Business: launch ideas

Lynne Franks gives some quirky effective ideas for launching your new business.

Simply making your customers smile is, in itself, a 'good cause' - and a wise marketing strategy. Debbie Fields, the energetic founder of Mrs. Fields Cookies, told me that since she was a child she has always believed that her primary role in life is to make people smile. This 'mission' - together with her love of cookies - is what underlies the passion that Debbie brought to the opening of her very first cookie shop when she was only twenty years old. And she still feels that passion to this day.

I launched and promoted Debbie's business twelve years ago, when she came back to the UK. This is one of the most successful aspects of the launch I did for Debbie in London which typifies the sort of creativity SEED entrepreneurs can easily employ.

I sent boxes of hot Mrs. Fields' Cookies to all the early morning radio presenters in the areas where Debbie was opening stores, and saw that they were delivered personally just as the broadcasters were about to go on air or when they were already in the studio.

It worked perfectly, was not expensive, and nearly all of the DJs who received them raved about them on the air during their busy morning radio shows.

Radio is a very under-appreciated medium. Most stations have high audiences, many of them woman, and it's much easier to target your market through radio than it is through television. See if you can persuade your local station to interview you - but don't contact them unless you're sure that your story will work for them. Listen to the show first!

It's far more difficult to publicise your business via TV, although this is obviously an ideal medium for publicity.