As the official marketing firm of the 2008 Melbourne Writers Festival, Siren Marketing helped the festival increase box office sales by 40% to $580,000 and increase audience numbers by 17% to more than 45,000 people.

"Victorians and tourists alike lapped up the 10 days of extraordinary programming that offered 300 authors presenting more than 250 events," Siren Marketing's Leanne Cutler said.

She said that the festival's move to Federation Square, re-branding and a brilliant world-class program made the festival a dream to market.

"Despite working with a relatively small marketing budget, tickets sales for the 23rd Melbourne Writers Festival 'took off' like never before," Leanne said. "But we have to be very savvy to achieve these results, working, often at a grass-roots level."

Leanne said that marketing events by leading writers like Germaine Greer, Augusten Burroughs, David Sedaris, Salman Rushdie, Orlando Figes, David Malouf, Michelle de Kretser, Don Watson and Nam Le was the easiest part of the project as audiences snapped up these tickets quickly.

"The harder work started in promoting newer writers and those covering highly specialised topics that required tailored niche marketing.

"Due to our limited budget, low-cost viral marketing and cross-promotions were essential to attract audiences to much of the program.

"Naturally, the advertising campaign and program published in The Age were essential to this year's success, however the community links and relationships built as a result of viral marketing were equally important in attracting audiences.

"Another new marketing facet of the festival was its new multimedia environment at Federation Square and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.

"Big screens and cinema screens gave us the opportunity to promote the Melbourne Writers Festival using the moving image for the first time.

"Fortunately, RMIT University's School of Applied Communication saw great opportunity in creating a 30 second large screen advertisement for this high profile event, generously producing the ad for the festival," Leanne said.