By Deborah Wroe
I have just come back from 10 days in Tuscany, bear with me, this is not an ‘I had a lovely holiday’ blog, although I did, long sunny days, cheap wine, fabulous house and pool, and great company :-) One of the things our guidebook told us to do was go to a local festa (party), which we would find by looking out for posters on walls around the villages. Whilst negotiating the narrow streets, hairpin bends and slightly mad Italian drivers, we duly kept our eyes peeled for posters. We spotted one near us, running for 3 nights, starting at 7pm – that was all we could manage to understand with a combined lack of sufficient Italian.
So on the night we decided to go, we headed to the village, saw a sign pointing to a turn off with a yellow arrow. We followed this road and a few more arrow signs up into the mountains for about 20 minutes until bunting showed us we had arrived at the right place. How easy was that? There was no Facebook event, no Twitter promo, no website, we hadn't had a flyer through the door, nor seen an ad in the local paper and there was no word of mouth – that we could understand anyway. And the event was packed. Now admittedly this was very rural Tuscany, and not remotely touristy. It was an event for locals. My point is that their marketing was fit for purpose and it worked.
There are many channels you can use to market your event, product or service. But just because you can, does not mean that you should. Multi-channel marketing works but you need to do your research. Find out, from the experts, what will work for you. It might be that traditional advertising works best for you, and is what your competition does, but it could also be that being more savvy, cutting edge and creative you can get a better return on investment and greater results. It is unlikely that you will get away with just a poster, some arrows and a bit of bunting. But a simple and low cost approach, well researched, planned and executed could work for you.
I have just come back from 10 days in Tuscany, bear with me, this is not an ‘I had a lovely holiday’ blog, although I did, long sunny days, cheap wine, fabulous house and pool, and great company :-) One of the things our guidebook told us to do was go to a local festa (party), which we would find by looking out for posters on walls around the villages. Whilst negotiating the narrow streets, hairpin bends and slightly mad Italian drivers, we duly kept our eyes peeled for posters. We spotted one near us, running for 3 nights, starting at 7pm – that was all we could manage to understand with a combined lack of sufficient Italian.
So on the night we decided to go, we headed to the village, saw a sign pointing to a turn off with a yellow arrow. We followed this road and a few more arrow signs up into the mountains for about 20 minutes until bunting showed us we had arrived at the right place. How easy was that? There was no Facebook event, no Twitter promo, no website, we hadn't had a flyer through the door, nor seen an ad in the local paper and there was no word of mouth – that we could understand anyway. And the event was packed. Now admittedly this was very rural Tuscany, and not remotely touristy. It was an event for locals. My point is that their marketing was fit for purpose and it worked.
There are many channels you can use to market your event, product or service. But just because you can, does not mean that you should. Multi-channel marketing works but you need to do your research. Find out, from the experts, what will work for you. It might be that traditional advertising works best for you, and is what your competition does, but it could also be that being more savvy, cutting edge and creative you can get a better return on investment and greater results. It is unlikely that you will get away with just a poster, some arrows and a bit of bunting. But a simple and low cost approach, well researched, planned and executed could work for you.
RSS Feed