Unexpected Marketing Opportunity
If you are like me you have a certain number of hobbies (unrelated to the mortgage business even) that make life more enjoyable. Pursuing hobbies is not only enjoyable because of the hobby itself but also because of the people you meet who share the same interest.
A few months ago I volunteered to help out with a local film festival, movies being a hobby of mine, and promptly met some amazing people. What I wasn’t expecting was a great opportunity to both support the festival and do some fantastic marketing at the same time.
As it turned out, the festival was looking for sponsors from local businesses (mostly film related businesses at that) to pay for some of the expenses, provide locations for viewings, and provide food for parties. Sponsors could donate cash, goods, or services and received exposure at three levels depending on the cash equivalent of the donation, with the minimum being $100.
The exposure for the sponsors was fantastic with things like logos in press releases, logos and links on the film festival’s website (excellent link value from a very respected site), logo screen time before viewings, and even the ability to provide an insert in the festival program.
What’s more, the festival organizers had developed a demographic profile of the historical and expected attendees to help sponsors better formulate their ads. 400-500 people were expected to attend, not including participants.
So what started out as merely an opportunity to get geeky in a particular hobby soon became a great opportunity to do a little marketing as well. (And there’s nothing wrong with that, right?!?)
The point of this story is that there are opportunities to expand your business all over the place - sometimes you just need to open your eyes and your mind to see them.