Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

Hi Gary.
yes i am

I'm curious as to why you're looking for help now, when your client launches on April 3. This gives you less than two days to create your strategy, generate some kind of campaign material, present it, get it reviewed, adjust it, resubmit it, produce it, and get it out in front of your potential audience.

When did this client come to you as its agency of choice?

Well Gary the answers are

1 - The client and one of it's distributors purchased an already operational IT shop,currently branding it and wants to have it operational by April 3rd. which means it would be open for public but the launch and masses promotion can/will take another few days/weeks as currently we are in the planning phase with the client.
2 - Been 2 weeks since the client contacted us for this and we've had multiple meetings so far in which ideas were given to the client but nothing has been materialized. that is why i am here asking this from you all..

Press releases sent out a month ago would have generated regional press visibility. Likewise a Facebook page and a Twitter presence set up a month ago. On both these platforms your role ought to have been to use the influence of other related streams and related content to draw attention to your client's services.

To get walk in customers visit the experience store you need some kind of out of store, on street visibility. You also need local press, radio, and television coverage as editorial. On top of this you need to approach niche-related social media sites in the same city, and give them behinds the scenes access or tours and get them talking about your client and about the client's service offerings.

Activity can be generated through contests, competitions, and prize draws that offer a major pay off.

You align all this with the needs or desires of your audience through social media by making the message about people's needs NOT about the wondrous service or the great new product. You MUST show people how the product solves THEIR problem.

Further to your comment "nothing has been materialized" - if you were opening so soon, why have they not agreed to do anything??? This sounds mighty fishy to me.

As for my post above, send out press releases and set up those social media streams by close of business tomorrow, Monday. Make phone calls to editors of tech magazines and newspapers, and do the same to owners of blogs and related sites in your city to alert them to the opening.

Speak directly to people's self interest. Speak robustly to people's compulsions.

Thank you for the above answers.

ok. here's what has happened so far.

Our first presentation after the meeting had all the major marketing components in it i.e. (social media,ATL both print & electronic, BTL, branding, outdoor) but only social media & on ground activation remained to be worked upon at the end.

In our second meeting which was on last monday, we presented social media again with FB fanpage & advertising and twitter profile and advertising alongwith banner advertising and an activation activity.

Client accepted fanpage to be set up as they currently don't have a page for our country and removed twitter for the time being. Asked us to generate the INTERACTIVITY part in our activity which is the main reason for my question.

See the social media part is already taken care of by the client and they need to know how to generate the footfall in their experience store. (BY AN ACTIVATION ACTIVITY) i need ideas for that.

SO far we have proposed a customer interception activity by the brand ambassadors which was declined and now needs to share ideas of an activity which is more interactive an can generate a more viral impact.

p.s. I am proposing client to do social media based promotions for the first 3 weeks of the campaign and do the on ground activity after the 3rd week to cash in the hype of that. in that case we will have ample time to propose,approve and build the marketing collateral needed for that 5 day activity. your taken on this?

Okay - they have a fanpage. Any 'likes' yet? If so you can see what else they like - and run competitions that leverage these likes. Make sure that one element of the competition includes a visit to their store in person - they have to pick up something for example, a till receipt or just a numbered ticket. This then goes into the competition mix. All you have to make sure is that the competition hits the right spot - hence the other 'likes' the visitors have.