Lil’Grams Launches Local Marketing Effort All Startups Can Learn From

One of the topics I’ve often written and spoken about is the need to get away from thinking that one blog post is going to make you rich and make your startup successful. The ability to reach your actual target customer is the key to success. Tonight I’d like to share a campaign from a NYC/SF startup that I think we can all learn something from about reaching the target consumer and, in addition, going offline to get traction online.

We wrote about Lil’Grams last month when they moved out of private beta and launched their business model. When I spoke with Lil’Grams co-founder Gregarious (Greg) Narain, he mentioned that they were looking at a cross-country launch tour. Greg mentioned that he and his partner signed up for the JetBlue “All You Can Jet” pass which allows for as many flights as you can handle during the month of September.

The tour has launched and is named, “Baby on Board“. They are visiting 13 cities in September including Buffalo, Boulder, Austin, Vancouver, Seattle and Chicago. From the Baby on Board release, “Lil’Grams will offer at every tour stop exclusive discounts, product giveaways, and even opportunities for parents’ “lil’ ones” to be featured on lilgrams.com.”

I like the Baby On Board concept because it’s super cheap campaign to run (due to the JetBlue tickets), gives Lil’Grams a chance to get some local press and uses a hands-on approach to meet people who can help spread the product in those same local markets.

Effective marketing seems to be one of the areas that startups struggle with the most.

Here’s an example of one of their “Gramversations” where they ask local people for stories about their kids: