Preneur Marketing - The Blog of Entrepreneur Pete Williams

Here is another couple of interactive billboards - I love these as they are so creative.
This one is for KINKO’s Office Supplies in the USA.

I am not sure who has to mow the lawn daily - but another great interactive billboard. This time for BIC RAZORS.

We have all experienced the brilliance of Word of Mouth Marketing in our businesses, it is a powerful way to “spread the word”. In a recent article that was posted on the Customer Evangelists Blog. The numbers say it all ….

• 56: The average number of times an American discusses brands in ordinary conversations every week.
• 72%: The percentage of brand-related opinions delivered from a person to a family member or personal friend; 13% are delivered to co-workers and 7% are delivered by a professional or expert on the topic. (I suppose that puts us marketing bloggers in the distinct minority.)
• 41%: Number of conversations about brands that reference an item seen or heard in the media or in marketing material; 15% refer to an ad, 8% refer to a form of editorial or entertainment content, 5% refer to a point of purchase item, and 4% refer to the lowly coupon or other promotion.
• 62%: Percentage of marketing-related discussions described as “mostly positive.”
• 9%: Percentage of marketing-related discussions described as “mostly negative.”
• 92%: Percentage of word of mouth conversations that occur offline; 71% of those occur face-to-face, and 21% occur by phone.

These stats are courtesy of a new study (PDF) from the Keller Fay Group.

I received a gift voucher the other day, it was the typical DL size certificate that was valid for $50 at the given store. I really appreciated it, however it got me thinking - Why don’t stores actually make their gift certificates actual gifts?

I mean wouldn’t it be more enjoyable for the gift giver to be able to wrap something substantial up as opposed to simply giving an envelope? For example couldn’t a clothing store actually print t-shirts which are the actual gift certificate - It wouldn’t cost more then $5.00 per t-shirt to produce but I bet they would sell 10 times as many gift certificates because they are unique and are tangible.

A Shoe store could embroid the gift certificate into a sock?
A Hardware store could engrave small shovels?
A Hairdresser could engrave a small hand-mirror?
A travel agency could create a ‘message in a bottle’ style gift voucher?

Do you have a sales checklist in your business?

Sales checklists are a great sales tool - Not only will they help your customers make the right choice of product but they will more often then not upsell your customers into additional products.

A Paint store could create a checklist they give customers when they enter the store titled ‘The A1 Paint Job Checklist - Everything you need to know and to create a killer paint job’. They could then list all the items required to do a perfect paint job
1. 9m brush
2. Roller
3.Turps
4. Masking Tape etc etc

A Travel Agents checklist could include:
1. Airport Parking
2. Car Hire
3. Travellers Checks
4. Luggage etc etc

By simply assisitng and educating your customers its amazing how many add-ons you will be able to incorporate into the sale.

What a creative way to promote your product… This interactive outdoor ad for Friskies bird seed makes a wonderful connection to the product, the audience and the product benefit - I think the birds like it aswell. I communicates everything it needs to in a straight forward way- yet, at the same time very very innovative.

3M have also embrassed the growing trend of intereactive billboards with this unqiue approach to advertising thier 3M Bandages.