Riding the viral wave: Marketing tactics for some small businesses

CHICAGO (Reuters.com) -- Sarah Endline is a self-described "rioter " but the 36-year-old entrepreneur doesn't advocate violence or radical political change.

Instead, her New York-based chocolate company has built a reputation around efforts for fair trade, sustainability and ethical business practices. It was only natural, then, that the company's marketing efforts would take a nontraditional route, centering around the so-called "sweet riots" that play off the company's name and social mission.

These good-natured uprisings often take place on the street outside a store that carries sweetriot products, such as Whole Foods, or at events like Park City, Utah's Sundance Film Festival or Chicago's Green Festival, where like-minded activists are a captive audience. Company representatives bear placards with peaceful messages and hand out samples of the organic dark chocolate covered cacao nibs.

"It's very natural for us to start to act like rioters," says Endline, a Harvard MBA who founded sweetriot, Inc. in 2005. "Because it's a sweet riot, people usually smile. It's really like a counter riot."

Endline's company is typical of many small businesses getting their message out effectively by avoiding the marketing middle man required with traditional print and television advertising. During a recessionary economy, guerrilla-marketing tactics are taking on even more appeal, particularly for start-ups with limited marketing dollars.

According to a report late last year from Stamford, Connecticut-based market research firm PQ Media, spending on so-called word-of-mouth marketing rose nearly 36 percent in 2006 to $981 million; it was expected to top $1 billion last year. The shift to Internet media, where use of consumer-generated content sites such as YouTube and MySpace has exploded, as well as increased consumer skepticism over advertising claims, are driving the trend, experts say.

"The idea behind word of mouth marketing is that we live in an age where people are so besieged by messages that how a marketer breaks through the clutter becomes a major concern," says Peter Waldheim, interim chief executive of the Chicago-based Word of Mouth Marketing Association. "Word of mouth is as powerful today as it was in biblical times."

Taking it to the streets

Word-of-mouth promotions can take many forms. They range from street events, such as Endline's 'riots', to strategic placement of a products in a movie or television show, to direct outreach to key influencers in a particular constituency, such as Internet bloggers or association heads. The goal is to generate product testimonials from real users who will pass their knowledge along to other consumers.

Small companies seem particularly adept at these efforts, given their thin management ranks and limited bureaucracy. Once they make a decision to move, they are nimble at carrying out grass roots campaigns.

"We want to talk to women, particularly women who are managing their weight," says Lara Jackle, CEO of San Francisco-based LightFull Foods, whose healthy, 90-calorie Satiety Smoothies are rich in protein and fiber to help create a feeling of fullness. "We really try to think of how do we find these people and share LightFull with them. It's such a high response audience."

In part, the company reaches new consumers with events featuring product samples and coupon give-aways in places such as the fitness chain Curves or at meetings of the dieters' support group Weight Watchers. LightFull Foods has also had success by placing product in the hands of bloggers like Hungry Girl and Girls-Gotta-Shop.

For Enjoy Life Foods, which makes allergy-friendly snacks and breakfast foods, word-of-mouth tactics were almost the only way to appeal to a group of consumers that naturally band together and rely heavily on recommendations from others who have faced the difficulties of coping with a restricted diet.

"We have a target audience that's very specific," says Nancy Curby, director of marketing for the Chicago-based company. "Those are very discreet audiences that are not easily reached by traditional marketing."

Among its tactics, Enjoy Life has an extensive outreach campaign to influential bloggers as well as more than 750 support groups, including associations for people with food allergies, celiac disease and autism.

Whoopi boost

Sometimes companies don't intentionally set out to create a word-of-mouth buzz but skillfully exploit the opportunity when it arises. That was the case with Colorado Springs-based StickySheets Unlimited, which makes an adhesive product to remove animal hair from upholstery.

The company, which had invested in late-night television advertising, learned that actress and comedian Whoopi Goldberg had been talking up the product on a radio program. The owners knew that Goldberg was soon to become a host on ABC's daytime women's television talk show, The View, and they sent promptly sent her a note of congratulations that also thanked her for promoting their product.

Soon after StickySheets was contacted by the show's producer, who asked for a large shipment because Goldberg wanted to demo the product on the air.

"She had a chair onstage covered with fur," recalls company President Wen Boley. "We got $20,000 worth of orders that day, $100,000 that week. It was 45 seconds of somebody of (Goldberg's) caliber talking about your product and saying how much she liked it."

Deborah Cohen covers small business for Reuters.com. She can be reached at smallbusinessbigissues@yahoo.com.