Any ideas for making a good promotion?

[cphillips913]

Lately business has been sluggish, and I want to get our returning customers in the door by offering a sale. We've done a sale on 4mm 24x 18 coroplast yard signs, and a 15% off discount, but we need something new. We are capable of grand format printing, so we can print just about anything, but ideas for what to discount are running thin around here. Any suggestions?

 

[HulkSmash]

Lately business has been sluggish, and I want to get our returning customers in the door by offering a sale. We've done a sale on 4mm 24x 18 coroplast yard signs, and a 15% off discount, but we need something new. We are capable of grand format printing, so we can print just about anything, but ideas for what to discount are running thin around here. Any suggestions?

increase your web presence. Spend the money on ranking yourself, or adwords.

 

[cphillips913]

I've considered that, but can you email me or message me some insights showing me the traffic you get from it?

 

[Gino]

No one cares about saving a few dollars on some site signs.

Make it worth their while to do more business with you... but under your conditions.

Send out to all existing customers of an upcoming promotion of 4' x 8' aluminum composite or Cor-X or any other substrate you want to use in 10 piece quantities and price it around 15% off with the last one being in addition... absolutely free. Now, there is something worth looking into for your customers. Put a time limit to it and work out a deal with your distributor. He/she will probably give you an additional discount if you're gonna be getting an extra 150 or 200 pieces of something say over the month of September.

............and don't call it a 'Sale'.
​

 

[Billct2]

Buy some promotional pens or some such and get in your advertisement on wheels and go see your customers, hand them a small gift, say thanks, and let them know you're ready to help.

 

[HulkSmash]

I've considered that, but can you email me or message me some insights showing me the traffic you get from it?

I spend between 400-1200 a month on adwords.

and i can promise you it pays off.

 

[cphillips913]

I will look in to adwords some more. But ive never thought about taking marketing to the streets. Interesting plan...

 

[HulkSmash]

I will look in to adwords some more. But ive never thought about taking marketing to the streets. Interesting plan...

We do 0 advertising, and we have 0 sales reps. It's all about the web in my opinion.. and our course great service and a product.

 

[Hicalibersigns]

I spend between 400-1200 a month on adwords.

and i can promise you it pays off.

We do the same as well as constant work on improving organic presence. It DOES pay off. Limit your ads to your geographic area, unless you have something you can legitimately sell in far away states, or China or Australia. In other words, don't pay for clicks from parts of the world that you can't really service. We also limit our ads to business hours, Monday through Friday as we are strictly looking for B2B contacts.

 

[HulkSmash]

We do the same as well as constant work on improving organic presence. It DOES pay off. Limit your ads to your geographic area, unless you have something you can legitimately sell in far away states, or China or Australia. In other words, don't pay for clicks from parts of the world that you can't really service. We also limit our ads to business hours, Monday through Friday as we are strictly looking for B2B contacts.

exactly. all we do is b2b. Monday - Friday 4am - 7pm. that's all we do.

 

[Mosh]

I don't even run a yellow pages ad anymore...just go look for crappy signs and draw them up a proposal...

 

[Hicalibersigns]

I don't even run a yellow pages ad anymore..

Yellow pages?????????????? A yellow pages ad is like pasting a really expensive ad to the bottom of a rock. The vast majority of people take the yellow pages from the front porch and drop them into the garbage can. It is absolutely the worst advertising investment that can be made.

 

[biggmann]

I had a discussion at one of our suppliers at the show in Vegas and he made a valid point and agave some good advice and I hope to implement it soon. He said to set up constant contact and keep in touch with your current customers and send out an email blast. Get them coming back. when I get time i want to get this set up.

 

[HulkSmash]

I had a discussion at one of our suppliers at the show in Vegas and he made a valid point and agave some good advice and I hope to implement it soon. He said to set up constant contact and keep in touch with your current customers and send out an email blast. Get them coming back. when I get time i want to get this set up.

Get mailchimp.
it's free and better.

also customers hate email blasts as much as you hate them..
keep that in mind

 

[legacyborn]

Get mailchimp.
it's free and better.

also customers hate email blasts as much as you hate them..
keep that in mind

This^ and that^

 

[CentralSigns]

Yellow. pages gives you a link back to your site. That increases your reputation with web crawlers and raises your organic site rankings. More link backs more higher ranks.

 

[Locals Find!]

While you have many good ideas here for long term strategy.

Gino's idea is one of the better short term ones.

My approach would be to send out some postcards to your existing client database offering them 15-25% off of any services you offer. Limited time only say 30 days. Exclusions apply i.e. Subcontracted items, or anything under $50. Mail em give em a few days to receive them and, follow up with a phone call to find out if they had a chance to review it. Don't be pushy, just polite. Just opening a dialogue will get the customers ready to purchase talking to you about the project they wanna tackle.

You can easily pad the "discount" into the price if you absolutely have too.

Screw the web (too long term strategy for a short term issue), screw the phone book (useless), screw promo pens. (I sold promo pens for years the only person that ever makes money on pens or with pens. Is the guy selling em and the guy printing them. Never once had a client say a pen got them the first bit of business ever.)

If you really wanna get some attention hand out printed matchbook condoms or, personal lube. May sound out there but, they work. No one ever forgets the guy handing out lube and condoms ever. Have done this for a few clients that didn't mind a shock and awe approach to gaining new business.

 

[Billct2]

I wasn't suggesting promo pens would generate any business, it's the walking in the door and getting a face to face that does that, having some doodad to hand them just makes it easier.

 

[Locals Find!]

I wasn't knocking your idea directly bill, just offering some advice from a guy that hustled those products for years. I just hate seeing people throw good money down the drain. When I was selling them I encouraged people to do just that. Looking back now that I no longer am in that business, just how many people I sold em too makes me feel guilty.

 

[HulkSmash]

I for one think direct mail is a waste of time.