The story behind Four Inch Freddies

There are plenty of ways to spread the word about your business, but behind them all lays a solid idea of what you want to achieve and how you want to achieve it.

Whether you're running your first pay per click campaign, or have plans for something bigger, getting that core idea right is crucial.

Let's take a look at why a solid marketing concept matters, using GoDaddy's Four Inch Freddies campaign as an example.

What's the big idea behind Four Inch Freddies?

Hopefully you've already seen our Four Inch Freddies ad featuring former England Cricketer Freddie Flintoff. If you need a refresher, you can watch it below.

So what do you think was the big idea behind the ad?

If you answered: "To show people that GoDaddy offers them a quick and easy way to get their business online," then you're right.

But there's more to it than just that. Although this ad is promoting GoDaddy's website builder, it seeks to engage with customers in a number of ways. Let's explore how it does that.

The story behind Four Inch Freddies

Freddie Flintoff may be primarily known as a former England cricketer, but he has many more strings to his bow; TV personality, boxer and actor to name just a few.

In the advert, another string is added to that bow - professional model maker. Looking for a way to sell his product online, Freddie turns to GoDaddy and creates his own site with Website Builder in under an hour.

Now, Four Inch Freddies may not be a real business, but the ad is still addressing a real problem faced by many people starting out in business, namely: How do I get my business online if I don't have the skills required to build a website?

Because the Four Inch Freddie campaign was backed by a real website (it makes an appearance in the ad) built using GoDaddy's Website Builder, we weren't just telling people they could get their business online quickly and easily using our product, we were showing them.

This message is then reinforced by the scene in which Freddie is on the phone to GoDaddy customer services - showing people that if they do need help, we'll be there to provide it. It's an extra level of reassurance.

All of this is backed up by Freddie's personality, and the good-natured humour he brings to the advert.

He's open and approachable, just like GoDaddy itself.

So the Four Inch Freddies advert doesn't just tell people that it's quick and easy to get online with GoDaddy, it does so in a way that reflects GoDaddy's commitment to customer service and its goal to help small business owners achieve their own targets.

How Four Inch Freddies can help you improve your small business marketing

Now at this stage, you may be saying "but I can't afford a celebrity spokesperson for my marketing campaigns". And although it's true that Freddie was an integral part of this GoDaddy campaign, the truth is that you can create similar campaigns without a big name.

The key to doing so is establishing your brand values. These values should form the foundation of any promotional campaign for your business. They will decide the tone and content of your promotional campaigns.

We've already explored how the Four Inch Freddies campaign was about more than just promoting a product, and your campaigns should do the same.

Exactly how you do this will depend on the kind of business you're running and what you want to achieve.

If you're running a café, you might want to run a social media video campaign showing a day in the life of your establishment.

If you're selling a physical product, you could use video to showcase the difference it has made to the lives of real customers.

If you're in the home improvement sector a slideshow of before and after photos will show how you transform people's living spaces.

Remember - you and your customers are just about the best spokespeople around for your business.

Expanding the impact of your campaigns

Four Inch Freddies was primarily a TV ad campaign. But it wasn't just a TV ad campaign. There was material supporting the TV ad across our social media pages and on our blog.

This reinforced the campaign - for example, someone might have seen the ad, then encountered a blog article or social media post about it, and the GoDaddy's message would have been even more strongly communicated than if they'd just seen the TV spot.

So don't think about something as being "a social media campaign" or a "pay per click campaign". Instead, think about how you can support a campaign across different channels.

You may also want to add a charitable dimension to your campaign.

For example, although Four Inch Freddies wasn't a real business, the figurines on shown in the ad were real, and made available for sale - with the proceeds going towards mental health charity Mind.

Building a charitable aspect into a campaign is a great way to give something back to the community, or a cause that's close to your heart.