australian marketing institute · next marketing agency is a marketing agency based in melbourne....

AUSTRALIAN MARKETING

INSTITUTE AWARDS SUBMISSION

MARKETING ON A SHOESTRING CATEGORY

MAY 2014

BUILDING OURBRAND WHILE BUILDING OUR

COMMUNITY

t 03 8060 8544 ⎟ [email protected] ⎟ nextmarketing.com.au

CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 THE ISSUE ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 THE SOLUTION .... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 THE RESULT ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 BUSINESS OUTCOMES ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 APPENDIX 1: FACEBOOK GRAPH SEARCH RESULTS ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 APPENDIX 2: DL FLYER ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 APPENDIX 3: A4 POSTER ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 APPENDIX 4: SOCIAL NETWORKING EVENT ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 APPENDIX 5: WORKSHOP SUGGESTIONS ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 APPENDIX 6: GROUP ENGAGEMENT .. 27


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

t 03 8060 8544 ⎟ [email protected] ⎟ nextmarketing.com.au Page 4

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In 2013, Next Marketing ran a successful digital marketing campaign, which saw them achieving top Google ranking for a number of keywords. Business had improved so much that the team expanded and moved to a larger office space just outside the city centre.

It wasn’t long before the new location started to cause issues. With up to an hour’s travel time each way to meet clients, driving time was eating into the Agency’s billable hours and they realised they needed to find clients in the local area.

With very few formal networking associations in the area it seemed like the only way to target local clients was to go out and pitch directly, which wasn’t the approach Next Marketing wanted to take.

Instead, the agency came up with a creative solution to get their brand in front of local businesses and build their reputation as the marketing experts in the area.

The campaign is still in its early stages having been only launched on 1st April 2014 but it has already provided Next Marketing with a reason to talk to hundreds of local businesses in the target area, as well as at least one potential new client for only $300 in expenditure.

As at 30 May 2014, the group had 487 members.

t 03 8060 8544 ⎟ [email protected] ⎟ nextmarketing.com.au Page 5


THE ISSUE


THE ISSUE

Next Marketing Agency is a marketing agency based in Melbourne. Success with the Agency’s SEO marketing strategy in 2013 meant that the business had expanded significantly and taken on more staff. As a result of this expansion Next Marketing had relocated from a central location to Moonee Ponds in search of a bigger office space.

Moonee Ponds is located around 12km north west of Melbourne in the municipality of Moonee Valley. Although this is still within a reasonable distance of the city, staff noticed that they were spending a substantial amount of their time travelling across town to meet with clients.

Due to Next Marketing ranking highly on Google for localised searches using “Melbourne”, prospective clients were based in all different areas of the city. If clients were across town it could be over an hour’s travelling time each way, which was taking up billable hours and affecting the growth of the business.

The obvious solution to this problem seemed to be to find more local clients who were based within 30 minutes driving distance of Moonee Ponds but due to the lack of any organised business groups or associations in the area this wasn’t as straightforward as it should have been.

Simply going out and flogging their wares to local businesses wasn’t the approach the Agency wanted to take. This would be time consuming, expensive and would be unlikely to yield the results they were looking for. They wanted to find a way to connect with local businesses and get their branding in front of the local community without seeming pushy or self-promotional.

Although the local council is very proactive and supportive of local businesses, the lack of networking organisations makes it difficult for businesses to interact and find clients without resorting to the tactics Next Marketing wanted to avoid.

It was clear that a creative approach was required.

THE SOLUTION

CONNECTING NEXT MARKETINGWITH LOCAL BUSINESS OWNERS


THE SOLUTION

In 2008, Next Marketing proprietor Jo Macdermott worked on a project with Small Business Victoria for their new “I’m a business owner in Victoria” Facebook Group.

Over the next six years, Jo saw that group grow to 5,000 very active members and with that in mind, on 1st April 2014, the Next Marketing team created the Facebook Group “I’m a Business Owner in Moonee Valley”.

http://www.facebook.com/groups/1415541565371108

The objective of this group was to build relationships with local businesses, get Next Marketing’s branding in front of people and build their expertise as the go to people for marketing in the area without directly selling or pushing themselves on prospective clients.

It would also provide a valuable, much needed resource for the local business community to network and promote themselves.

The results speak for themselves.


THE APPROACH

Next Marketing’s approach to building the Facebook group involved a number of different strategies, from directly approaching local businesses on their business Facebook pages to creating promotional materials to distribute in the area.

Each tactic is outlined here.

BRANDING AND DESIGN CONCEPT

Having Next Marketing branding featured prominently in the Facebook group was essential, so the page was designed to align with the general branding of the agency. The font, colour scheme and images used on the page and in all the printed marketing materials were all in line with the Next Marketing branding.

DIRECT SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY

The Next Marketing team used the Facebook graph search feature to locate and contact companies and businesses in their target area (the municipality of Moonee Valley).

This proved to be a challenge as some suburbs have common names (for example Flemington and Kensington - see Appendix 1), so a Google search of businesses in those specific suburbs as well as the mining of the business directory on the Moonee Valley

Council was also necessary to locate as many businesses as possible.

Once Next Marketing had located a local business on Facebook, they would ‘like’ the business page and then post a comment notifying the business about the group and inviting them to join.

All tactics had a high success rate and started to build momentum very quickly, with 200 members in three weeks.

CREATING VISUALS AND FLYERS

Posters and flyers were also created to promote the group. These were designed to fit in with Next Marketing’s branding without being overly promotional, please see Appendix 2 and 3.

Flyers were hand delivered to local businesses in the target areas and Next Marketing staff spent a number of hours visiting local businesses in person to introduced themselves and let people know about the group.

In addition to the hand delivered flyers, around 1000 flyers were distributed via Australia Post into PO boxes in the area, informing business owners of the group and inviting them to join.


FACE TO FACE PROMOTION AND WORD OF MOUTH MARKETING

Next Marketing took the opportunity to promote the group to the local council. Three weeks after starting the group, Next Marketing and the local council representatives met. The council were very supportive and four weeks after the group started, the Agency had the opportunity to promote the group to local businesses and do some brainstorming as part of a workshop held by another marketing consultant at a formal council event (outlined below).

Furthermore, the council expressed interest in working with Next Marketing in a consultancy capacity and offered to promote the group in their newsletter.

LOCAL COUNCIL MARKETING WORKSHOP

Next Marketing were pleased to attend the Moonee Valley Council Workshop ‘Marketing on a limited budget’ on the 30th April at which they had the opportunity to speak to the 60 attendees about the benefits of the Facebook group.

The feedback was positive which provided an opportunity for further engagement with the local audience.

A workshop activity was set up in which the workshop attendees were prompted to come up with suggestions on how to further promote the Facebook group in the

local area. Some 150 suggestions were collected on post-it notes (please see Appendix 5). The ideas ranged from the introduction of a referral system to tangible incentives and a collaborative blog.

TRADERS ASSOCIATIONS AND CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE

Next Marketing also took this opportunity to contact the 11 local traders associations in the Moonee Valley area. The presidents of the associations were very supportive and each was happy to promote the Facebook page in their respective area.

SOCIAL NETWORKING EVENT

A social event was also organised for May 16th at a local bar, please see Appendix 4.

The event, hosted by Next Marketing, provided further opportunities to connect with the local business community and explain how Next Marketing could help them. The positive response from attendees of the event indicates that members were keen to have networking events on a regular basis.


REGULAR NETWORKING BREAKFAST

The most prominent suggestion from the Council workshop was to hold regular networking events.

Therefore Next Marketing decided to host a regular breakfast event. The breakfast will be held at different cafés in the Moonee Valley area, which further supports the local community.

At each event, one member of the group will have the opportunity to present a ten minute showcase of their business, providing an extra incentive for members to attend as well as giving local businesses exposure.

MEDIA EXPOSURE

In addition, Next Marketing proprietor Jo Macdermott was quoted in an interview on realcommercial.com.au – a commercial property website targeting businesses. In the interview (focusing on low cost or free marketing strategies) the group was mentioned and briefly introduced.

As interest and engagement started to build, local influencers started to get involved with the group and word of mouth spread, see Appendix 6.

Through general awareness and referral strategies, the number of people asking to join the page increased and it began to gather momentum.

THE RESULT

ZERO

to500 in 8WEEKS


THE RESULT

The group is still in its relatively early stages, and the approach is a long term strategy rather than a short term tactic.

However, so far the results have been very promising. The page received 150 members in its first week. At six weeks the page had 450 members and at the time of submitting this award application, had 472 members.

The group has been well received by local businesses and a community is starting to build. So far it has given Next Marketing the opportunity to put their brand in front of hundreds of local businesses and in the community without appearing self-promotional or pushy and the feedback has been extremely positive.

BUSINESS OUTCOMES


BUSINESS OUTCOMES

The Facebook group has generated exposure and interest in Next Marketing and has successfully managed to get the Agency in front of businesses in the Moonee Valley area.

There has also been a slight increase in website traffic generated through Facebook referrals since the page was started. In March, social referrals formed roughly 16% of incoming traffic, once the site was launched in April, this rose to around 18% and is continuing to increase.

The campaign has also caught the attention of the local council who have a marketing budget and have indicated that they may be interested in working with Next Marketing in the near future. Jo Macdermott met with Nadine Muscat, a representative of the Moonee Valley traders associations and part of their economic development team, on the 2nd May. The team have a marketing budget to spend and Nadine recommended that Next Marketing help allocate their spend for the new financial year.

The fact that a number of prominent influencers in the community have become aware of Next Marketing makes it likely that the campaign will get the attention of the larger clients that the agency is targeting in the future.

Overall the campaign has been a huge success so far and the marketing outcomes have provided a valuable resource for businesses in the area. The cost was extremely low, the only expense Next Marketing incurred were the printing costs for flyers and posters, totalling around $300.

By positioning themselves as the go-to marketing people in the area, Next Marketing has benefited from increased authority and respect for their marketing expertise.

With plenty of creativity and originality, and very little in the way of costs, Next Marketing have built their own business networking opportunity from the ground up.

“I’m a business owner in Moonee Ponds” is likely to continue to benefit the Next Marketing brand well into the future.

APPENDIX 1: FACEBOOK GRAPH

SEARCH RESULTS


APPENDIX 1: FACEBOOK GRAPH SEARCH RESULTS Below is the Facebook graph search feature, used to locate companies and businesses in the target area.

This proved to be a challenge with certain suburbs, which have common names (for example Kensington as seen below).

APPENDIX 2: DL FLYER


APPENDIX 2: DL FLYER This is the DL Flyer that Next Marketing created to distribute throughout the municipality of Moonee Valley.

These were hand delivered to business owners and delivered to PO boxes in the area. It was designed to align with the branding of Next Marketing.

Front

Back

To join the group:

1. Log into your Facebook* account.

2. In the search bar type in

I’m a Business Owner in Moonee Valley

and select the group.

3. Click Join Group on the right hand side and

wait for our approval.

4. Once approved, feel free to promote your

business and join the general discussion.

*Please note: Facebook does not allow business pages to join the group.

APPENDIX 3: A4 POSTER


APPENDIX 3: A4 POSTER Next Marketing created this A4 poster to display in shop fronts and community notice boards throughout the municipality of Moonee Valley to gain awareness and encourage local business owners to join the group.

APPENDIX 4: SOCIAL NETWORKING EVENT


APPENDIX 4: SOCIAL NETWORKING EVENT To notify members and create awareness for the social networking event that was hosted by Next Marketing, a Facebook event was created and is shown here.

APPENDIX 5: WORKSHOP SUGGESTIONS


APPENDIX 5: WORKSHOP SUGGESTIONS

During the Moonee Valley Council Marketing workshop, participants were asked to come up with suggestions for the Facebook group.

The most prevalent responses included the introduction of a referral system, tangible incentives, a collaborative blog and regular networking functions.

APPENDIX 6: GROUP ENGAGEMENT


APPENDIX 6: GROUP ENGAGEMENT

The group has seen an increasing amount of positive engagement including reviews of other members businesses and referrals for specific local needs.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

NEXT MARKETING JO MACDERMOTT

AFAMI CPM

australian marketing institute · next marketing agency is a marketing agency based in melbourne....

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