Marketing a Local Event for Free!

Last year a pair of local business owners in our community decided they would begin a contest to see who was the best at making a one of America’s favorite foods, a hamburger. This idea began as the brain child of local entrepreneur Selina Meehleib. Selina’s husband is a local butcher who is half owner of a local butcher shop, Mountain State Meats and Catering. Selina runs the business and in particular the catering portion of the business. Having a background of being an expert in the meat industry gave Selina and her husband Ryan the validity in founding this local competiton. But, Selina needed to have other support in starting this and actually pulling it off and her funds were limited.
Selina approached local business owner Jason Roach of Sunfire Hearth Patio & Spa. Not only does Jason’s business specialize in outdoor patio furniture, spa and hot tubs, indoor/outdoor fireplaces, woodstoves, pellet stoves, etc. They also specialize in gas and pellet grills. How do most American’s prefer their burgers? Grilled! When Jason and Selina put their collective ideas together, the Big Bad Burger Contest was born!
Ok, so they had a great idea but again the funds were limited with which they would be able to market their idea of the contest and then there were prizes and press so here is how they pulled it off, all things anyone can use to market their big idea with small funds.
First, both Selina and Jason began talking to everyone about their idea. Selina knows hundreds of local business men and women and she talked up the contest to everyone seeking support in prizes as well as free marketing. Jason likewise knows hundreds of local business men and women and also spoke to many of them looking for support and particiation as contestants. Their goal was to have 50 contestants but they would be content with 20. Early on the local newspaper, The Journal, jumped in with support in print as did a local radio station owned by Prettyman Broadcasting. It wasn’t long before other sponsors and supporters jumped in to make the contest successful.
Finding judges was important because they had to be local yet someone who was experienced. Selina was able to secure West Virginia State Senator John Unger, II as the celebrity judge. This was very helpful as Senator Unger has experience judging in other local food competitions such as the Chili Cook-off and is a Kansas City BBQ judge. With Senator Unger’s participation this created validity for the competition and entrants began to come in quickly.
Selina also employed the knowledge of yours truly to create an online buzz through Twitter, Facebook and various blogs. As word got out and others jumped on this buzz was expanded by Around the Panhandle Magazine, The Buyer’s Guide, Hospice of the Panhandle, Inthepanhandle.com, and others in local media. It wasn’t long before they reached 20 entries in the two categories, beef and alternative burgers.
Jason and Selina were able with a very limited budget to build this event to actually be the largest first year event in Martinsburg, WV. Other than the cost to print full color fliers, and the time involved, they were able to market this event successfully with their own efforts. This coming year when they host the event, social media will be a large part of their marketing effort as well be the concerted efforts of the organizers to speak to as many local business owners, supporters and participants as they can reach personally. Who knows, maybe TV stations from the DC area will come out to feature the event or if they are lucky somone from the Food Network will sit up and take notice and attend as well.