Marketing Donut provides highly practical marketing advice, tools and resources for people running smaller businesses.
Launching into the worst recession in 60 years
The site, the first in a series for UK business owners and managers, launched into the most difficult time for business in over half a century. I was part of the team that conceived the website and I planned and executed its successful launch.
A huge amount of writing, development and investment went into the design and content for Marketing Donut. And, from the outset, it was agreed that launch promotion, and indeed all marketing, would be delivered using content, the social web and online PR techniques. There was no budget for above the line ads or traditional media PR.
Smart guerrilla marketing across multiple networks
With support from the Mark Sinclair at Hubbub, I put together a plan to create an online buzz about the Donut. I targeted different online communities with messages about the ideas behind the site, what it was trying to achieve and I always referred to the quality of advice offered.
The Marketing Donut blog became the fulcrum for ideas and interaction with various interested stakeholders — a place for interested people to come together and chat before the site itself was live. I built a strong community of bloggers to help spread the message about the new site across selected business networks: Twitter, LinkedIn, Ecademy (not defunct) and Facebook.
Strong growth in a competitive market
The site launched in April 2009 with a ready-made audience thanks to six months of social marketing groundwork. Two key audiences — SME managers and marketing professionals — were accessed and successfully developed in the places they preferred to hang out – the forums, business networking sites, on blogs and Twitter.
Update
Marketing Donut and its sister sites are regarded as the UK's leading SME business advice websites.
