The East Gosford Experiment

The East Gosford Experiment has begun.

Get ready to change the way you think about advertising and small businesses not only promoting themselves but engaging with their local communities.

What is the East Gosford Experiment?

It’s a social engagement experiment run by The Bowditch Group – another East Gosford small business – to highlight the power of using online and viral marketing to add a new dimension to how you promote your small business within your own community – in this case: East Gosford on the Central Coast of New South Wales, Australia.

Social Engagement is what The Bowditch Group specialises in. And helping small businesses engage better with their community is what really makes us tick. The East Gosford Experiment is the culmination of that kind of thinking.

How does it work?

All small business owners who operate within East Gosford, whether with a shopfront or at home, are eligible to participate. Over the next couple of weeks, I will visit whoever wants to be involved and record a quick, 30 second video commercial – unscripted and informal, to upload to the Experiment’s YouTube page.

The businesses can make the video commercial funny, serious, quirky or just plain odd – whatever they think will be the most engaging and in the long run more attractive to get more customers through their door.

Remember, there will be no fancy lighting, no professional film set up, just a Flip Video Camcorder and 30 seconds of your best sales pitch.

What’s in it for the Small Business?

Basically, it’s free advertising. And potentially advertising on a large scale with more than 5,000 subscribers to The Bowditch Group and affiliated businesses.

My aim is to bring you increased – and importantly new – business through the door that would never have known about your business without you participating in the experiment.

I will be providing participating businesses with posters to put in their shops in order to engage their offline customers to find their video online as well as encouraging them to include an exclusive offer only available to those who have seen their free video commercial on the YouTube page.

The main benefit to businesses will become apparent in a couple of months when I launch a massive viral marketing campaign using the footage I have from the initial video commercial.

Online Marketing Workshops

There will be a series of three online marketing workshops to be held in East Gosford small business premises in July, August and September. These will feature some of the best small business marketing minds presenting exciting topics relevant to how small businesses can market themselves better, both online and offline.

The Bowditch Group will be sponsoring these three workshops and they will be free for any businesses to attend who are participating in The Experiment.

The best part about The Experiment from the small businesses point of view?

It’s absolutely free to participate in. Free advertising space connecting with potentially more than 5,000 people? A

nd that’s just in the first place. YouTube has an audience that is staggering and they will all potentially be exposed to your business as well. Your video will be one of more than 500,000 videos watched on YouTube every day. Can you get that sort of exposure using conventional advertising? No way.

So how do you participate?

It’s easy. Part of the experiment concept is that nothing will be done in the mainstream marketing or advertising world to promote it. Participation will be encourage strictly through word of mouth and online, viral means.

Want to participate?

Leave a comment below. While you’re at it, make your comment the first bit of online promotion for your business. Tell our community what you do, where you are and how to get in contact with you. I will be recording the videos commencing Monday 24th May 2010 and obviously the sooner you get on the site, the more free promotion you and your business will get.

So don’t muck about.

Leave your comment below – and give your business a big plug – and I will be seeing you soon to record your free 30 second video commercial!

Keep up with the experiment on YouTube by clicking here.