Old School Marketing?

About a year ago, I blogged about my "old school" marketing technique of promoting events through signs in bathroom stalls. In light of a recent conversation, I thought it was time to revisit this idea of old school marketing techniques that work with another post. This time, it's about an old school technique that, truth be told, I did not first undertake with marketing in mind.

Last year, the Johns Hopkins Montgomery County Campus marked its 20th anniversary with a big event that traversed two buildings. Our theme for the event was "Connect the Dots," so in keeping with that theme, I created a series of large dots with facts about the campus that I stuck to the sidewalks leading between the two buildings. Our own version of the yellow brick road. The intention was to remove the dots after the event. But a funny thing happened...

People loved them! I know because they took the time to tell me and my colleagues just that. Plus, I could look out my window and watch people walking from dot to dot reading the facts. So we left that batch down for 6-7 months.

Once they were gone, people started asking when we were going to put new ones down.Why not, right? So I created a second batch with new facts about the campus, the companies located on our campus, the JHU schools located here, etc. And once again watched people stop to read them and comment on how great they were.

But perhaps the best testament to their popularity? One of the dots is now on Flickr! (And no, it wasn't me who posted the picture. It was a visitor to the campus.)

Just another reason we need to make sure that, as marketing and PR professionals, we're using all of the tools in our toolbox and not just focusing on social media.

-- Robin