Business Cards Go Fishing!Written by Gloria Cohen
The offline effort of business cards should focus on getting your website address out there for everyone to see. How do you broaden your reach by using this simple, but one of most effective marketing tools? (Assuming that you already to have a good stack of business cards with who, what, where, why and most importantly your URL information stated in them.) Most likely, you have handed out numerous cards to people you have met on streets and you’ve hit up various business/retail storefronts with your business cards that sit by cash registers which pretty much go unnoticed. The good news with leaving your cards at checkout counter is that it’s still a viable place to get people to notice your cards if it’s presented in a unique way. What you need is some serious ‘bait’ for potential customers to sink their teeth into. This is where we go ‘fishing’ folks.Business cards are left everywhere, and seriously, left behind. If they are just sitting in a pile, it’s hard to grab attention of person if it’s just dormant, or if there isn’t a ‘catch’ to it. Instead of just leaving business cards at counter, offer various retail places a fishbowl. Yes, I’m talking about those small, clear glass fishbowls. Provide a small sign to encourage other patrons, business owners, corporate employees, and anyone who has business cards, to drop in their cards, conducting a monthly drawing for a free prize. Of course, on sign, you would indicate what prize would be. It can be a free service or product that you currently provide, gift certificates to local restaurants, or even tickets to a Broadway show. You will find that you will get more people to take your business cards because you’ve ‘hooked’ patron in participating in your contest. People just love to do things for free, and if it only takes dropping in a business card to enter a simple contest. Each month, after you conduct your monthly drawing, you would announce winner on your website for others to see, and even put a small article in newsprint about who won monthly drawing. This will get people to keep dropping their cards in those fishbowls, because people are always ‘fishing.’ What a great way to ‘lure’ potential customers. That’s what I call a serious ‘hook’ to new consumers!
| | Viral Marketing with a Powerful TwistWritten by Floyd Tapia
What would you do with 500, 1000 or more additional visitors each day? Imagine how your web business will grow with an extra 2000, 5000 or MORE leads each month . . . Okay, I'll stop teasing you. . . But what IF those extra leads and visitors cost you NOTHING? Let me tell you a story a friend of mine named Paul Galloway shared with me... The Brilliant Webmaster Once upon a time, not too long ago in a nearby web land, there was a business owner looking for a way to increase visitors to his website AND a way to increase his subscribers. (Sound familiar?) He and his webmaster came up with a simple but brilliant idea. They had some software developed to help them implement this viral idea, and then they launched new campaign. In just a couple of months, his website had received tons of visitors (including lots of REPEAT visitors) and almost 49,739 subscribers from this promotion. In fact, by setting it up properly, your per-subscriber cost could be ZERO. Zero cost? What a beautiful end to this story. What was this powerful secret? Surprisingly, this wasn't a "new" concept like all gurus brag about with their brand new, super secret, monumental discoveries. No. Interesting enough, you've almost certainly seen "component parts" of this system in other places. What made this idea so brilliant was to combine two existing traffic devices and add a "twist" -- and this powerful twist is where super viral effect is born. Okay, it's almost redundant to say this but everyone knows that they should try to build a list of customers to be truly successful. But try this... The two "components" are a "tell a friend" program and an online contest. What? Is that all? Well try this on for size. Oh, I'll get to "twist" in a second...
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