Moment in Limelight Can Boost a Small Business
Business owners eager for exposure can only dream of the celebrity attention that Stacey Griffin of New Orleans is getting.
Griffin started a new business in December selling eight-ounce boxes of purified water called Aqua2Go. The product, designed for kids and adults alike, is convenient like a juice box (and even comes with a straw) but contains water instead of a sugary-sweet beverage. With limited resources for marketing, “I started sending emails to everyone and anyone I could think of,” she says.
She also sent letters with samples of her product to about 30 television shows, such as “The Today Show,” “Regis & Kelly” and even “Oprah” “for giggles — the worst thing that can happen is that they’ll never call me,” she says.
A few short weeks later, Griffin was driving down a Louisiana highway when she got a phone call from a friend “screaming from the top of her lungs that Ellen [DeGeneres] was drinking a box and singing and dancing,” she says. (See a video clip from the “Ellen” show here.)
Almost immediately, her email box started to fill up, as viewers of the comedian’s talk show found Griffin’s web site and asked, “Where can I buy it?”
Hundreds of messages came in the first week, as well an order from a big supermarket chain and interest from other grocery stores. “This got me the national attention that I may have gotten, but it would have taken years,” she says.
Now Griffin is planning to sell as many as 2.3 million boxes of water this year, far more than she ever would have expected in her first year of business. And, “I haven’t paid 50 cents yet for advertising,” she says.
How do you get a celeb fan?
- Don’t send pitches and samples willy-nilly
- Ask the producers.
- Consider outside help.
- Give to charity.
- Shoot for the B-list.
Photo by YouTube.
No comments yet.
Leave a Reply