Oldie but a goodie - refer a friend campaign

The most exciting thing about a customer is that they know OTHER potential customers - people just like them, thus also very likely to buy the same sorts of things from the same sort of places. This is something many, many companies seem to forget - to their own detriment.

I recently booked some flights through webjet and this week I was sent a "refer a friend" promotion. There were several things I thought were clever and "zero budget" about this marketing idea.

1. Most of webjet's advertising seems to be posters at airports & billboards. For anyone who has ever booked a campaign like that, you know they are VERY expensive. This would have been peanuts in comparison, even if they had to pay for the flights they're giving away.

BUT

2. If you notice the Qantas branding on the plane in the creative, I suspect this means that even if they had to pay SOMETHING for the flights, they didn't have to pay the full price. Although I suspect, as webjet likely puts a lot of business Qantas's way, they may even have had the prize flights donated for nix.

Thus, this promotion will only have cost them a bit of a brain power and a bit of design/web work.

Let's say this was $10,000. And let's say they send it to 50,000 people on their dbase. Even if only 10% respond (and they'd likely get more as this is a great incentive sent to a market who've proved they are in the market for flights!) that means 5,000 people respond. If these 5,000 only send to TWO contacts, that means Webjet have reached 10,000 people for a cost of $10,000.

A paltry $1 a "well-targeted" propspect.

I don't know abotu you, but I think a buck is a pretty low introduction fee to someone who's likley to spend hundreds of dollars with you in a single sale.

Don't you?

So webjet, congrats on pulling out this "oldie but goodie". You got me to email my friends. And I'm a cynical marketing type!

Don't be shy - ask for a discount!

I was reminded again the other day of a great "zero budget marketing" mantra:

"If you don't ask, you don't get!"

What inspired this reminder, I hear you ask?

A publisher called to sell me some advertising space in a local area directory for one of the brands I work with. Whilst I don't usually go for advertising, this directory was a good match for the company and it had a direct response element, in the form of a voucher, my personal marketing favorite.

But - the advert was too expensive. The brand has a teeny, tiny budget - like many businesses.

So I cried poor and said that if they had "distressed space" (advertising industry speak for space they can't flog and will slash the price of at the last minute) - and if they could make this distressed space half of the quoted price - we'd take the advert.

And a week later, they called back, saying they really wanted us in the directory. And we got the advertising space for ... half price. Exactly what we'd asked for. So we could advertise and everyone walks away getting something they want.

So, let's say it all together..."If you don't ask, you don't get!"

How spending $320 can earn you $43,200

I saw a great "zero budget marketing" tactic in action on the street this morning that has some inspiration there for us all.

I walk past a cafe strip, where there are 6-7 places you can grab lunch or - more importantly for many people - a coffee.

One of these locations is actually a restaurant. And they are also a cafe that does coffee. But to the passerby, it looks MORE like a restaurant, thus people bypass it to go to a "coffee shop".

Obviously the manager cottoned on, and realised they were missing out on the very lucrative morning coffee trade. How lucrative can coffee be, I hear you ask? It has a HUGE profit margin - the average latte costs around 20cents in "materials" to make. A good barista can pump out about 100 in an hour. And an average coffee price in the city is $3.

So that's $300 in revenue in an hour for about $20 in material and $20 staff cost. Around a 750% return. Highly profitable if you can sell a lot of coffee!

So, back to the idea. The restaurant had one of their staff members, with a blackboard and some vouchers, directing people to go and get a FREE coffee.

So clever, so cheap. Being conservative, a regular coffee drinker would buy a cup once a day, 3 days a week (actually, most serious caffeine addicts do 2-3 every day!). And if you like the coffee and one place, and it's a convenient location, you're likely to buy these three coffees every week for the 48 weeks you're working.

This translates to around $432 in revenue in a year - for a promotion that would cost around FORTY CENTS! 20 cents for the coffee and 20 cents worth of staff time.

So again, that's spending 40 cents to get $432 in revenue over 12 months.

Image if they got only 20 new people a day on this promotion and they ran it for 5 days.

The restaurant will have generated $43,200 in revenue from this promotion, which will have cost a few hours a day in staff time (say $300) and $20 in free coffee.

If only we all got that sort of RETURN ON INVESTMENT!

So it's a great little case study that encourages you to think about what you should be giving away, to get customers to try (and hopefully love) your product or service. Not all margins are as healthy as coffee - and luckily not all products are addictive - but even if you get a fraction of the results, this is a hugely successful zero budget marketing tactic.

Yours aren't the only customers out there

I've been working with Parks Victoria lately on an international event they're hosting next year, the Healthy Parks Healthy People Congress. We've just gone live with registrations and in commencing the marketing for the event, I'm reminded of a great zero budget marketing tip.

As this is a first time event, and Parks Victoria don't usually run this sort of event, and because we want to attract people from around the world, we don't have a big database to market the event to. So I've been getting in touch with the many partners and supporters of the event - those that do have databases - and asking them to promote it for us. It's in their interest, as you don't want to partner with an event that's not successful and they also want to be seen by their members/subscribers/customers as being involved in something important. And it's in our interest, the only "cost" is the 10% cheaper registration we're offering to partner organisation members.

So it's the perfect "zero budget marketing" strategy.

Does this apply outside events? Of course. Every business has something they want to promote. Every business wants to be able to reach new prospects with a tailored marketing message. So who would like to talk to YOUR customers. And who's customers would YOU like to talk to.

It's not as hard as you might think to pick up the phone and say "I've got this idea that would work for both of us". I guarantee that in 90% of cases, you'll get a yes if it's an offer that works as well for them as it does for you.

Making people smile is a great (cheap) marketing tactic

I saw a fantastic little idea when buying lunch today. I grabbed a wrap from Zest Wraps at QV. I was already feeling pretty virtous, as they make clear how healthy & low fat their wraps are. But some smart marketing cookie spent a few cents - and some serious brainpower - in making me feel even better after my purchase.

You see, the wraps come in paper. This paper needs to be held together by some sort of tape or sticker. Instead of having a plain old sticker, the little sticker had a little message on it. It said "You're special."

Now, let's not get into why I need a sticker to give me some love. Let's just say, it made me smile. It re-inforced my purchase decision. That little sticker has actually made me keen to buy another wrap and see what the next one says!

And think about it. This is a real "zero budget" idea. It would cost maybe a few CENTS to add this little sticker. But it has BIG impact. It makes a statement about the kind of brand it is. One that cares for you, your health and your happiness.

Yes, I know it was just lunch, but it's a lunch I'll remember, as a consumer not just a marketer.

So what insight is there to be gained from this clever idea? What cheap and easy opportunities are there for YOU to make your customers smile? Are you missing opportunities in EXISTING vehicles, like emails, phone messages or on your packaging. If you make someone happy, they're not only likely to buy again, they're likely to TELL OTHER PEOPLE.

It's marketers gold. For a few, little cents. Congrats, Zest. You're my "zero budget marketing" hero for the week!

Tabasco undertaking some smart ZBM tactics

I was rather excited to read a story in today's Australian about US Sauce company, Tabasco, employing a bit of "zero budget marketing" thinking to expanding it's marketing in Australia.

Admitting they had great brand recognition but not much in the way of a marketing budget, instead of trying to employ mass marketing to get to consumers, they're trying to talk to chefs & restauranteurs - to both use it as an ingredient and have it as a condiment front of house.

This advocacy over advertising is a smart strategy that gets your product in the hands of potential consumers - whilst funding this campaign through channel sales. It's a "trial" opportunity for the brand, sampling in a more smart fashion.

So what can we learn from this? That when it's too hard or too expensive to try and talk to your end market, the smart effort goes to trying to identify a channel and influencers, to get your brand in front of prospects. Who haven't you been talking to that you should have been?...

Another email marketing tool that's the right price!

Email marketing is something most business people and marketers live buy, but finding a cheap enough and good enough service can be tricky. Most affordable solutions are US based and I've come across another good one - AWeber. Their monthly fees are reasonable, esp if you don't have a massive list (eg. $US19 for up to 500 subscribers)

But even if you don't want to use their service, I came across a GREAT tip on their blog.

Turn Your Blog’s Best Content Into an Automated Email Newsletter

There’s no reason to put all that hard work into creating great content, then get just one round of clicks, comments and other actions from it. Why be satisfied with that?

Much of your blog’s content isn’t only relevant at one particular time. Get that old content out to them and make it fresh again!

Create an Autoresponder Campaign For Your Blog in 3 Easy Steps:

1. Identify Your Best Content
2. Turn Each Post or Group of Posts Into an Email
3. Add Your Emails To Your Follow Up SeriesOnce you have your emails together, create them as schedule "follow up" messages to subscribers.

You can check out the detailed entry here.

What I really like about this idea is the opportunity to stay in touch with new subscribers/customers for very little effort or cost. It's a great way to manage a user experience with you and not leave it up to them to remember to come back and see you!