Tight Advertising Budget? $360 Will Buy You Tons of Exposure If Used Right
March 10, 2009 |
Do you remember all the recent buzz surrounding Amazon launching the second version of Kindle, its reading device? Of course when some new device is launched to the market accompanied with buzz like this, it will inevitably get attention from potential consumers and even those of us who don’t plan any expenses on new gadgets in the near future will still be interested enough and some willing to possess the gadget sooner or later fascinated by all the coverage the device gets from traditional media and the blogosphere.
So it is no wonder that some smart marketers will try to use the buzz in order to get extra visibility for another company they work for and will use the new gadget to lure more people into using what they want us to use and into helping them promote whatever it is that they want to have promoted.
Today’s example is internet advertising network Chitika offering one Amazon Kindle in exchange for tons of exposure for its latest initiative on Twitter. A few hours ago I received an email from Chitika informing me of this idea same as all other internet publishers who have accounts on Chitika – no matter if they have actually used the network on their sites or blogs.
The thing is that Chitika is holding SearchAppalooza competition that is intended to discover five best applications in web search technologies and help the people behind such technologies pitch them to executives from Microsoft and Yahoo (obviously in hope for their applications to be acquired by one of the giants). The competition this year will take place at Search Engine Strategies event in New York on the 24th of March.
And when looking for ideas on promoting this competition Chitika offered users a chance to win Amazon Kindle 2 by doing nothing but sending one simple tweet (or a new tweet every day to increase chances to win) with the exact text provided in the email along with the link that will instantly send this message on Twitter on your behalf right from your browser.
Given that it takes virtually nothing to enter the contest to win the gadget (only an account on Twitter and willingness to send updates to your followers without caring about what they get at all), it is no wonder that the competition organized by Chitika will most certainly get plenty of exposure for the company on Twitter and without any disclosure that could demonstrate your followers that you send this not as natural update with you recommending something you have discovered but in order to win something, chances are many followers will click the link and Chitika will get all the exposure it wants.
For now I can see that during the last 6 hours (since I have done the first search for the term they advertise) they got 60 tweets promoting the contest which looks pretty good to me given how natural the updates looked. For a price of $360 that Kindle 2 is sold for this sounds like a totally reasonable price and maybe even a bargain for one very natural-looking update from a Twitter user every few hours for the next few days.
Of course any company considering a similar contest for promotion should remember that any such action will only help them achieve their goals if it is actually possible to reach the audience they want to help distribute the information – so a solid list for delivery of newsletters will certainly help here. But if this first step can be achieved, the users will hopefully help achieve everything else – and you won’t even notice how the small investment of $360 buys you all the exposure you are looking to get. So it looks like even during a recession it is possible to get enough promotion for almost nothing or for a fraction of your regular marketing budget – it just takes a little creativity and understanding of human nature.
