Promoting XI Quarterly
In my dreams, XI Quarterly’s impending launch – the first issue will be released next month – is accompanied by trumpets, garlands of roses and a promotional campaign whose impact and expense would make a Condé Nast publication blush.
When I wake up, I head to the internet as usual and do what I can to help promote XI using the low-cost tools of social media: tweeting and tumbling until my fingers fall off. It’s actually been a lot of fun doing it this way, and thanks to a community who have really taken to the idea of a North American soccer quarterly hitting their coffee tables, this grassroots effort raised XI $15,000 on Kickstarter and has helped with a good start to the XI subscription drive.
Yet there’s only so much that can be done through Twitter and Tumblr. We want to get XI’s purpose and identity out there to soccer fans in North America beyond social media’s reach. Thanks to the Kickstarter campaign’s success, we have a small budget, and we don’t want to blow it on Google ads. We’d rather do something fun, such as partner with other soccer organizations looking to grow the game; we want to find creative ways to raise awareness of XI.
That’s where you come in. Sure, we have a few ideas of our own, but we’re guessing you might have better ones. Maybe you know a soccer-friendly organization that could work with us, or maybe you have a wacky plan to deliver complimentary copies of XI clutched by garden gnomes parachuting out of hot air balloons passing over CenturyLink field.
Whatever they are, we want to hear your ideas: reblog with your idea attached, tweet them to @xiquarterly, email them to hello@xiquarterly.com. Any ideas we actually implement will see the person responsible richly rewarded with a quite lovely limited edition XI scarf and a shout-out in issue two of the quarterly.
