A Winning Promotional Strategy

Here’s how to get your best prospects to call you, and the cost to you is $20. Send me the $20 and I’ll tell you.

It was a joke.  Come-on, lighten up.  You can send me the $20 later.  It does cost $20 a lead, but hey, they’re your best prospects — and you’re going to get to them to call you.  How much is that very warm lead worth?  What are you paying to get each lead to call you now?

Gather a list of your top 100 prospects.  What?  You don’t have a ready list of your top 100 prospects?  Shame on you.  If I was your boss, and you were one of the most beautiful women in the world…  Well, as long as I was wishing I thought I’d wish for something I really really wanted – and frankly, who cares about being your boss…

So, if you run a big firm, make that a list of your top 500 prospects.  And make that a $100.  Frankly, if these “top prospects” aren’t worth the money to get each of them to call you, you need to rethink your list—and your business revenue models.  But for now, suppose they are and you have this list.  Here’s what to do.

Write a nice letter about how great your service is and how great your products are. Blah blah blah – it doesn’t matter what you say here, they won’t really read it. But up in the top right, type the following:

If this number: 6675657

Matches your WINNING NUMBER

~ 6675657 ~

You have won a CROSS PEN!

You’re a WINNER!

Please call me (610-642-1000) to redeem this letter for your FREE CROSS PEN.  Thanks and congratulations!

No one knows all the numbers are winning numbers, and they don’t have to know.  They’ll just see that they are a winner.  Everyone likes to be a winner, and everyone likes Cross pens. You can buy them for about twenty bucks if you shop around.

If possible, print the “matching number” you showed in the center in a different typeface or a different color so it looks like you stamped it on the page.

I did a variation of this promotion for a client at a trade show to get high-end attendees to stop at our booth.  You could see their face light up at the end of our isle when they caught their first glimpse of our booth!

It was really easy to tell who these folks were – they came bounding down the isle, unflinching gaze locked on our booth like we would leave or it wouldn’t be there if they turned away for a second.  As they got closer, you could see the big smile on their faces and tightly clutching our letter in their sweaty little hands.

Results?  Ouch: we ran out of pens in the first hour!  Then, despite buying all the Cross pens from every local office supply store in the area before lunch, we ran out again by 1:30.  Finally – we had to give “Cross Pen Gift Certificates” (rain check), and our promise to send everyone a pen when we got back.  It really was a great and successful promotion.  If you have a booth at a trade show, this promotion rocks.

Do this right and your own prospects will all be winners.  You’ll be a winner by having your best prospects call you – isn’t that nice for a change?

Not so fast.

Whether you hand prospects a pen or send it in the mail, it’s important to have a nice letter go with it.  Even though people will be happy they’ve won, the value YOU receive from the promotion (as the contributor of the gift) is in the letter – and it should be a great one.  Anyone can give out a pen, but the letter is your chance to change a prospect into a client, or solidify a valuable client relationship.

Fax me a copy of your letter that accompanies each pen (610-642-6832) and I’ll tune it up, no charge. If it really stinks, I’ll just scribble “This Stinks” on it with my big red pen and send it back.  New letters from me are available to really kick up your response, but I ain’t cheap – just really good.  Did you want cheap?  Or maximum response?

Next, when you give someone a Cross Pen, you might offer to have it engraved with their name on it.  While it won’t be an immediate gift, it will have greater value over time both when it arrives at their office and forever more.

It costs a few additional bucks, but can be worth it.  Engraving their name on the pen assures it will go in their shirt pocket instead of in their desk drawer.  And yes, by having it arrive in the mail it will leave a greater brand impression of you and your company.

Last, if you want to see how important this letter can be and how it generates clients – drop me a note.  Write your name and address on the back of that $20 you’ve owed me since the 4th paragraph, and I’ll send you a sample letter.  OK, fine: I’ll send it for free.  Hey, when you get right down to it I’m pretty nice.  Right?

– Jeffrey