Here are many business promotional ideas I wanted to outline that in combination could lead to an explosion of community involvement and cinema awareness throughout a theater’s local county region. I had originally sculpted this effort for a past employer/account but since they did not go with any of it, it is mine to publish and share since it is really only ideas to provoke implementation anyways… It’s too bad they didn’t capitolize on my energy, they do not get Marketing and it’s no wonder why they are stagnant in thier marketplace.
A ‘Now Showing’ Ticker Sign
Half Off Day -
or Half Off all showings of one film for two weeks span . . .
Date Movie -
Bring your spouse/friend(x1) in for FREE with buying a Large Pop-corn
- it will make them want to buy a drink too !
Patriotic Movie Day -
like Perl Harbor day ( playing the Ben Affleck Movie etc) , have something like half off for Veterans of famililes
Joint Marketing and Promotional Opportunities
On Stage Acts & Appearances
Gift Certificate Ideas / Micro Campaigns
revitalize of all forms of the art of theatre
fosters relationships with organizations such as the Concierge Association, the Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau, Philadelphia Hospitality Inc., the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation, and the Independence Visitors Center
Advertise in the classified advertising section of your community or local newspaper.
Advertise in the Yellow Pages or Thomson Local
Advertise on a supermarket trolley
Approach your prospective customers over the phone.
Approach your prospective customers in person.
Approach your prospective customers through the mail.
Be a guest speaker at seminars and present on your area of expertise.
Be a guest speaker on radio talk shows.
Build and maintain a customer mailing and contact list on database software.
Build your image with well-designed letterhead and business cards.
Design a brochure that best explains the benefits of your services.
Design a mail order campaign.
Design a point of sale display for your product.
Design a telemarketing campaign.
Design an image building logo for your company.
Design and distribute a quarterly newsletter or an industry update announcement.
Design and distribute company calendars, mugs, pens, note pads, or other advertising specialities displaying your company name and logo.
Design and distribute a free “how to do it” handout related to your industry (e.g. Tips for conserving energy in your home).
Design buttons, transfers and car stickers or balloons with your company name, logo or slogan.
Design T-shirts displaying your company name and logo.
Explore cross promotion with a non-competing company selling to your target market.
Explore the costs of advertising in newspapers, magazines, on radio, television, billboards, bus shelters and benches. Refer to the publication British Rates and Data (BRAD) for some of this information.
Explore ways to share your advertising costs using cooperative advertising.
Follow up customer purchases with a thank you letter.
Follow up customer purchases with Christmas or birthday cards.
Have your company profiled in a magazine or newspaper that is read by prospective customers.
Hire an advertising agency or public relations firm.
Hold a promotional contest.
Hold a seminar on your service, product or industry.
Include promotional material with your invoices.
Look for prospective customers at trade shows related to your industry.
Look for prospective customers in associations related to your industry.
Look for prospective customers at seminars related to your industry.
Look for prospective customers in magazines and newspapers related to your industry.
Package your brochure, price lists and letter in a folder for your customers.
Place a pavement sign outside your store or office.
Place flyers on bulletin boards and car windscreens.
Place promotional notes on your envelopes, mailing labels.
Place signs or paint logos on your company vehicle(s).
Prepare a corporate video.
Prepare a list of product features and benefits to help you plan your advertising and promotional campaigns.
Prepare proposals offering solutions to your customer’s needs
Provide free samples of your product or service.
Provide public tours of your company site or factory.
Sponsor a charity event.
Sponsor an amateur sports team.
Sponsor a cultural event through a community arts organisation.
Design a Web Site
Develop a link, or links, from your web site to others and vice versa
Develop a database of potential customers and telephone them to arrange a demonstration
More Marketing Ideas
Marketing is all about satisfying customer needs. The following represents a comprehensive list of marketing ideas; use it to help better understand customer needs and ways to satisfy those needs.
General Ideas
Never let a day pass without engaging in at least one marketing activity.
Determine a percentage of gross income to spend annually on marketing.
Set specific marketing goals every year; review and adjust quarterly.
Maintain a tickler file of ideas for later use.
Carry business cards with you (all day, every day).
Create a personal nametag or pin with your company name and logo on it and wear it at high visibility meetings.
Target Market
Stay alert to trends that might impact your target market, product, or promotion strategy.
Read market research studies about your profession, industry, product, target market groups, etc.
Collect competitors’ ads and literature; study them for information about strategy, product features, benefits, etc.
Ask clients why they hired you and solicit suggestions for improvement.
Ask former clients why they left you.
Identify a new market.
Join a list-serve (e-mail list) related to your profession.
Subscribe to an Internet usenet newsgroup or a list-serve that serves your target market.
Product Development
Create a new service, technique, or product.
Offer a simpler/cheaper/smaller version of your (or existing) product or service.
Offer a fancier/more expensive/faster/bigger version of your (or existing) product or service.
Update your services.
Education, Resources, and Information
Establish a marketing and public relations advisory and referral team composed of your colleagues and/or neighboring business owners; share ideas and referrals and discuss community issues. Meet quarterly for breakfast.
Create a suggestion box for employees.
Attend a marketing seminar.
Read a marketing book.
Subscribe to a marketing newsletter or other publication.
Subscribe to a marketing list-serve on the Internet.
Subscribe to a marketing usenet newsgroup on the Internet.
Train your staff, clients, and colleagues to promote referrals.
Hold a monthly marketing meeting with employees or associates to discuss strategy and status and solicit marketing ideas.
Join an association or organization related to your profession.
Get a marketing intern to take you on as a client; it will give the intern experience and you some free marketing help.
Maintain a consultant card file for finding designers, writers, and other marketing professionals. Hire a marketing consultant to brainstorm with.
Take a creative journey to another progressive city or county to observe and learn from marketing techniques used there.
Pricing and Payment
Analyze your fee structure; look for areas requiring modifications or adjustments. Establish a credit card payment option for clients.
Give regular clients a discount.
Learn to barter; offer discounts to members of certain clubs/professional groups/organizations in exchange for promotions in their publications.
Give quick pay or cash discounts.
Offer financing or installment plans.
Marketing Communications
Publish a newsletter for customers and prospects (it doesn’t have to be fancy or expensive). Develop a brochure of services.
Include a postage-paid survey card with your brochures and other company literature. Include check-off boxes or other items that will involve the reader and provide valuable feedback to you.
Remember, business cards aren’t working for you if they’re in the box. Pass them out! Give prospects two business cards and brochures - one to keep and one to pass along.
Produce separate business cards/sales literature for each of your target market segments (e.g. government and commercial and/or business and consumer).
Create a poster or calendar to give away to customers and prospects.
Print a slogan and/or one-sentence description of your business on letterhead, fax cover sheets, and invoices. Develop a site on the World Wide Web.
Create a signature file to be used for all your e-mail messages. It should contain contact details, including your Web site address and key information about your company that will make the reader want to contact you.
Include testimonials from customers in your literature.
Test a new mailing list. If it produces results, add it to your current direct mail lists or consider replacing a list that’s not performing up to expectations.
Rather than sending direct mail in plain white envelopes, use colored or oversized envelopes to pique recipients’ curiosity.
Announce free or special offers in your direct response pieces. (Direct responses may be direct mail, broadcast faxes, or e-mail messages.) Include the offer in the beginning of the message as well as on the outside of the envelope for direct mail.
Media Relations
Update your media list often so that press releases are sent to the right media outlet and person.
Write a column for the local newspaper, local business journal, or trade publication.
Publish an article and circulate reprints.
Send timely and newsworthy press releases as often as needed.
Publicize your 500th client of the year (or other notable milestone).
Create an annual award and publicize it.
Get public relations and media training or read up on it.
Appear on a radio or TV talk show.
Create your own TV program on your industry or your specialty. Market the show to your local cable station or public broadcasting station as a regular program, or see if you can air your show on an open access cable channel.
Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper or trade magazine.
Take an editor to lunch.
Get a publicity photo taken and enclose with press releases.
Consistently review newspapers and magazines for possible PR opportunities.
Submit tip articles to newsletters and newspapers.
Conduct industry research and develop a press release or article to announce an important discovery in your field.
Create a press kit and keep its contents current.
Customer Service and Customer Relations
Ask your clients to come back again.
Return phone calls promptly.
Set up a fax-on-demand or email system to easily respond to customer inquiries.
Use an answering machine or voice mail system to catch after-hours phone calls. Include basic information in your outgoing messages such a business hours, location, etc.
Record a memorable message or tip of the day on your outgoing answering machine or voice mail message.
Ask clients what you can do the help them.
Take clients out to a ball game, show, or another special event - just send them two tickets with a note. Hold a seminar at your office for clients and prospects.
Send handwritten thank you notes.
Send birthday cards and appropriate seasonal greetings.
Photocopy interesting articles and send them to clients and prospects with a hand-written FYI note and your business card.
Send a book of interest or other appropriate business gift to a client with a handwritten note.
Create an area on your Web site specifically for your customers.
Redecorate your office or location where you meet with your clients.
Networking and Word of Mouth
Join a Chamber of Commerce or other organization.
Join or organize a breakfast club with other professionals (not in your field) to discuss business and network referrals.
Mail a brochure to members of organizations to which you belong.
Serve on a city board or commission.
Host a holiday party.
Hold an open house.
Send letters to attendees after you attend a conference.
Join a community list-serve (e-mail list) on the Internet.
Advertising
Advertise during peak seasons for your business.
Get a memorable phone number, such as 1-800-WIDGETS.
Obtain a memorable URL and email address and include them on all marketing materials.
Provide Rolodex® cards or phone stickers preprinted with your business contact information.
Promote your business jointly with other professionals via cooperative direct mail.
Advertise in a specialty directory or in the Yellow Pages.
Write an ad in another language to reach the non-English-speaking market. Place the ad in a publication that market reads, such as a Hispanic newspaper.
Distribute advertising specialty products such as pens, mouse pads, or mugs.
Mail bumps - photos, samples, and other innovative items to your prospect list. (A bump is simply anything that makes the mailing envelope bulge and makes the recipient curious about what’s in the envelope!)
Create a direct mail list of hot prospects.
Consider non-traditional tactics such as bus backs, billboards, and popular Web sites.
Project a message on the sidewalk in front of your place of business using a light directed through words etched in a glass window.
Consider placing ads in your newspaper’s classified section.
Consider a vanity automobile tag with your company name.
Create a friendly bumper sticker for your car.
Code your ads and keep records of results.
Improve your building signage and directional signs inside and out.
Invest in a neon sign to make your office or storefront window visible at night.
Create a new or improved company logo or recolor the traditional logo.
Sponsor and promote a contest or sweepstakes.
Special Events and Outreach
Get a booth at a fair/trade show attended by your target market.
Sponsor or host a special event or open house at your business location in cooperation with a local non-profit organization, such as a women’s business center. Describe how the organization helped you.
Give a speech or volunteer for a career day at a high school.
Teach a class or seminar at a local college or adult education center.
Sponsor an Adopt-a-Road area in your community to keep roads litter-free. People that pass by the area will see your name on the sign announcing your sponsorship.
Volunteer your time to a charity or non-profit organization.
Donate your product or service to a charity auction.
Appear on a panel at a professional seminar.
Write a How To pamphlet or article for publishing.
Produce and distribute an educational CD-ROM or audio/video tape.
Publish a book.
Sales Ideas
Start every day with two cold calls.
Read newspapers, business journals, and trade publications for new business openings, personnel appointments, and promotion announcements made by companies. Send your business literature to appropriate individuals and firms.
Give your sales literature to your lawyer, accountant, printer, banker, temp agency, office supply salesperson, advertising agency, etc. (Expand your sales force for free!)
Put your fax number on order forms for easy submission.
Set up a fax-on-demand or e-mail system to easily distribute responses to company or product inquiries.
Follow up on your direct mailings, email messages, and broadcast faxes with a friendly telephone call.
Try using the broadcast fax or email delivery methods instead of direct mail. (Broadcast fax and email allows you to send the same message to many locations at once.)
Use broadcast faxes or email messages to notify your customers of product service updates.
Extend your hours of operation.
Reduce response/turnaround time. Make reordering easy - use reminders. Provide preaddressed envelopes.
Display product and service samples at your office.
Remind clients of the products and services you provide that they aren’t currently buying.
Call and/or send mail to former clients to try and reactivate them.
Take sales orders over the Internet.
Hand Out Free Gifts
If you want guaranteed attention, offer a free gift. These can include: a free gift for a particular amount or item of purchase, a free gift for responding to a direct-mail solicitation, or a free gift of a second item with the purchase of a first - a more tantalizing and successful version of the two-for-one sale.
Also consider handing out specialty gifts to prospects and customers: free pens, scratchpads, mugs, T-shirts, and other items printed with your company name, address, phone number, and business slogan. To explore the range of gifts available, consult some of the “Advertising Specialties” firms listed in the Yellow Pages. Ask the reps to suggest gifts that have been used successfully in your industry and pay special attention to new, just-introduced items whose advanced design or technology may appeal strongly to your customers. Select gifts based on their appropriateness to your customers and your business, quality of construction, and tastefulness of design.
Use Coupons as an Advertising Vehicle
Coupons offer a proven method of generating trial. Enclose them in invoices. Hand them out at the cash register. Distribute them through your sales force. Include them in a coupon pack prepared by a direct-mail advertising house.
If you decide to produce your own coupon, study samples around you to see how they’re written and designed to specify the product and trumpet the savings boldly and unequivocally. If you give your coupon an expiration date, which you should do to encourage prompt use, make sure it’s conspicuous.
Like all other forms of advertising, coupons work best with repetition. You’ll need to try four or five, issued on a regular basis, to know how well they’re working; measure their effectiveness simply by counting the number redeemed.
Build Awareness Through Sweepstakes or Contests
Sweepstakes and contests provide exciting ways to build awareness of your products, services, and company, as well as produce the goodwill that giveaways naturally inspire. Whether entrants will win a free lunch at your restaurant or a free week in Paris (perhaps co-sponsored by a local travel agent), you must check the legalities with your lawyer before you start.
Then plan out your promotion step by step, from how customers will enter and how entries will be handled to whether you’ll award prizes below the grand-prize category. For example, will everyone win something just for entering?
Finally, create an entry form and eye-catching collection box and advertise with flyers, mailers, banners, store signs, newspaper ads, or radio spots. If you’ll collect entries in your store, place the box at the back of the premises so everybody must pass through your merchandise to reach it.
Afterwards, generate publicity about the winners and display photocopies of all resulting news stories at your business.
Be Creative with Telephone-hold Marketing
In most businesses, callers will at some point be placed on hold; play a telephone-hold audiotape that, over background music, talks about your products, services, or even your company itself. Besides helping the time pass faster, tapes can answer callers’ questions and even inform them of products or services they need but didn’t know you provide.
To find a company to produce your telephone-hold tape, check the Yellow Pages under “Telecommunications-Telephone Equipment, Services & Systems.” Most firms provide everything you need - produced tape, hookups, and phone equipment - for a monthly fee.
Sell with Store Signs
Use interior signs to tell customers about the goods and services you offer, such as free delivery, free alterations, or free trials. If you stock a specialty line, like environmentally- safe products, point it out. If you’ve just received merchandise with a high-demand feature, let customers know.
Signs also provide an easy way to answer customers’ most commonly-asked questions. Post explanatory labels to help customers differentiate among various models. Write out shelf signs describing special features that make products outstanding values or unique in their field, or telling customers where to find accessories.
Use signs, in short, to tout your company’s competitive advantages and to make shopping easier, more informative, and more motivating for your customers.
Act Now to Extend Your Seasonal Sales
Is your business seasonal? If so, suggests business writer Carol June, utilize year-round marketing to improve your sales. Before the season, stimulate repeat sales by sending coupons to current customers for upcoming purchases or offering special deals on early orders. After the season, use follow-up mailings or phone calls to stay in touch with customers and encourage their loyalty. Maintain interest with an end-of-season or off-season sale of leftover merchandise.
In the longer term, consider a second-season business or product line that would be both a logical extension of your current operation and appeal to your customers. A holiday fruitcake company, for example, might branch out into year-round baked goods, or a ski shop into camping gear. If you’re a retail firm, expand not your season but your customer base by adding a catalog or direct-mail wholesale operation.
To sum up, marketing is a 365-days-a-year job; it demands persistent attention in satisfying customers’ needs. Equally important, it requires a constant program of efforts to develop your customer base and stimulate sales - a program initiated and implemented most effectively by putting your own twist on direct, hard-working, tried-and-true ideas such as the 12 described above. It doesn’t take novelty or large sums of money to succeed in marketing; first and foremost, it takes action.
You’ve Got to Put the WOW Back in Business
As a private ticket agency now selling 250,000 tickets a year to theater, sports, and concert events throughout the U.S. and abroad, Ticket City in Austin, Texas has grown explosively since Randy Cohen (above) founded it in 1990.
“You’ve got to put the wow back in business,” says Cohen of his marketing methods. “You’ve got to plan your work and work your plan.”
That means promoting the customer’s interests and encouraging repeat business right from the start. For example, Ticket City doesn’t sell just “tickets,” but the “best seats” available. Staffers call back every single customer to say, “I want to make sure you had a fantastic time” at whatever event the customer attended. They may also phone to offer discount tickets to this year’s version of events that customers attended last year.
Though he advertises widely, usually in exchange for complimentary tickets, Cohen depends most on his telephone staff, making sure all are friendly,
engaging, and energetic, as well as deftly assertive about asking for the sale.
We Put the Money into the Quality
Since 1983, when he and his mother founded Gimmee Jimmy’s Cookies, Inc. in West Orange, New Jersey, James Libman has been uncompromising about the quality of cookie preparation and ingredients. He believes that once customers taste them, Gimmee Jimmy’s cookies sell themselves.
Accordingly, Libman’s marketing strategy has always centered on free samples. He launched Gimmee Jimmy’s with the help of extensive sampling, including his mother’s all-weather stints outside supermarkets until a large regional chain began carrying the line. Currently, he also sends out cookies as thank you customer gifts to dozens of New Jersey auto dealers, banks, brokerages, and other businesses.
The company works actively in the community. Besides belonging to several chambers of commerce, the firm donates its seconds to churches and schools - especially schools for the deaf, where Libman, who is deaf, often lectures to enraptured students.
Revenues have grown from $25,000 to $1 million, generated by sales in supermarkets, CompuServe, and fueled by inexpensive sampling. “We put the money into the quality,” explains office manager Fran Stack. “And,” she adds, “it shows.”
It All Starts at the Grassroots Level
“It all starts at the grassroots level with the employees,” says Allen, explaining Petersen Farms’ success since 1992, when he and his cousin Raymond Petersen took over the ailing family-run ice cream and restaurant chain in West Hartford, Connecticut
Believing that no marketing plan could succeed until employees were working together for the same goals, Petersen focused first on improving morale. He revived the old company newsletter and ran a newsletter-naming contest - won by the entry “Monthly Moos.” He invited employees to repaint the plant to their taste, which produced a pink, purple, and cow-spotted decor.
When it came to marketing, in-house creativity also prevailed, resulting in colorful, high-profile special events. For example, Petersen Farms transported the “world’s largest ice cream sandwich” to downtown Hartford and distributed free tastes. It developed a menu of items named for local radio personalities and donated 10 percent of revenues to charities. It organized a hospital fund raiser in which hospital teams raced to assemble chocolate-covered ice cream sandwiches; the chocolate flew.
“Use your imagination,” advises Petersen, “and you can do everything big companies can do, but on a far more economical scale.”
Your Best Customers Are Your Existing Customers
Steve and Maryellen Stofelano, owners of Mansion Hill Inn in Albany, New York’s inner-city Mansion District, have taken on two tasks: renewing their neighborhood and promoting their inn.
In the neighborhood, the couple’s efforts at reviving their street and hiring local residents have raised property values, won them a municipal award and made Mansion Hill Inn a place where guests can feel safe.
As for the inn itself, they’ve focused their marketing on their award-winning dining room. The Stofelanos serve only New York State wines, for example - a move that, in the state capital, has brought them notice and acclaim. The couple also offers numerous special-event dinners: wine-tasting dinners, cigar-smokers-only dinners, and “Mansion suppers” featuring the cuisines of their Polish, German, Italian, and African-American neighborhood.
In addition, using a mailing list of diners who sign up on comment cards that accompany dinner checks, the Stofelanos stay in touch with guests by sending notices of dinners or promotions like summertime room discounts for Albany residents. “Never forget,” comments Steve, “that your best customers are your existing customers.”
