What is Grass Roots Marketing?

Grass roots marketing in its simplest definition is to market your company, organization, products or services on a local and on a personal level.  Grass roots marketing is a great way to really reach your customers on the basis as to where they get to know you and you get to know them.

A friend of mine ran a non-profit organization for the youth of the City that he lived in.  It was the grass roots marketing campaign that he lead which helped elevate the organization’s success.  He implemented a combination of direct phone calls, speaking engagements and canvassing.

Direct Phone Calls

This is the method where you directly call your potential customer.  Better known as telemarketing, it really has garnered a negative stigma to it over the years.  The reason being is that multi million dollar telemarketing agencies made it uncomfortable for people to even go near their phones let alone actually answer them.  It got so bad that the federal government created the federal do not call list.  This list is where people can put their names and phone numbers so that telemarketing companies do not hassle those that do not want to be called.  If you are going to implement a direct phone call campaign, make sure you are not calling anyone on that list.  However, when direct phone calls are done properly, they are a great way to get the word out there about your business, products or service.

Speaking Engagements

This method takes some inner talents (maybe you didn’t even know that you had) to get in front of small and large groups to get the word across about whatever it is you are marketing.  My friend who ran the youth organization would organize a meeting with many of the parents of the youth so he could explain what the organization was all about, how the parents could help and so on.  He also encouraged those parents to bring their friends and neighbors to listen in.  It was a great way to get the word out about what he was doing and it was very successful.  He also spoke at schools and other organizations where kids that could join his organization would frequent.  Public speaking may not be your “thing”, but if there is someone in your company that can do it, I would recommend it.

Canvassing

This is the art form of going around your city or neighborhood and either speaking to people directly, placing flyers on their doors and/or cars, putting up posters and so on.  In the case of my friend they would get thousands of flyers printed up and then hand deliver them door to door of every house in the City where his organization resided.  He would get a team of others from the organization and each week they would select specific neighborhoods where the flyers would be delivered.  According to my friend it was a great success.  He would constantly get phone calls of people saying things like, “I just got your flyer on my door and had a question…” 

There are so many ways you can implement a grass roots marketing campaign.  I have given you three methods that do work.  Implementing one or all three will definitely go a long way to increasing your sales, customer base, or memberships.  Maybe you and your staff can come up with your own.  Whatever they are, make sure you are reaching potential customers on a personal level.

About the Author:
Mr. Tucker is a regular contributor on Bukisa, an online community for writers that pays them for their articles.  You can also follow Bruce on Twitter.

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