Apply the Power of Creativity to Your Marketing

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01) Card Decks and Value-Paks – These stacks of index cards are mailed to targeted audiences. Each deck can contain anywhere from 50 to 200 cards or so, each with an advertisement or coupon. They may also double as a business reply card on back. Since your ad is mixed in with tons of others, it’s especially important to have a great headline and layout that will stand out from the clutter.

Card decks are inexpensive because all of the advertisers are sharing the cost of the mailing. Similar to card decks, “value-paks” are little booklets with multiple ads. They are mostly used with coupons, rather than business reply cards.

02) Voice Broadcasts – If you have an existing relationship with your customers or prospects, the “Do Not Call” rules may not apply. That sets the stage for a great way to call thousands of your customers simultaneously when they are most likely to be away from home. You simply upload your customers’ phone numbers, record the message you want to leave, and the technology does the rest.

Example: “Hi, this is John Smith. Sorry I missed you, but I wanted to let you know that our firesale is ending tomorrow…”

Voice broadcasts work best when they are part of a sequence.

Example: “Hi, this is John Smith calling, from Smith Publishing. I’m sorry that I missed you, but I wanted to let you know about a valuable letter and free gift we’re sending to your home. You should be getting it in the next day or two. Just look for the bright blue envelope…”

3) Gift Certificates – It’s generally known that people will usually spend more than the gift certificate amount. So if you operate a jewelry store, and you mail your customers a free no-obligation $25 gift certificate, it’s usually a very sound investment. Most restaurant owners already know that people generally don’t dine alone, so by giving your customers a free gift certificate, they’re bound to bring in others who will spend more money on food and drinks. A good variation on this formula is the free birthday dinner. Generally, nobody is going to come in on their birthday and eat their free dinner by themselves. They’re going to bring friends, relatives, you get the idea.

Here’s a great way to use gift certificates to get referrals: Send a letter to your customers with three gift certificates. One they can use for themselves, and the other two they can give away to friends or relatives. They keep your customers happy (and happy customers are more likely to speak highly of you to others) and they compound that fact by letting your customers give the certificates to others, to whom they will sing your praises. It’s like a tell-a-friend script on steroids!

04) Coupons – Like gift certificates, coupons are also a great way to “touch” your customers and bring them back into your store or website.

05) Contests – Contests are a great way to get leads and generate sales. For example, one sandwich chain had a scratch-off contest, but you had to go online to see if you were a winner. Here’s a tip: always include an unadvertised “second place” that everyone who didn’t win will get.

06) Unusual Places for Ads – I should say “unused places.” Wherever a space is zoned for advertising and it’s blank, there’s an opportunity to get your message out. The side of a van. The side of a dumpster. Wherever.

07) Dimensional Mail – Or “lumpy mail,” as it’s known is a great way to get your letter opened! They just can’t resist the lumpy package. After it’s opened, however, your sales letter should do its job. If you have a successful sales letter, adding a dimensional object to it will almost always bump response. Places to get these types of lumpy mail objects are www.impactproducts.net and www.milliondollarsource.com.
Or, you could locate such a successful company yourself, learn their system, and teach it to others in the same manner.

08) Office or Waiting Room Redesign – If you have an office, waiting room, or reception area for your business, get rid of all magazines and replace them with testimonials and success story books, before and after photo albums, and other publications designed to advance the sale. Replace your wall paintings with framed testimonials. Give them an avalanche of proof! Where appropriate for your business, also display your professional certificates.

09) Membership Services – Pre-paid “memberships” have been sold successfully by many businesses, such as cosmetic surgeons, chiropractors, dental services, martial arts schools, photographers, restaurants, you name it. The idea is to offer a bundle of services or products that would cost far more if purchased separately over time than if purchased pre-paid up front.

10) Creative Business Cards – Besides using both sides of your business cards and putting a compelling benefits-oriented message on it, there are many other creative ways to put your business card to work for you. Of course, odd-shaped and “rolodex-styled” cards stick out from the crowd as well. One real estate agent in California hands an extra three bucks and a business card to the toll collector as he crosses the bridge into San Francisco. He tells the toll collector that he wants to pay for the driver behind him, and asks him to give the driver his business card. Nine out of ten times, the driver calls, at least to say thank you. He’s sold several expensive homes that way as a result. A good lead generation device is to offer a free report or other gift on the back of the card. Then just distribute them where your prospects live.

11) Add Extra Amenities – For physical locations, such as a car dealership, consider testing an in-house diner, barber, coffee shop, putting green, wireless internet, video arcade, playrooms for children, book stores, manicurists, climbing walls, mini-museum, ice-cream shop, etc. These can work well especially for those businesses where their customers have to wait. It may sound extravagant, but many businesses, especially those that cater to the affluent, have done this with resounding success. Why do you think McDonalds added playgrounds to most of their restaurants? Why do upscale bookstores have cafés? The list goes on.

12) CD Salesletter – People generally won’t read 90 minutes worth of copy, but they might listen to it. The perceived value is much higher than a traditional salesletter as well. They can listen to it in their cars, on their walkmans (although today everyone has an iPod…why not use a podcast instead?). The point is that you can cram in a lot more information. You can do testimonials in their own voices, have sound effects or music. Anything to help advance the sale.

13) Event Marketing – Ever see those plaza store events, like when a new Harry Potter book is released? All the stores get together and celebrate the launch of the book in different ways. Obviously there’s the bookstore release, but the local video and game rental store gets in the act. So does the family restaurant, ice-cream vendor, and arcade. Even the dry cleaning store can get involved and pump up their business, if they stick to a common theme. And this is all announced ahead of time (with appropriate press releases, etc.) so people coming down know what to expect. “Oh, great, we can get the book for little Sally, I can drop off my suit at the cleaners, my wife can go to the apparel store. What a great time this will be for the whole family!”

14) Video Brochure – The same advantages a CD salesletter (above) has over a print salesletter are even greater with a video brochure. You can film your own infomercial and even if it never airs, you can distribute it on a DVD or videotape. Unlike infomercials, which have some strict guidelines, video brochures can contain practically any format. You can use the “news broadcast” format, which is restricted in infomercials. The best video brochures are those that look like television programs, since that’s what people expect to see when they are watching it. Testimonials can now contain video of the person speaking. Before and after shots are great in this format as well.

15) Rewards Program – Data-based marketing can be as simple as sending a greeting card or other “touch” communications with your customers and prospects. A florist specializing in nationwide delivery of fresh orchids uses data-based marketing quite effectively. If you order a bouquet for a friend’s birthday or anniversary, they note the date and occasion in their computer. Eleven months later, you’ll receive a call from them, reminding you of the occasion and asking you if you’d like to send another bouquet. Restaurants do this all the time with the birthday gift certificates. Other companies take it a step further and know when their customers will need a reorder of their product. They’ll send a coupon or other discount to make another sale (for example, an oil change). Nowadays with all of the “rewards” and “shoppers’ club cards,” supermarkets and chain stores not only capture everything you purchase and when, they can send you coupons and discounts for those products you regularly purchase. Amazon sends you emails about books similar to ones you have purchased when they’re released and during other promotions.

You may want to consider starting your own “rewards” type program or something similar.

16) Word of Mouth / Viral Marketing – The key here is create something that people will want to share. Yes, the “tell a friend” scripts are good online. The gift certificate idea mentioned previously is another. But surely there’s something you can think of to really “wow” them. You want to make them say “Wait until Jane sees this!”

One of the keys to making this work (and any sort of lead generation device) is to know your customer’s lifetime value. In other words, what does your average customer in this market (using the type of lead generation you are doing) bring you in profits over their entire lifetime? Let’s say it’s $25,000. And let’s say your method of gathering leads converts 10% of leads into customers. Do you think it’s wise to spend $100 per lead of that type in your efforts? Seems like a no-brainer to me.

17) Novelty Items – You can put your message on t-shirts, hats, coffee mugs, pens and pencils, mouse pads, you name it. The trick is to have a compelling image or slogan. For example, a logo or business name is boring. But a clever message or picture with a web address will get noticed more and used more. For some ideas, visit www.cafepress.com.

18) Go to the “Edge” – Seth Godin talks about this in his book Free Prize Inside. Basically, the premise is that while your competitors sell to the “middle,” you find ways to sell to the edge. It sets you apart from your competition, but it’s not necessarily your USP. For example, the first release of that book came packaged in a cereal box with the prominent “Free Prize Inside” displayed. Some more examples:

• A massage salon moves their chairs outside in the summer.

• A security guard company offers its guards dressed as Beefeaters, Buckingham Palace guards, paramilitary camo-wearing high-security guards, Matrix-type outfits, or even attractive white-collar uniforms.

• A local pub built their own custom jukebox of twenty-six thousand songs in it by ripping their 1,798 CDs into a computer.

• A restaurant in Manhattan makes the average Joe’s wait, but gives the VIPs an unlisted number to get to the front of the line. Strangely enough, this pleases both groups (the VIPs love to get right in, and the average folk feel special by going to an exclusive restaurant where celebrities dine and the wait is longer due to its popularity).

• Mexico has plenty of all-in-one resorts, but only one caters to overweight people.

• NakedNews.com tells the TV-style news like everyone else, but they, well, wear less.

• The Four Sisters restaurant in Myanmar doesn’t bother with a check. You pay what you think the meal is worth.

• Did you ever notice how supermarkets reward their worst customers? Shoppers with the least amount of items get their own special express lane, but the poor schmuck who’s buying tons of groceries (and worth much more to the store as a customer) has to endure the longest line. What if a grocery store had a special line for their best customers, staffed with extra baggers and other mechanisms to speed the checkout process?

• Only a handful of banks open seven days a week. Do you think there are people who wouldn’t mind having the option to bank on Sundays? And other banks offer free ATM usage.

• Enterprise Rent-A-Car doesn’t focus on airport rentals. But when you need a rental car for a few days while your car is in the shop, they are the first ones you call. Plus, they pick you up!

• In the instant Internet buying world, a lawn care company realized that waiting weeks for a lawn care quote was too long. By using satellite photos and public tax records, they’re able to quote a cost for service before their prospects are even contacted. Now they drive down the street with a stack of Frisbees, each affixed with a sticker containing the property address and price quote, and toss each Frisbee onto the lawn.

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