RiotVine rolled in to SXSW a relative unknown, but we did amazingly well thanks to a fun marketing campaign. Here’s how we did it:

1. Make it relevant: I noticed a lot of spray and pray marketing with companies giving away schwag tagged with their logo, not a good spend for a bootstrapped startup. Find something that fits the theme and is useful during SXSW, e.g.: A small street map of downtown Austin, because your phone will not last the day. Include info about your product on the other side.
2. Have a simple hook: Make sure you target folks interested in your product. Again, small startup, not a lot of money to spend, so we used Twitter to reach out to influential people and asked them a very simple question..
3. Give’em something to talk about: You really need something to separate you from the pack. Get crazy, get creative; the best way to get people to talk about you is to give them something to say.

So what did we do? RiotVine is a a social event guide; we help you discover events you’ll love and make it easy to see what your friends are doing. At SXSW, this is something you’d check in the morning before leaving your hotel. And at SXSW, chances are you’re really hungover and would kill for some Advil. So we tweeted to some of our early adopters and a few people in the community to see if they’d like a hangover kit dropped off at their hotel room. Who wouldn’t want one? Relevant to the event, simple hook, and well worth talking about.

It helps that our SXSW guide was awesome, letting you filter parties by which ones had free drinks, free food, and even the ones that didn’t require a SXSW badge. Don’t take our word for it, here’s what Robert Scoble had to say:

Check out some of the tweets about this marketing campaign:

Video of the hangover kit “unboxing” courtesy Jeff Cutler and Mike Langford: http://www.mefeedia.com/watch/29590378

Total marketing spend: South of $100
Reach: Over 1.5 million people
Rocking at SXSW: F’ing priceless.

Huge thanks to Rachel Levy; she was a sport and absolutely indispensable throughout this; hit her up if you’re looking for someone to execute on a marketing plan. Honorable mentions to The Mike Walsh, Tom Monaghan and Jeremy Levine and Aaron of @eatBoston fame.

1. Facebook Connect! Share events and see what your Facebook friends are doing. Click here to connect your Facebook account.
2. Profiles! Get your own URL that you can share with your friends of all the events you’re interested in attending. Here’s mine! Want to see what a friend has planned this week? Look up their profile or..
3. RSS! Subscribe to a feed that shows you the events your friends are interested in. You can add it to iGoogle so you can see what they’re planning.
4. Buzz about it! Add your RiotVine profile to your Google profile and RiotVine will show up under Connected Sites in Google Buzz. You can auto-buzz events, so your Buzz followers can jump in.
5. Mobile! Our beautiful mobile site just launched! Head to http://riotvine.com on your phone to check it out, discover events on the go and see the events your friends are interested in.

And a bonus sixth reason:

6. SXSW! If you’re going or have a friend that’s going, check out http://riotvine.com/sxsw for the easy guide to SXSW. You can easily search lists of parties and showcases, or for bands you want to see to find all the times they’re playing, see all the parties with free drinks, and easily find ones that don’t need a badge or wristband to attend.

This takes 2 minutes and gives you 20 chances to win. Click here for Neon Indian show details on RiotVine.

1. Click the Add to Favorites button, then Sign-Up with your Facebook account.
2. During sign-up, invite the Facebook friends you want to see Neon Indian with.

Each invite you send automatically enters you to win two guest list passes to see Neon Indian with Bodega Girls! Winner is announced tomorrow morning so enter now. Skip the line, walk right in. We’ll even try to sneak you backstage

Even if you don’t win, come by. We’ll have gift bags for RiotVine users courtesy of Rescue waiting at the merch booth, right up until we run out.