Micro marketing. Connecting the dots.

micro finance recipient, Ghana, Africa

While working on connecting the dots in the  new world order of marketing, we’ve had the opportunity to a apply some real world methods, applications and tactics to an incredibly interesting project.

It started as only a very fuzzy idea with a bunch of amazing images created by award winning photographer, Mark Tuschman. Over the course of 2007-08, Mark made several trips to Ghana, Africa for WomensTrust, to document the effects of microfinance in Pokuase—a small town located approximately one hour from the capitol city of Accra. Mark had previously traveled to Ghana for various photographic assignments and he wanted to see first hand if rising interest and investment in microfinance offered a pathway out of the endless cycle of hardship, hopelessness and despair for women in this part of the world.

Beyond the obvious—Adding value

Mark shared with me his idea of documenting his findings and photo work in a printed book. After listening to Mark and looking over the amazing images he captured, I suggested that he name the book Capital of Hope. I also helped him to edit and select the most relevant images from the large volume he created.

From there, I designed and laid out the book and organized it in a way so that it had a compelling structure for telling his story. I also edited the text and wrote headlines throughout the book. I then suggested that his idea would be more successful if he could turn his photo journalistic effort into a downloadable (on demand), interactive book, eBook. This could be supplemented with a limited number of printed books which could be used sparingly as a leave behind to promote himself and his work with qualified prospects. It would be very effective in gaining additional engagements like Capital of Hope for other non profits and NGOs interested in documenting the effects and results of their valuable efforts.

We then went further and developed a web Blog/site that allowed Mark to create posts about specific aspects or stories within the book, link to other organizations that he has engaged with, and create a community of feedback from visitors to the blog/site. This vehicle could even capture leads via email with others interested in the project or Marks services. The blog/site integrated RSS feeds from related sites, image content from Flicker and related video content from YouTube.

We also developed  a number of other items for this project. They include a video overview which will soon to be integrated into the blog/site and an  HTML email campaign directed to a targeted list of nonprofits and NGOs.

In summary, all strategy, writing/editing, design, art direction, programming, blog posting, media integration, and content aggregation was done cost effectively with very limited resources in a limited amount of time.

Does this example demonstrate a new model of content creation for micro marketing and promotion that aligns with the micro budgets allocated to marketing today?
Send your thoughts or comments. Looking forward to hearing from you.