How to Do a Successful, Low Cost, Small Business Promotion
Promotions can be profitable or costly. Here’s how to do it right
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Table of Contents
∘ What Makes a Promotion Work?
∘ How Long Have You Been in Business?
∘ Aren’t Promotions Expensive?
∘ It Doesn’t Take Much to Attract Attention
∘ Who Needs Help in Your Community?
∘ Make Sure You’re Prepared To Promote
∘ Some Things Are Real and Some Are Not
∘ What If It Bombs?
∘ The Last Word On Low Cost Promotion
Marketing, advertising, and promotion. So alike in some ways and so different in others.
Each will absorb all the finances you want to throw at them and still ask for more.
Before we start, just so there’s no misunderstanding, let’s define promotion.
My definition of promotion is the use of any means that places your business in a more noticeable position for a period of time.
Usually a short period of time. For years promoters have filled baseball stadiums with fans…right? Wrong.
They fill the stands with people who are there for the freebies. Beanie Baby® night, cap night, baseball card night and the lists go on and on.
And each “premium”(?) has a company name on it. “Welcome to First Interstate Bank, Goodyear Tire, Cheese Whiz cap night.”
Brings tears to your eyes, doesn’t it?
What Makes a Promotion Work?
In order for any promotion to work it must be directed to the right people.
Filling your store with bodies that don’t buy anything, and never return, is as wasteful as advertising in the wrong media.
Promotions work because they attract the right people…YOUR target market.
These are the people who have a need and desire for your products and/or services. Before any promotion can work effectively this market must be identified.
