Why Experimental Marketing May Be For You

For startup business owners who are long on passion and short on cash, taking a chance on experimental marketing can offer the biggest customer finding bang for their buck.

What is experimental marketing? "Things may be experimental if you've never done them," says Alina Wheeler, a marketing consultant and author of marketing primer Brand Atlas: Branding Intelligence Made Visible. So by that definition, anything from hosting giveaways to using daily deal sites like Groupon or LivingSocial count, she says. But keep in mind that to find customers, originality also plays a role.

"An entrepreneur would be wise to identify an environment that's not cluttered -- where there can be a singular focus on your brand," says Wheeler. "At the end of the day everyone is dealing with scarce resources, so the best thing to do is be experimental."

Mike Freestone, the founder of Good Life Granola, agrees. Although the Holland, Mich., granola maker managed to attract a few local customers just after launching the company in October of 2009, that was the extent of his product distribution. Naturally, Freestone who also owns promotional marketing company, Freestone Design, wanted more. 

Through Facebook and Twitter, Freestone learned about Jason Sadler of IWearYourShirt.com who wears company-branded T-shirts for a living. For a fee that now varies between $5 and $1,825 each day, or $5,000 for a month-long sponsorship, Sadler and four other T-shirt wearers will not only wear branded T-shirts, they'll stream three hours of live footage of them interacting with products over Ustream. The IWearYourShirt team will also produce five one to four minute YouTube videos, post pictures to Flickr and Facebook and send out constant updates over Twitter.

To Launch Your Business, Embrace Risk-Taking

By learning what makes veteran entrepreneurs adept risk-takers, aspiring starters-up can get closer to taking the leap

To evaluate the merits of their startup dream and strategize about its future, aspiring entrepreneurs can sweat out business plans and huddle with experts. To prepare for the emotional roller coaster of venturing out on their own, though, there's little to do in advance. They must launch and learn on the fly. For those struggling to decide when to launch, insight from seasoned risk-takers and researchers who study them could speed the decision-making process.

For Andrew Ullman and Hayward Majors, co-founders of New York's CollegeSolved.com, an online expert network for college admissions, taking the leap did not come easily. After hatching their idea in 2008, they kept their day jobs in corporate law and finance, conducting research and seeking industry input in their spare time. By February 2009, they had a well-researched business plan but lacked the confidence to pursue the venture full-time. "Despite having an opportunity in hand and some financial stability, it took the validation of creating a beta version of the website and raising capital from outsiders to get us comfortable with the [lifestyle] change," says Ullman.