Ok so some of you will think that this are corky ideas , but how do you plan to stand out from all the other realtors let's work on your marketing calendar for the whole year. You see, nearly an event/holiday/celebration/milestone is an excuse for a promotion. And if you're not doing that you're missing the boat. So let's fix that...
First things first is I suggest getting a quick calendar together of what kind of promotions you'd like to run throughout the year. This doesn't need to be anything fancy - but take a look at holidays and "milestone" events throughout the year.
Here are just a few ideas:
Jan: New Year's - Ideas:
- "New Years - New You/New Start"
- "Get rid of Last year's inventory"
Feb: Valentine's Day - Ideas:
- "Give yourself the ____ you'll love"
- "We love you and want to do something special for you"
March: St. Patrick's Day - Idea:
- "Make Your Friends Green With Envy with ______"
- "Your lucky day"
April: April Fools Day - Idea:
- "These discounts are so low my accountant thought this was an April's fools day joke"
May: Mother's Day - Idea:
- "Mother always said you should _________"
April: Tax Day - Idea:
"I need your help to pay for my taxes" (Don't laugh this was a true promotion my friend, Jeff Walker, used very
successfully!)
June: Father's Day/Graduation - Idea:
- "Graduate to a new _____"
July: 4th of July - Ideas:
- "Watch Fireworks explode when you ______"
- "Celebrate your independence from _________"
October: Halloween - Idea:
- "Give yourself a treat this month" (Side note: Halloween is a HUGE holiday and one of the best ones to run a
promotion for.)
November: Election Day - Idea:
-"Elect a new _____"
November: Thanksgiving - Idea:
- "Thank you to our best customers"
Dec: Holidays - Idea:
- "Happy holidays - winter sale"
- "Ho ho ho - Can't beat the fat man so we're having a sale"
But even better than these regular holidays are creating "anytime" promotions. As Dan Kennedy says the #1 sin in marketing is being boring. Online it's harder than ever to try and breakthrough the clutter.
And one way to do this is to take an event and really make it fun and entertaining for your customers/prospects.
The "Any-Reason-Is-Good-Reason-For-a-Sale" Sale
Using reason-why copy (like I just mentioned) is the perfect way to create an event for yourself anytime things are slow, you've hit a milestone in your business (or personal life) or because you need to get rid of inventory, etc. There are tons of ways of doing this that I've seen successfully applied.
A couple off the top of my head are:
"Scratch & Dent" sale...
"Fire/Flood sale"...
"Need to pay my taxes sales"...
"Birthday or Anniversary sale"...
"My server crashed" sale...
"It's raining out"...
(I'm serious there's a local Taco place I love that will send out an email anytime it rains, since their foot traffic goes down, offering free chips and
queso. Smart!)
"Boss is away sale", etc. etc...
I've very successfully done a "scratch and dent" sale just like Robert Collier mentioned in his "Robert Collier Letter Book" - but then last year I decided to do something a little different since others were going a 'scratch & dent' sale too. It was the "Save Yanik's Marriage Sale" with the whole premise being Missy, my wife, was really annoyed at me for the basement being so overloaded with boxes. Truthfully, she WAS really mad and made a big stink about it - but I embellished the story a bit.
After that sale did its job Missy really got into the excitement of clearing out the basement and she suggested another sale for our Wedding anniversary (Sept 16th). This one only did about ¼ of the results from the previous one but it was money created out of thin air. I think it was just too soon for another sale so closely on the heels of the previous one. The scratch & dent sale is a pretty simple model to use and if you incorporate a real reason why it'll work today just like it did 50+ years ago for Robert Collier (and before that).
Another sale I've had a lot of success with is a milestone type sale.
I just did one when my first child, Zak, being born. That promotion nearly tripled my expectations for what it would bring in (it made $4.60+ for every visitor who came). And more importantly people connected with me as a real person - you should have seen the dozens and dozens of congratulations notes. It was really cool.
There are a couple big points I really want to make sure you get from this:
#1 - Make your marketing fun and have people wonder what is this guy/gal up to next? Fact is, most of your prospects and customers probably lead fairly normal and mundane lives. If you can give them something to get excited about or even live a little bit through what you do - you'll have 'hooked' them in.
#2 - This is critical! Don't make your theme or "fun" idea take away from the sales message. Big advertisers do this all the time and waste all their money. They try to use humor or something clever in their advertising but have no salesmanship. The fun or theme aspect of your promotion cannot stand on its own without the fundamentals of direct response (i.e. compelling offer, deadline, headlines, benefits, etc). Bottom line - don't confuse this with being cute or clever and not actually selling. There is a big, BIG difference.
#3 - "Reason Why" copy works perfectly for most of the events or themes you create. As you know most retailers will use some sort of event (i.e. Presidents Day) for a sale. Well that's a pretty weak reason why but most people will accept just about any excuse for a special deal. However, when you combine it with real meaningful reason why copy it works even better even if the reason is a bit contrived. Telling people the reason why you are doing something is one of the most powerful influencers of human behavior.
I hope this gives you some ammo to start thinking up your own promotions for the year and breaking out of the 'ho-hum' mold of other marketers.
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