Archive for November, 2009

Rubbermaid Builds Marketing Relationships with Professional Organizers

Saturday, November 7th, 2009

While reading the book Twitterville by Shel Israel, I learned about how a Rubbermaid’s e-marketing manager based in North Carolina, Jim Dietzel (@Rubbermaid), began using Twitter to connect with professional organizers.

This was great timing, because I was preparing to speak at the San Francisco Bay Area Regional Conference of the National Association of Professional Organizers on November 7, 2009, and nothing gives me greater pleasure than uncovering a useful resource that my audience might not be aware of. (My topic was Understand Your Market in 10 Easy Steps. http://snipurl.com/qrcyv)

What was great about Shel’s story is that it reinforces one of the key strategies I teach, which is that in order to employ no-cost or low-cost marketing strategies you need to become aware of where your prospective clients hang out, so that you can (ideally) begin to build reciprocal relationships.

That is, in fact, what Jim Dietzel has done. I suggest that you read Chapter 7 in Shel’s book to get the full story. However, very briefly, Jim first began building a list of all of the professional organizers that he came across on Twitter in May 2008. Then, he published that list in his blog, which enabled an informal community to develop.

Without making any kind of sales pitch about Rubbermaid, Jim created immense goodwill within the organizer community by sharing suggestions, asking for input, giving organizers the opportunity to get publicity and visibility, as well as finding ways to offer discounts on smaller quantity purchases, which were usually only available to larger businesses.

Shel even gives an example of the significant impact the publicity has had on the business of one professional organizer from Austin, Texas, named Lorie Marrero (@ClutterDiet).

Shel provides more details in his book about exactly what Jim did on behalf of Rubbermaid. It represents a marketing strategy that Shel calls “lethal generosity,” where the most influential are the most generous versus the loudest. I highly recommend this strategy and I love the title Shel has bestowed on it.

If you are looking for marketing ideas using social media, you will definitely find Twitterville a worthwhile read.