Wednesday, 5 December 2007
Practicing What You Preach
How does an advertising agency brand and market itself? The answer is, with great difficulty. It's almost like a neurosurgeon operating on herself.
Bush Marketing has experienced slow and steady growth since we opened our doors in Byron Bay in 2001. Like most small businesses word of mouth and contacts have been our bread and butter. We have also taken out the occasional ad in some local publications like Rusty Miller's Holiday Guide and the Echo to attract local business. These small investments in print advertising have yielded reasonable results; however, with our expanded team and new studio location we wanted to try something different and prospect clients further afield.
Direct mail, a tried and true medium, was picked to generate awareness. Here is what we sent out to 7,000 post office boxes in our surrounding major centres including Brisbane.
Our expectations of the response we would get was modest. After all we are in marketing and the last thing we want to do is disappoint, especially ourselves. A month after the DL's were delivered we were beyond disappointment: the only response we got were 3 designers looking for work and a Brisbane Dance Publication wanting us to run our clever ad in their magazine.
Just when we had lost all faith in our profession it happened; in came an email with a detailed creative brief, asking us to quote on a logo redesign and launch for a major not for profit. We quoted, got short listed, did a credentials presentation and landed the job.
The moral of the story. Practice what you preach and above all, be patient.
Bush Marketing has experienced slow and steady growth since we opened our doors in Byron Bay in 2001. Like most small businesses word of mouth and contacts have been our bread and butter. We have also taken out the occasional ad in some local publications like Rusty Miller's Holiday Guide and the Echo to attract local business. These small investments in print advertising have yielded reasonable results; however, with our expanded team and new studio location we wanted to try something different and prospect clients further afield.
Direct mail, a tried and true medium, was picked to generate awareness. Here is what we sent out to 7,000 post office boxes in our surrounding major centres including Brisbane.
Our expectations of the response we would get was modest. After all we are in marketing and the last thing we want to do is disappoint, especially ourselves. A month after the DL's were delivered we were beyond disappointment: the only response we got were 3 designers looking for work and a Brisbane Dance Publication wanting us to run our clever ad in their magazine.
Just when we had lost all faith in our profession it happened; in came an email with a detailed creative brief, asking us to quote on a logo redesign and launch for a major not for profit. We quoted, got short listed, did a credentials presentation and landed the job.The moral of the story. Practice what you preach and above all, be patient.
posted by bbm
