We want to go big so we need to dream big and act big. Our primary target market is the affluent and aspiring-affluent demographic of Australia. How do we connect with this audience and inspire a positive word of mouth at the time of launch? The answer is to this question is to connect with a group of influences, get them interested and have them learn and experience TGC for themselves. Our solution needs to work seamlessly to promote such an event, so a test case is paramount.
Test Case:
I am an advocate for usability testing, of recent times I have also been investigating co creation as a feasible strategy for product and service production. As this project is being conducted with a lean startup methodology, an approach that will provide us great value is a feedback event for our primary stakeholders and associated network of professionals and their expert opinions.
A month pre-launch date (hopefully if July), we will send out an email-invitation to a select audience, they will be invited to a party and have to go through the innovative transactional process to attend. A very small fee of $5.00 will get them FREE BOOZE and a great social evening with like minded individuals. From this we can gain valuable feedback and insights on the user experience. It also gives us the opportunity to code improvements for a PR event. You might see where I am going with this……..
Public Relations Event:
So giving ourselves several weeks to improve TGC portal after a detailed usability testing event and post analysis report, we replicate a similar event but to a core audience that will tee-off our message with a “Big Bertha” one wood. This is how I envisage it playing out; We send a really nice physical package that serves as an exclusive invite to a cocktail event (similar to a wedding). I am thinking a small wrapped box that contains the physical example of our online USP, they will also see the logo and event details including the custom URL that is the catalyst for experiencing the transaction process and exploring the website. (Their paid transaction goes to charity)
The target audience is the gift occasions “who’s-who (inc high-end wedding occasion professionals), publishers, relevant journalist, people with money and celebrities. We put on a swanky hour of drinks that includes a feature entertainment session. The whole process from gift-contribution-invite to event, to post event follow up, is a success worth talking about.
Our alliance with our vendors is an integral part of this, they need to be present at the event and be motivated to promote TGC to their own database post launch. I suggest we even have a lucky door prize which is a combination of “gifts” from all of our incumbent vendor relationships, this can be promoted for all parties to benefit from.
This PR strategy ensures we build for perfection, congruently working towards satisfying our network of friends and contacts, getting invaluable feedback at the launch stage of the portal, followed by a public relations event that will get the right demographic talking about TGC.
Budget will obviously be a determining factor on how this is produced but If done wisely, It could be a great strategy.
Dominic Byrne
