science, it is the “What’s New” section. I took a picture of our wind generator with a cheesy camera, made several dozen duplicates, and attempted to write a 75-word description that hit all those emotional triggers.

The results were shocking. In about three to four months, some 20 magazines had written up our product and my mailbox was filled with requests for more information. My success gave me the confidence to tackle the international magazines in the same way, using the country desks at the U.S. Department of Commerce in Washington to identify European publications.

Today, we have an entirely new product – the Skystream – and it is even pretty sexy (as much as a wind generator can be), but we still use similar strategies. Our marketing group supports our dealers and when they install a Skystream in a new area, together with our PR firm, we contact the local media, including all the magazines in the state, and get them out to the site to watch the machine startup. It is almost always the thing to watch on the evening news and generates some buzz in the community. What does it cost? A little bit of time and effort.

How to produce your own buzz:

1) Look at your product, ask friends to do the same. Find the emotional triggers that get people excited.

2) Write up a short piece on your product and be sure not to sound like you are trying sell something. It has to be a newsworthy piece that speaks to the emotion of the reader.

3) Go to SRDS and start searching for magazines in all categories that may have an interest in running your product. SRDS may charge you a fee online but many libraries still offer the books for free.

4) Take a great picture and then begin writing letters. Make each one personal. Contact the magazine first and find out who does “Editorial Mentions.” Write to that person directly. Many people prefer email, so be sure to confirm how they would like to receive the information.

There are countless ideas to get your product or service out into the world. Much of it comes down to how much money you have. Hopefully, my experience, with no marketing or advertising budget will be helpful. If you want to know more, send me a note.

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February 4, 2008 9:08 AM