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local travel agent and get a free travel wallet;
book a resort stay and get a free beach bag, or
book a cruise and get a free robe. I used the
latter promotion recently to introduce a new
itinerary for a cruise line and my client got a
tremendous response.
A Thank-You Gift
An alternative is to give a gift as a
thank-you for a donation. Think about all
the nonprofits in your community that are
trying to raise money. I attended a luncheon
recently to honor some of our area nonprof-
its and was amazed at how many organiza-
tions serving the community were unfamiliar
to me.
How many times have you donated to a
worthy cause and received a free t-shirt or
tote bag? I recently donated to a cause not
expecting anything in return, and lo and
behold a week later I received a portable
water dish for my pet (it was a pet rescue
charity). This charity used the thank-you gift
as an opportunity to ask for another donation
and tell a story about a specific need. So the
“gift” was a means of contacting me again
with the hope that I would respond to their
plea for more donations (I did).
Not only are nonprofits a good target for
donation thank-you gifts, but at this partic-
ular event, most of the nonprofits had a
tabletop filled with logoed items that they
gave out to remind attendees of their needs
after the event. It was an excellent way to
target donations.
Joint Promotions
You can also take the gift-with-purchase
idea another step further. What about com-
bining two of your non-competing clients for
a joint promotion? Maybe you have a book-
store and a cookware shop as clients.
Customers who buy a cookbook at the book-
store can get a free basting brush with the
cookware shop’s logo. Likewise, those shop-
ping at the cookware shop could get a book-
store-branded journal to catalog their
recipes. It’s a win-win. And of course, each
shop would promote the other for all sales
with something as simple as a self-standing
counter card.
Another example of a joint promotion is
a local car dealership partnering with a local
entertainment attraction. The promotion
could be as simple as an offer to test drive a
new car and get free or discounted tickets
to the attraction, plus a free cap, tote or
something else relevant for use at the
attraction. Both companies would advertise
the promotion.
Our state fair recently held a similar pro-
motion, and a friend of mine decided he
wanted to take a group of kids to the fair.
With the discount offered, it was worth his
while to go to the car dealer for a test drive.
Amazingly, he decided to trade in his car and
get a new one on the spot. Granted, you don’t
always get such an immediate result, but it
does happen.
As you can see, a “free” promotional gift
with a purchase or a donation can be used in
quite a variety of sales promotions.
Sweepstakes Promotion
Another effective sales promotion you
can explore is running a sweepstakes. Yes, you
need to be careful with the rules and regula-
tions, but a sweepstakes is an excellent way to
get your client’s branded promotional prod-
ucts into the hands of potential customers. In
a sweepstakes, prizes are given by the luck of
the draw from those who participate, and
participants have to do something to win.
As I said earlier, people love getting
something for free, and research suggests that
combining a higher-valued prize with multi-
ple lower-valued prizes brings in a larger
number of participants. You could offer the
free use of a new car for a year as the grand
prize, and have 100 free trunk organizers or
auto safety kits as second prizes and 100 valet
key chains as third prizes. This kind of pro-
motion not only appeals to car dealers but to
car repair shops and tire stores, too. This type
of promotion attracts high interest among
customers because they believe they have a
greater chance to win something than if only
a grand prize is offered.
A sweepstakes can work for most busi-
nesses, think spas, resorts, plumbers, tire
shops, home design or gift shops, cookware
shops, pet stores or just about any retail oper-
ation. For example, the spa could offer a free
massage a month for a year as the grand prize
and then give a branded hand massager or
stress relieving mask as the secondary prize.
For a service-oriented business such as a
plumbing company or home design company,
an example is to offer a bedroom or bathroom
makeover as the grand prize and a picture
frame or scented candle tin to second-prize
winners. Again, the intent is to get increased
awareness of your client among new potential
customers.
Use Of Social Media In Sales
Promotion Programs
With social media being used by so
many businesses today, it easy to add a
sweepstakes promotion to their efforts to
increase the company’s interaction with their
existing customers and to gather information
on potential new customers (must provide
certain information to enter the sweep-
stakes). Remember the pet charity that I
contributed to and how they sent me a
thank-you gift with another request to
donate? Well, think about your clients send-
ing a thank-you for entering the sweep-
stakes—maybe a postcard with magnet
attached—the magnet offers a discount if
they come in within the next 30 days as a
follow-up to the sweepstakes. Again, a win-
win. Even though the prospects didn’t win
the grand prize or even the secondary prize,
they may very well come in for a discounted
product or service. And hopefully, your client
will now have a new long-term customer.
As you can see, it’s not hard to get those
creative juices flowing and come up with
more ideas for your clients that use more pro-
motional products and increase their sales
and yours now.
Danette Gossett is
president/CEO of Gossett
Marketing Communications,
Inc., (UPIC: GOSSETT) in
Coconut Grove, Florida, and is
co-founder of Promotions
Resource LLC, a marketing
resource network, and co-
author of the new book
Transform
with best-selling
author, speaker and trainer
Brian Tracy. She has won
numerous awards including a
PPAI Bronze Technology Award
for Best Blog and a recent
Quilly Award from the National
Academy of Best Selling
Authors for
Transform
. Follow
her on Twitter at
@Marketngtibits and
@SalesPromoOrg.
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