As I was sorting through my mail the other day, I noticed I had three postcard type mailings from stores around the area. All of which I have shopped at within the last three months or so. It got me thinking about advertising and how I haven’t taken advantage of every option I have out there to advertise.
It is often said that word of mouth is the best type of advertising and so far I have relied on people spreading the word, but I haven’t actively gotten them involved. How are people supposed to help me build my business when I don’t remind them about me?
Those postcards I sorted through the other day are just that – reminders about a business. Each of those postcards also offered some sort of sale or discount if I came back. That’s when I realized I should be doing the same thing.
At that, an idea was born. I decided to start a referral program. All that one of my current customers needs to do is refer someone to my site. For each $10 that referred person spends, the original customer will receive $1.00 toward a purchase. So let’s say a customer refers 3 people who each spend $30. That means that the original customer has earned $9 toward their own purchase. It will add up and they can choose to use it whenever they’d like.
Now the question was how to get this new program out there. I had just gotten my latest promotion email from VistaPrint.com with a sale on postcards. I decided to have some postcards printed up with the referral program information on one side and then on the other side there’s a 10% coupon for their next purchase.
It’s nothing fancy, but this is my first mailing of any sort to my customers. I’m pretty happy with this as my start and will probably come up with another mailing to do. Probably something for fall in August and then the Christmas/Holiday Season in October.
Now to just see if anything comes of this mailing.
Nanuk's Igloo 