« Tag Ads - And I’m Not Talking About Body Spray Commercials | Home
3 Advertising Methods that Pay You to Advertise Your Business
By admin | January 1, 2008
Advertising can be insanely expensive, especially when you’re dealing with things like print or billboard advertising where it’s tough to track the returns and you’re never 100% sure if they worked or not. It’s important to remember that there are a variety of advertising methods that can actually give you a financial return, as opposed to putting you in the hole. I’ve listed 5 methods below, but please feel free to add your own thoughts and ideas to the comments.
1. Branded/Promotional Products - Not all promotional products are junk. In fact, if you run a retail site, you may have some success selling promotional items with your brand name. Of course, that’s assuming that you don’t have a business name that is so unsavory that no customer would ever want to be reminded of it - like “Jim-Bob’s Plumbing, Sewer, & Garbage Services” - but that probably goes without saying. Although who knows? Maybe the plumbing and sewer thing would work with the right kind of wannabe hipster customer base. In general, though, if the company name sounds like it could just as easily be a brand name for a product, though, the strategy could do very well for you.
What I’ve always found most interesting is that plenty of customers will actually assume that you manufacture the item in question, never stopping to wonder if they really want your name on an item they’re paying for. With many products, people are quite accustomed to seeing the brand name on the item.
For example:
The trick is to choose products where the presence of the logo isn’t obnoxious or too in-your-face. While it wouldn’t be too irritating on a hand-held puzzle, most customers probably wouldn’t respond well to a huge logo plastered all over something like a vase.
2. Referrals - If you offer a referral program that pays, you can bet that someone will take you up on that offer. The most common online equivalent, of course, is the affiliate program. Depending on how you create and maintain your affiliate program, though, it will probably cost a bit to get started (or a lot, if you start out with companies like Commission Junction or Linkshare).
There are other alternatives, though. Instead of creating a full-fledged affiliate program, you could try a simple refer-a-friend offer, instead. When orders come in with your current customer’s name listed as a referral, you could either issue a check or grant credits for future purchases (of course, if your product is more of a one-time buy, you’re not going to have much success with a store credit).
3. Co-mailing - Direct Mail isn’t particularly cheap, and it’s definitely not something you want to experiment with unless you can afford to lose money at first. There is a way to get around that, though. Instead of advertising all by yourself in an expensive mailer, you could locate 3-5 related, but non-competitive businesses to share the costs.
For instance, if you were doing an 11 x 17 twice folded mailer, you could design your creative to fit on just 1-2 panels and then offer the others to other business owners. By assuring them that you are also advertising, you are telling them that it’s not going to be just another junk mailer. Your money is invested, too. By further assuring them that you will not be including 2 competitive businesses, you’re giving them exclusivity that’s tough to ignore.
Another way to enhance your piece and its success is to create a small amount of content to include. You could put in a local calendar of events, a trivia page, a well-written article, or anything else that you think might appeal to your audience. You could even take it a step further and upgrade the piece to a mini catalog size and include several pages of content.
The main thing to remember to get this to pay is that you need to know your total cost and then charge the other businesses enough to cover that (and possibly a bit more, in case you don’t sell every position).
Topics: Budget Tips, Advertising Ideas |