The great thing about owning a small business is that we can all learn from each other.

 In this interiew with Rebecca Derrington, founder of SourceBottle she shares her experiences with her new business, including marketing lessons learnt.

Hi Rebecca, first tell us about yourself and SourceBottle?

Up until 12 years ago, I was a lawyer, but quickly realised I was more passionate about public relations and marketing. So, I started over – completing a business degree and working up to senior-level marketing, public relations and corporate communication roles in the services sector. I started my own public relations firm nearly four years ago (after the birth of my first child), and SourceBottle just four months ago.

SourceBottle is a free subscription service that emails ‘call outs’ for sources from journalists and bloggers to anyone subscribed to the service. Subscribers can choose to receive all of the call outs or limit the call outs to those dealing with select topics. Once an alert is emailed, anyone subscribed to the service with the sought-after expertise can respond directly to the journalist or blogger posting the call out. All parties benefit using the service – journalists and bloggers can ‘mine’ an extensive talent pool for sources, and sources can get highly sought-after publicity. 

 Why did you establish SourceBottle, what was the opportunity that you identified?

I’ve been working in PR and Marketing for a long time and I’d heard of ‘leads’ services offered overseas. But I knew most were only available to paid subscribers. I didn’t know if anyone in Australia offered a ‘leads’ service as a stand-alone business, particularly not one that was free for both journalists and subscribers. This was integral to my business model since I believed then, and now, that by offering this service at no cost, subscribers would be richer in diversity, expertise and size (making them far more attractive to journalists and bloggers).

So I took the plunge and built the website and hoped ‘they would come’. And thankfully they did. Now, four months on, I’m even more convinced this is the right business model for a resource like this – for businesses and journalists alike.

How do you build and strengthen your relationships with the journalists, bloggers and the small businesses etc?

I’m a prolific user of Twitter. It’s by far my social media tool of choice. And more than any other tool I’ve used, Twitter’s helped me build brand awareness and strengthen relationships with all of my stakeholders.

 What marketing activities online and offline have proven to be the most successful SourceBottle?

SourceBottle had a few challenges when I first started out. They were:

1. Educating people about the service, since many found the concept hard  grasp.
2. The diversity of my three distinctive target audiences – journalists/bloggers, businesses and public relations professionals.
3. A very small budget (after investing in the website’s development) for marketing and promotion.

 So I sent out press releases to every media outlet possible using a media distribution service and started tweeting the call outs on Twitter, with a link back to the website.

 Since your launch can you share the 2 or 3 key marketing lessons that you have learnt that could help other small businesses? 

1. If you provide a service – make it the best. Do whatever it takes to make a client’s/customer’s experience with you the best it can be. Most importantly, make it easy to do business with you.
2. Take advantage of your size and how quickly that enables you to make modifications and improvements. If your business model or approach needs adjusting, do it quickly and let your clients/customers know about the improvement.
3. Use social media – it’s a wonderful free tool that can help you communicate directly with your target audience/s (this includes listening).

Rebecca is an experienced public relations and marketing strategist, as well as a qualified drama coach and workplace trainer. She is also the founder of SourceBottle, a free subscription service that emails ‘call outs’ for sources from journalists and bloggers. You can also follow Rebecca on Twitter @SourceBottle.

Next Steps: Please share your thoughts and leave a comment below. You can easily get future posts delivered by email or via a reader and if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me