Grassroots what? — you might wonder.
New buzzword or not, grassroots marketing simply refers to activities which allows your products to meet your customers where they are, where they live and work or pass through – as contrasted with advertising which uses mass media to reach them.
Grassroots advertising techniques are usually unconventional and creative strategies .. not the kind that you will learn in the classrooms or read in business management text books.
Grassroots marketing is what you can do when you are a struggling new businessman operating on a shoestring budget and modest resources but have a vast reservoir of creative ideas to draw from.
Leche flan come-ons
Many small entrepreneurs have found that such unconventional marketing practices work for them.
Norma’s Leche Flan, which used to be located in Rosario, Pasig City might not even heard of the term “grassroots marketing” but its owner was certainly using it with apparently great results.
Along Ortigas Avenue Extension, just before one reached the Rosario bridge coming from Cubao, a passerby or commuter would espy an attractive street sign saying “LECHE FLAN AHEAD” festooned with balloons. This was followed, further down the street, with another sign reading “LECHE FLAN SLOWDOWN” and finally a third sign “LECHE FLAN STOP” just in front of “Norma’s Leche Flan” shop, a small store whose main attraction was a mountain of multi-colored lecheflan tins layered artfully by its facade.
How can any one passing here miss this store? — I wondered then. And that is how I became a suki of Norma’s leche flan which could be bought, if you had a party, buy three take one.
I don’t know what happened to Norma’s Leche Flan. It might have been displaced when the Rosario part of Ortigas Avenue Extension went through a series of road widening. Wherever it has transferred, if it still in business, I am pretty sure it still vibrates with the owner’s creative ideas.
Doughnuts on tricycles
When he was just starting his doughnuts bakeshop, Marvin Mapote of Cauayan, Isabela would go around town in a tricycle dressed in a clown’s costume in order to attract buyers, especially young children. That way, the doughnuts sold better than, well … hotcakes. Soon, Marvin was being invited to grace children’s parties with his tricycle, his clown persona and, of course, his doughnuts. Another spot-on grassroots marketing gimmick!
Cheap mobile billboards
Angelo and Lorelyn Dimaano of Lucena City had a similar experience. At first they had problems promoting their tarpaulin printing business, to the extent Angelo was offering the service for free just so he could penetrate the market.
Then Angelo hit upon an inspired idea. He printed tarpaulins with the name and address of his shop emblazoned on them and distributed these to pedicab drivers plying the streets in the community. The tarpaulins served to protect the cab’s passengers from rain and sunshine. More importantly for Angelo and Lorelyn, the tarpaulins became mobile billboards that made their business known around the vicinity where their target customers live.
Collect calling cards
I personally experienced a grassroots promotion by Tita Paring’s Suman Latik, a native delicacy I am nuts about. I would go often out of my way to go to its outlet in Shoppesville, Greenhills and in one of those trips, the sales lady asked me if I wanted to join a raffle. I answered by way of asking what the prize was. “A dozen suman latik” was the reply. I found that hard to resist and I asked for the raffle coupon. As it turned out, they had no raffle coupons; instead I was asked for my calling card which promptly joined a hundred others in a crystal bowl.
After a week, I got a phone call announcing I won the raffle and would I please collect my prize. From then on, I would get calls whenever they had a promotion or event.
It took me some time to realize it was the management’s way to compile a directory of its customers and get in touch with them. Neat, isn’t it?!
Other grassroots promo that worked
Elsewhere, in California, USA, Joni and Bob Hilton took every opportunity they could to demonstrate the uses of their non-toxic Holy Cow cleaning products. In the aisles of Ace Hardware stores nationwide,and other supermarkets, drugstores and other retail outlets, they had demonstrators cleaning messy tiles, carpets, and rugs. The practice proved to be a good way of showing how effective the product is right in front of consumers’ eyes.
And what about putting your business name, logo and contact numbers on every trinket and piece of cloth you can think of and distributing them like crazy? Liz Ryan of Boulder, Colorado gave out duffel bags with WORLDWIT logo (the name of her company) on them). People who got them carry them around to the gym, the park, the church, and the mall where they would sometimes meet people who stop them and say, what’s WORLDWIT?
Logos can also be stamped on mugs, little boxes of mints, match boxes, notepads, stick-ons.
Your turn
By now, you’d have gotten a drift of what grassroots promotion is all about. Sit down a moment and think, wait for that little bulb to flash: What grassroots technique can you use for your own business?
Photo: “Vinyl Banner Sample Your Logo Here” by Elevate Printing, c/o Flickr. Some Rights Reserved