You’re in marketing for one reason: Grow. Grow your company, reputation, customers, impact, profits. Grow yourself. This is a community that will help. It will stretch your mind, connect you to fascinating people, and provide some fun along the way. I am so glad you’re here. -Mark Schaefer
At long last, I bring to you my valued {grow} folks, a true B2B social media success story that can really be measured by MONEY. I believe this is the only one in the world. ; ) And it is GENIUS!
Best of all, the success comes from one of our very own {grow}-er’s, Nathan Dube aka @DubiousMonk, a frequent comment contributor.
Nathan works in the marketing department of Expert Laser Services of Southbridge, MA. The company is a managed print services provider and provides printer/copier sales, service and supplies. Nathan’s challenge was to increase awareness for his company through social media initiatives.
His idea was to let people release their technology angst by finding the most creative ways to destroy their printer — on video. The “Destroy Your Printer Video Contest” was promoted through the company’s blog, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. The oddball humor of the contest gave it a great buzz and more — web traffic more than doubled and the company gained more than 100 new inbound links. Recycler magazine did an Internet TV special about the contest as well as an article which was the most-read topics on the site for several weeks.
The submissions can be found here and they are hilarious. The winning entry involves a backhoe (but I think the dynamite should have won: “We’re approaching the target!”).
Momentum for the contest picked up as people fell in love with the crazy ways people destroyed their printers. One fan was an employee of nearby Telesian Technologies, who called up Expert Laser Services and asked them to be their new service provider.
That’s right. New business. Money in the bank from a social media victory.
Nathan said getting a new customer was just icing on the cake. “The focus of the contest was not ‘let’s get customers’,” he said. ” The focus was to drive more traffic to the website, build inbound links, and create good content. The fact that we landed a new service and repair customer was not our goal, but it happened.”
And to make a happy ending even happier, the winner of the contest, Cottage Revolution of Wales, MA, donated their winning toner cartridges to Catholic Charities.
