Multiskill, or face the consequences!

Imagine this; I'm getting ready for a big night out, and want a fantastic shirt. I know loads about shirts and want to make sure that it makes me look fantastic. I go to many shops, I browse the internet, and I try on more shirts than I can remember. I settle on a fantastically designed, beautifully fitting number from a top designer, and it looks fab! Oh, I'm a happy bunny. So, the big night comes, with all the glitz and glam I have been dreaming of. The shirt comes out, gets ironed, and is put on. I go out with a big, confident grin, and the night turns out to be a massive spectacular failure. Why?

Because I'm only wearing a shirt. I've forgotten to put anything else on. Oops!

How many people do something similar with their business? There's bound to be one aspect of promotion we're all good at, whether it's PR (that'll be us then), advertising, social media, PPC or networking.  We all tend to focus on what we're good at, and ignore the rest, but we can't forget that there are so many aspects of promotion that compliment each other, and don't work too well when on their own. A bit like my shirt.... I was having a good ol' chat with a friend from a company called 2Digital, who has got to the point of creating a tree diagram to sum up all the aspects of what marketing covers. You'll have to speak to him to see it, but it sums it up well. Let's look at what else you can do.

If you sell a product, what else can it do? Can you use it in a hilarious way, for example? If I were promoting, say, Oreo cookies I would see how many I could stuff into my mouth, or make the biggest cookie ever by scraping the white middle bit off from lots of them into one, then put it on YouTube. It may be funny to watch, but it creates fantastic brand awareness. Another classic example is BlendTec. Rather than make the standard boring infomercial about the different settings and speeds on their blender, they simply took to YouTube and put all manner of things into their blenders, like an iPhone or a can of fizzy drink. Check it out here, it's fantastic, but it creates brand awareness, especially as some of the videos have upwards of 8 million views!

That's one example, granted, but there are lots of ways of making people aware of you without shelling out big bucks on normal advertising. Service businesses can use Facebook or Twitter to hold a "questions hour", for example. Ultimedia holds a regular "One Hour PR Surgery" for anyone with any PR questions, which always proves popular (feel free to ask us, we're @ultimediapr). Just think how many people have legal or accounting questions on the top of their minds?

I could go on all day about new ways to make you look good, but I won't. I can't say what will be good for you, but I will say this. Be different! Be new! Be exciting!

That way, you'll get that warm feeling when someone remembers you, especially if it's someone you've never met before.

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