Refreshing, and Easy, Marketing Program Perfect for Summer
Summer is typically a slow time in business. Customers are either frying at the beach, daydreaming about their trip to Paris, or thinking about their next barbecue. Either way their mind isn’t really focused on buying whatever you’re selling. So you can either write off the next couple of months, or have some fun with summer-themed marketing campaigns.
One of our clients came up with a perfect summer promotion – easy to implement, low cost, and most important, a quick response. They are giving away gift cards for slushy drinks. Here’s how it works:
- Assemble a mailing list of new prospects and/or existing customers that you don’t expect to see during the summer.
- Print postcards with a unique "secret code" on each one.
- Set up a Web page containing a survey, or just some product information, depending on your business.
You can see the current survey page we set up for this particular mailing here:
They control their cost because a "secret code" is required to claim the gift. This also lets them control the geographic reach of the campaign – in this case they are targeting a corner of northern New Jersey. And they only buy as many gift cards as they need, when they need them.
We can easily try different value gift cards, different mailing lists, and other options to stay in front of people all summer long. For more flexibility the sales people can give out secret codes whenever they think it might help during a sales call. And any prospects calling in on the phone can also be given codes if appropriate.
The secret code is also designed to help in tracking different approaches. So each mailing/offer has a unique set of codes, and each sales person has their own set.
All the leads coming in from the Web site are automatically posted to a Zoho CRM system to track effectiveness, to help automate future mailings, and for easy follow up and tracking by sales people.
Our client in this case is the AlphaGraphics print shop in Montclair, NJ . Call them at the number on the Web site above to ask about these summer promotions. If you’re lucky they might even give you a secret code of your own.