Watch the new video from Abbey Telecom.
Here are a few pointers on how a dose of low budget marketing results in success for small business. One B2B telecoms supplier has used inventiveness to punch through the endless telesales noise generated by competitors.
Guerrilla marketing is an advertising strategy in which economic means are used to generate customer interest. It often rotates around creating “buzz” and discussion about the technique. Traditionally this meant getting the press featuring the likes of publicity stunts. Since the advent of the internet it is now more commonly associated with creating something for viral discussion across social media.
Tony Raynor of Abbey Telecom says, “Nobody wants to hear, we sell telephone systems repeatedly. My formula is to stop selling and start communicating with your audience. We try to give things away of high value to businesspeople that cost us frumpence!”
Previous campaigns have included the 20 phone etiquette training clips already featured on TheMarketingblog. Another example was when they placed adverts on sheep got on TV exposure. The media are hungry for content and so they love stories with a difference.
The secret is to think outside of the box and be original. The embedded clip highlights that although video is cheap to make it has great impact, even if it isn’t centric on telephone systems.
Abbey Telecom
Logic House, Ordnance Street
Blackburn, Lancs
BB1 3AETel: 01254 272000
Fax: 01254 272001
Email: sales@abbeytelecom.co.uk
I have to admit that I never would have considered putting an advertisement on sheep. With all the focus on getting attention through social media, I think many people may have forgotten how important it is to get out and do some things in the real world.
The question I’ve always wondered is where the line is between an effective and original stunt and something that people just see as a lame gimmick? I imagine that some of these stunts have fizzled out on the comapny, but I imagine that isn’t a huge problem so long as they can keep coming up with new ones.
We have to run a tight ship to remain competitive. We have calculated that telesales would push our prices up whereas remaining in people’s minds is affordable with low budget PR. It’s been tough in telecoms sales since the end of 2008 yet we’ve still managed to grow over that period. We’ve found that none of these marketing activities works in isolation but when we back it up with a good dose of visibility customers do approach us. We prefer to respond to these inbound enquiries but it does limit our growth compared to direct marketing.