Inexpensive Promotion With Added Goodwill
The general manager at a fairly large store asked me recently if I knew of any inexpensive ways that they could promote their Saturday business and add some excitement for their sales staff. They had tried several different things some were successful and some were not. They had already tried signs, banners, balloons, newspaper ads, hot dogs and hamburgers, and many other ideas.
One promotion idea that I liked came from one of my local Wal Marts. My niece’s high school band had a car wash there. Every Saturday they donate some space in their parking lot, a hose, some fancy sprayers, a couple of buckets and car wash soap. These are also all things that they sell and even though I went there just for the car wash I ended up buying a sprayer, too.
I found out that different groups from all over the area line up to reserve these Saturday slots. They get to keep all of the money that they earn for the band, cheerleaders or whatever. This kind of event generates plenty of excitement and the groups do their own promotion. They tell everyone that they know all week that they are having a car wash, where they are having it and how nice the business was to donate the space. Not only that, on the day of the event having happy kids jumping around with signs promoting their car wash brings much more attention to the business than balloons ever will.
The groups earn much needed money and the business who donates the space gets promotion, excitement, community goodwill and maybe even an extra sale or two. It sure sounds like a win-win situation to me, so I thought I would pass it on to you.
