Best of CrooksView Creative DigestMichael Crooks (897)    Michael Crooks    Crooks Advertising Alliance Goody Bag Marketing: The "Secret" TacticPosted Saturday, May 17, 2008 (113 days 3 hours ago.) Viewed 173 times. The "Secret" tactic goes back to the foundation of my promotional marketing methodology: "More important than the item you donate is the idea behind what you imprint on the donated item." When you employ the "Secret" tactic you promise the recipient of your item that they will become privy to a given number of secrets. This is a great way to drive traffic to a website or a retail location. I'll use Stan from Stan's Plumbing as an example. Like many small business owners, Stan was wasting money donating cheap do-dads to the goody bag of every golf outing in town. He thought he was doing a great job because he took great care to ensure that the items were imprinted with his name, slogan and phone #. Stan's Plumbing Water Where You Want It, When you Want It. 555-555-5555 And it worked out real well … for the guy who sold stuff to Stan. But it wasn't working out at all for Stan. Stan learned that simply slapping his contact info on a cheap item is not effective promotion. Thankfully, however, he also learned that with a little thought, he could do better. A lot better. Let's employ the "Secret" tactic for Stan. "10 Plumbing
Secrets Every Homeowner Should Know." www.StansPlumbing.com Stans Plumbing 555-555-5555 Or, if Stan didn't have a website: "10 Plumbing
Secrets Every Homeowner Should Know" Get Your Free Guide. Call Stan's Plumbing: 555-555-5555 When a prospect visits Stan's website or receives the guide, and reads the promised "secrets", Stan establishes credibility, a level of trustworthiness and expertise. In addition to the "secrets", whether on line or in the guide, Stan highlights his services. He offers a number of services, including a low, fee-based inspection service. Maybe you're selling your home and want to know what upgrades to make to improve the sale-ability of it. Perhaps you want to know the integrity status of the plumbing in a home you want to buy. Or, you simply want to ensure your plumbing is up to snuff. Call Stan. Every time Stan performs an inspection, he places his sticker with his contact information on the water heater. Stan could also offer visitors to his website a higher-value imprinted promotional item for stopping in or filling out and submitting an e-form. The item is delivered with his sticker and instructions to place the sticker on the water heater. If Stan doesn't have a website, he can include a response card with the free guide. This is how Stan builds a database for future, targeted marketing efforts. I believe every business, company and non-profit can use the "Secret" tactic to increase the effectiveness of their Goody Bag donations. To be most effective, the goody bag should be the starting point of a larger concept. Using Stan as the example, the "Secret" tactic helps get Stan: • generate interest; • establish credibility; • create opportunity for personal contact; • get his sticker inside people's homes; • create a database for ongoing marketing. If you're currently putting your contact info on some cheap do-dad and donating it to goody-bags, I'd like you to stop doing that. Simply slapping your contact info on an item is not effective promotion. Want proof? Next time you receive a goody bag at a golf outing, conference or other event, pay close attention to how you view all the junk in the bag. Do you fall all over yourself to do business with the companies represented by the pens, pencils, and what-not in the bag? How much of the stuff in the bag ends up out-of-sight in a drawer, given to the kids or worse yet … in the trash. How many items ask you to do something? How many cause you to do something such as visit a web site, make a phone call or visit an establishment? Then ask yourself, "If I'm not motivated by any of this junk, why will others be motivated by my junk?" Most likely the answer is, they won't be. That is why without an effective idea behind what is imprinted on the item … IT'S A HUGE WASTE OF MONEY! The "Secret" tactic is just one of many tactics you can employ to make goody bag marketing the effective promotional tool it can be. But it's going to take some thought and a little planning. Now, stop simply giving stuff away … and start promoting. 
Permalink Comments (6) Promote My Company With Word of Mouth AdvertisingPosted Monday, March 31, 2008 (159 days 16 hours ago.) Viewed 25 times. If you're wondering, "How can I promote my company on a small budget", I'm going to share something with you that you can actually do. I remember the day I was unpacking a box of office supplies and there at the bottom of the box, were two candy bars affixed to a logo'd card that said, "Thank You. Please tell others about our company." Wow! What a surprise. Completely unexpected … yet appreciated. And though I left the company I was working for 10 years ago, I still remember that event. Nearly every company can employ some aspect of what I call "Stealth Marketing" to promote itself, generate word of mouth and perhaps publicity. Often, marketers will figure out a "promotion" then figure out how to spend the budget on radio, tv, print, internet, in-store signs, displays and promotional products to promote it. This takes tons of planning, coordination and meetings. If you hire an agency, a good portion of your budget gets eaten up by art directors, copywriters, designers and production crews just to produce your ads, collateral material and signs. Then, another big portion of your budget will get eaten up buying space for your radio, tv and print ads and 15% of that money goes to paying the media buyer. If you promote the promotion yourself, it takes time. Now consider for a moment, how much promotional power you could harness, if instead of spending your budget to promote the promotion, you simply put that money directly to work. By-pass conventional wisdom? Cut out the middle man? YES! Put your promotional dollars directly to work promoting your company. Maybe it is candy bars packed in the box. Or, perhaps it's gift cards hidden in random products. If they're never found you're only out the cost of producing the card. Perhaps it's scratch-off, lottery-style tickets randomly placed in a shoppers' bag or in a customer's delivery box. Every card is a winner of something. Why? Because you can control what's printed on the cards and how many are given away each week, or month. Imagine the surprise of a home-owner if three months after they took delivery of a new dining room table set they found a scratch-off card, a gift card or perhaps a $20 taped to the underside of the table or one of the chairs? What if a coffee shop imprinted sayings at the bottom of the inside of its to-go cups. Every so often, someone would get one that read, "Bring this cup in and receive $10 cash." Hey, if they throw the cup away, you're out nothing! If they read it, and get the $10 they're going to tell everyone they run into for a week. You can't buy that much word of mouth for $10. Think about it. Who wouldn't be delighted to find a $5 bill crammed into the toe of their new shoes? And who wouldn't tell their friends about it? The idea is to give your advertising and promotion budget, or a portion of it in one form or another, to those who buy your product or service and let them promote your product or service for you. What Stealth Marketing ideas can you generate for your business? Be mindful that it's done without fanfare. And the end result is effective word of mouth, a delighted customer or client, and in a best-case scenario - earned media. Bottom line, when you've got a small budget, put it directly to work and get more promotional marketing mileage for your money.
Permalink Comments (2) High School Fundraising: Focus — High School NewspapersPosted Sunday, March 23, 2008 (168 days 4 hours ago.) Viewed 160 times. I was recently asked to present to a high school newspaper class. As with everything I do, I wanted to give my presentation a creative twist on the usual. While the result of my thinking is a great fundraising concept for high school newspapers, the concept applies to the adult world as well. The concept involves cross-promoting your marketing mediums. In my original presentation, I suggested that high school newspaper sales people could be more effective if they took an idea to local businesses instead of simply asking them to place an ad in the High School newspaper. In the adult world, there are plenty of newspaper and magazine ad sales people who do little more than attempt to sell space to their clients. By thinking hard about how to cross promote your marketing mediums, salespeople can take effective promotional ideas and programs to their clients. As an advisor, you'll quickly see the multiple benefits of this approach. My idea for the high school newspaper is to create a bandanna, rally or spirit towel (item) with the high school logo in the middle and sell sponsorships on the rest of the space. The newspaper then sells the item to fans at the football and basketball games. Therein lies the creative twist. Instead of a high school student saying, "Sir. Would you like to buy an ad in our high school newspaper?," the salesperson instead, lays out a promotional program in which the business can participate. Instead of simply buying an ad in the school newspaper, the business can advertise a "special" that can only be obtained by using the item as a coupon. This also helps build item sales. Benefits For The Newspaper? The newspaper makes money on the newspaper ad placement, the sponsorship on the item and from selling the item outright. The high school newspaper sales team learns the value of selling programs and gains real life experience that can help land them a job. Benefits For The Local Business? The local business gets to target a specific market (high school students) by placing an ad in the school newspaper. They then use the ad to cross promote the fact that the High School item is worth something (discount, two for one, Buy one Get One) at their store, thus effectively driving traffic. Ie: "Show your Anytown High School Bandanna Friday night before the game and receive $1 off a 16" 2 item pizza. Bandanna available from the Anytown High School Newspaper." Admittedly, the local business offer has to be of benefit to the consumer for it to effectively drive traffic. The best way for the local business to find out what the students would want as an offer - is to ask them. As an advisor, you'll want to encourage your students to encourage their clients to do their research. Better yet, the students are already "hooked up". They should do some preliminary research and make suggestions to the their client. The business reaps the benefit of the goodwill created by supporting the local school through sponsorship on the item. The local business also achieves measurable Return On Investment (ROI) by being able to measure how many people bring in the item for the discount. Hyping The Program Inside The School Obviously, the school newspaper will run a great story about how their item is for sale and list the sponsors. As an added bonus to the item sponsors, they could also receive a short article in an issue of the paper, based on a short interview by a High School newspaper reporter. Call it Sponsor Spotlight. Hyping The Program Outside The School Remember to issue a media release about the program to the non-school media such as local newspaper, magazines and radio and tv stations. Tips To Ensure Success Smart newspapers will print their item with an expiration date of say August. That way, when a new school year starts in September, the newspaper can sell a new towel for the current year … and sell new sponsorships. Most fans who bought the 2007-2008 towel, will want the new 2008-2009 towel, especially if it is dated, carries the school mascot/logo and includes school information such as phone numbers and websites. You may even consider imprinting the high school football schedule on it. Depending on how you price your sponsorships you could consider a separate item for the basketball season or simply combine the football and basketball schedule into one item. Simple layouts are better for spirit towels. More complex layouts require a bandanna because of the imprint surface. In certain cases, t-shirts are a option to consider, however once you get into size issues, you're just complicating the issue. Best bes?, Keep it simple … towels and bandannas. Summary Learning to cross-promote your media is a valuable lesson for high school newspaper sales people. Gee whiz, it's a valuable lesson for adult media salespeople. Perhaps selling sponsorships on bandannas doesn't appeal to you. No problem, because that's not the real point of this article. Here's the main point: creative thinking will help move your student salespeople from selling ad space to selling effective promotional programs that: • genuinely benefit the advertisers, • help the newspaper achieve their financial goals, and, • teach students real-life lessons. And isn't that what school should do … teach students something they can use in the real world?
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