Twitter Pre-Launch Marketing

As some of you that follow me on Twitter might already know, we have been amping up for a heavy billboard marketing campaign for our indoor tanning salon business Extreme Tan and Smoothies, Inc.

Extreme Tan and Smoothies is the leading provider of indoor tanning, spray tanning, and mobile spray tanning services in the Tampa bay area serving all of Pinellas County and parts of Hillsborough County. Over the last year we have seen a tremendous amount of growth within our company with the addition of three new locations over the last 11 months, we have also expanded our spray tanning services to include mobile airbrush tanning, to say that we have been busy would be an understatement.

Shayna, Kristen, Nicole and Megan

Growth can be pretty exciting for moral and any company to go through, it can also include some excellent benefits for existing customers as well as potential customers. Growth can also create a tremendous amount of stress on any company and the associates of that company, we noticed this over the last year more than anything and constantly work to educate and grow our staff in order to reduce stress levels.

Over the course of the last 5 1/2 years we constantly used the same face in all advertising and logo work for the company, we have done a tremendous job of branding that models face over the last 5 years, you can see her in the header here. With the levels of growth that we have seen within our company I wanted to make a change and move away from the same face that we spent so much time branding, I wanted to show the real true faces of Extreme Tan and Smoothies and show our customers that we are not some large corporation that doesn’t care about customer service.

I contacted Mike over at Clear Channel Outdoor to set up what would become the next generation of billboards for Extreme Tan and Smoothies, not only will the new billboards put a face to the company it will also allow for us to congratulate and appreciate our staff in a much bigger way.

The reason I decided to title this post “Twitter Pre-Launch Marketing” was in order to point out an additional way to use Twitter as a marketing tool for your business, all while welcoming your customers and fans a chance to see behind the scenes or see something they normally wouldn’t get to see. I originally tested out this Pre-Launch Marketing when I used Uber Twitter and my Blackberry phone to tweet pictures from behind the scenes of our first billboard photo shoot. The article views as well as the individual views for each of the tweeted pictures was excellent, I was so happy with the results that I decided to do it again for our new billboard campaign.

I scheduled in three of the most recently promoted associates as well as one girl that is coming up on her two year anniversary with Extreme Tan and Smoothies, I decided to tweet the pictures from the billboard shoot as well as a group picture from the billboard shoot and of course I constantly mentioned what the pictures were for. I don’t have any real exciting name for the new billboard campaign, I guess something like the “ETAS Real Faces” campaign would probably be the easiest thing I could come up with.

Behind the Scenes of the Real Faces Billboard Shoot

As you can see by some of the views (upper left hand corner of each link below), getting the word out about the new billboard campaign before the billboard campaign was released was extremely easy and instant, thanks to Twitter.

• Kristen
• Shayna
• Nicole
• Megan

I will have the proofs for the new Real Faces billboards posted here in the next couple of days, this will give you a perfect example of what exactly I was trying to Pre-Launch Marketing with Twitter. I plan on doing more Pre-Launch Marketing with Twitter in the near future, I still receive tweets @extremejohn all the time asking me when the next billboard shoot will be or when I am going to post the pictures from the new billboards. Pre-Launch Marketing, when done right can be an excellent addition to your business, and it also gives you the power to “leak” a special or an idea before it’s scheduled release date.

Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts on Pre-Launch Marketing with Twitter, is it something you have tried in the past or is it something that simply does not apply to you? If your into the type of stuff I post here take a quick second and subscribe to my rss feed. See you in a couple of days with the proofs from the new billboard campaign.

Tagged as: Business, clear channel outdoor, Customer service, Marketing, Social network, Tampa Bay Area, Twitter