As promised yesterday, I’m revealing the secret promotion that worked so well for my customer in Del Rio, Texas. Then we’ll discuss how you can put it to work for you now.
How a Local Radio Station Gave My Customer Free Advertising
Remember in yesterday’s post what the important lesson I learned was?
“Solve your customer’s largest problem. And you’ll sell much more than you could ever sell shouting about how great your product is. ”
Well this concept doesn’t just work with selling your stuff. It’s one of the three factors that made this promotion so successful. Here’s why…
Radio stations are always trying to keep their listeners tuned-in to their station. That’s why they have contests.
What if you could help the radio station get listeners to stay tuned-in? What if you gave the local station more exposure?
That’s exactly what we did. We “sponsored” a contest on the radio and my customer gave away a diamond ring as part of the promotion. The station gave my customer a ton of free advertising, because of the donated ring, the contest and mainly because we helped solve their biggest issue, keeping listeners tuned in.
But that was only the first part of how they helped the radio station. They also included the station’s logo with “listen and win” in their newspaper advertising. So the station got free advertising too.
A Guaranteed Way to Make People Read Your Advertising
The next goal was to get the radio listener to actually read my customer’s newspaper insert. We had contestants tell what item was “blue” and on the second page of the flyer when they called in to the contest. If you didn’t look at the ad, you didn’t get to play.
The radio station steered people to the flyer in the newspaper. Newspaper readers were told about the contest on the radio. My customer added one more twist to this promotion, they got co-op dollars from the mall by putting the mall’s logo on the ad….
Wow. When Mother’s Day came around just about everyone in town was thinking about my customer’s store for Mother’s day gifts. I can still hear the sound of cash registers ringing, and ringing and ringing . . . how about you? Now, how can you put this to work today. Read on to find out…
Using The Promotion Today for Your Online Store
Imagine planning a “Back- to School” promotion using this same method. Instead of using a newspaper insert, use your online store.
1 – Call your radio station marketing manager and offer $100 worth of free school supplies and sponsor a contest
2 – Have the next person who calls in and tells us how many different backpacks you sell on www.yourwebsite.com is in for the winning
3 – Put the radio stations logo on your website. Offer radio listeners a 10% discount when they enter the radio station’s call letters as a discount code with all orders
You get the idea. You might have to place some advertising with the radio station, but I guarantee, you’ll also get a bunch of extra free advertising from them promoting the contest.
There are some other things you can do to beef-up this promotion even more. But it’s late Friday evening and I need to go home and spend some time with my family.
Doug Stewart
Giving You the Power to Fight the Big Boys!
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