This is one of those stories you really hope is true.
Archive for April, 2007
Buy one Porsche – get one free
Thursday, April 12th, 2007Sending promotional emails customers can’t wait to get
Wednesday, April 11th, 2007There’s an email I get from a company two or three times a week that I actively look forward to. It’s from www.petrolprices.com, and tells me where the cheapest petrol is near me. Considering I fill up once or twice a week, it saves me a considerable amount of money trying to find the cheapest petrol.
Two thoughts on this. Firstly, it has driven me to garages I would never normally go to, just to fill up on the cheapest petrol. If your business successfully competes on price, are you listed in the price comparison websites? Are there any kind of price comparison schemes locally, maybe offline?
And secondly, it was only yesterday I realised I looked forward to getting this email. How cool is that? I look forward to getting an email from a business. That makes me incredibly valuable to them, as I would miss their emails. The website is run by a commercial company, which makes its money back referring on motor insurance etc. If you send emails or newsletters to your customers, do they look forward to them as much? They’ll be more interested if you send them free information that’s going to help them, rather than a list of your latest offers.
PS This website has a great press section. Listing all your previous media appearances helps build confidence in the media that you are worth contacting.
Make the most of the perfect bacon butty
Monday, April 9th, 2007Opportunity for cafes here. Scientists have released details of how to make the perfect bacon butty. So announce you’re going to put it to the local test. Sell two types of butty for a week – one should be cooked to the “perfect” recipe, the other your usual type of butty. Then ask your customers to vote. Tell the media what you’re doing, offer them a load of free butties so they can decide for themselves, and don’t forget to tell them what the result is.
A glorious local victory of customers prefer your butty. And don’t worry if customers prefer the “perfect” butty to yours – you switch to the “perfect” recipe and revel in your new reputation as the local home of the perfect bacon butty!
Idea for a clothes shop
Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007So new Bond Daniel Craig is the UK’s most stylish celebrity. Imagine how cool it would be if a local clothes shop published its town’s top 5 best / worst dressed local celebrities… the football manager, leader of the council, local radio presenters etc etc.
You could get a couple of months of publicity out of it; firstly by announcing you’re going to do it and asking for nominations, then announcing the results themselves. To really cash in on it, have a poll winners party at your shop, where you give the winners of the worst dressed competition a free makeover! If they refuse to turn up… that’s an even better story.
Just joking
Monday, April 2nd, 2007Saw a few April Fools jokes yesterday. T4 on Channel 4 did a good one where a child actor’s father “stormed onto live telly” to complain about inappropriate questions, and ended up punching the presenter Steve. Google seem to have been busy doing a few, including free broadband that uses your plumbing and Gmail Paper, to send your email messages to you in the post.
Haven’t had chance to read yesterday’s paper yet, but I can virtually guarantee each of them will have a good one, especially since the Sundays only get an April 1st every few years.
I’ve said before, it’s worth every business doing an April Fool’s joke on their customers. It helps them feel part of your family. Jamie Harrop emailed me to reveal a website he helps moderate called WebHosting Talk, was planning to make the users think some technical errors had been made. They would be able to see a “private” staff chat area, with posts including a free trip to Las Vegas for the volunteers that moderate, and a clever discussion thread that would look like the usrname of the person viewing the thread was about to be banned.
Clever stuff – and Jamie emailed an update: ” I just wanted to let you know that the April Fools joke at WebHostingTalk went down a treat. Many are saying it was the best April Fools joke they have ever seen, and certainly the best WebHostingTalk has done.”
See one of the threads discussing the stunt here. Think how powerful it would be to get your customers talking about your business in that way.
