How to increase your business revenue, profits, and value.
by Reed Sawyer
+1 Demo: Async load
One of the best ways to increase your business volume is to have an event. When I was a mortgage broker out in Colorado, we would do an event every month. We would offer free hot dogs or pizza, a bouncy tent for the kids, and we would offer great rates for a refinance. The amount of business that we would get from those events would be two thirds of our revenue for the month.
A friend of mine has a barbecue place in Apopka. Every Thursday night he has a biker night with live music, hot waitresses, and the best barbecue in the city. It draws hundreds of people, and it brings in new customers, that he then converts into repeat customers.
I was the director of Marketing for a Sewing and Vacuum shop. We had a seminar for a Stabilizer company (The fabric that embroidery is sewn on so that it doesn't bunch up after washing). We pushed it hard, and had three classes, bringing in people that had never heard of our business before, and doing a huge volume.
What exactly is an event?
An event is something that draws new people to your store/business, and gets them to spend money that they would not ordinarily spend.
What are examples of an "event".
1) Do a promotion with a radio show to offer a special sale.
2) Do a promotion with outside food and beverage (if you are not a restaurant). An example would be a car dealership offering free hot dogs and sodas to people on a Saturday.
3) Do a seminar. It doesn't even have to be something that you are giving, you could find a business that needs to promote their business, and you have the space, chairs, or tables to provide a seminar space. In that event, you can promote the event, without a lot of cost, and bring people in to your business that might not ever visit your store.
4) Have a musician play at your location. (This works best for bars and restaurants, but I have also seen it for retail stores.)
5) Have complimentary businesses, do a co-op event with you. Each of the businesses markets to your own customers/clients, and bring people to the event.
6) Have a promotional model come in (Pretty girls are the best), Do give-aways, coupons, and discounts and make it fun.
How do you attract new customers to your business?
The best way is to reach them through your current customers. Do a fishbowl, gather email addresses and tell people the BIG NEWS about your upcoming promotion. What's in it for them? Why would they want to come?
The next best way to do this is to advertise. I would suggest a co-op marketing campaign where you find neighboring businesses (non-competitive) that would like to have more business, and do a co-op advertising campaign to keep the cost of advertising per business low.
Another way to bring in customers is through a newsletter/blog/facebook/social media outlet. If you are skilled in creating exciting and interesting posts, invite people to come to your event, and give them a coupon or gift for attending.
Do's and Don'ts for an event:
1) Do know your costs. For advertising, speaker fees, premiums, everything that you will be spending money on, you must know the costs ahead of time, or you could grow your business into bankruptcy. If you have a 10% profit margin, you must get at least 10 dollars in new revenue for every dollar that you spend.
2) Do have a REASON for the promotion. Why would anyone want to come? If it is not compelling enough, make it compelling, or don't do it.
3) Do have a way to track attendance, sales, and profits, so that you can decide if you want to do it again. If you are not tracking your advertising dollars, you are wasting your money. Every person that comes into the store should be asked, nicely, "By the way, how did you hear of us?" That response should be noted, and put into a spreadsheet. List the source of the lead, the amount purchased, and the quality of the customer. (How often do they come in? How much do they typically buy? Are they a good customer?)Olympus Tg320 14Mp Digital Camera (Google Affiliate Ad)
by Reed Sawyer
One of the best ways to increase your business volume is to have an event. When I was a mortgage broker out in Colorado, we would do an event every month. We would offer free hot dogs or pizza, a bouncy tent for the kids, and we would offer great rates for a refinance. The amount of business that we would get from those events would be two thirds of our revenue for the month.
A friend of mine has a barbecue place in Apopka. Every Thursday night he has a biker night with live music, hot waitresses, and the best barbecue in the city. It draws hundreds of people, and it brings in new customers, that he then converts into repeat customers.
I was the director of Marketing for a Sewing and Vacuum shop. We had a seminar for a Stabilizer company (The fabric that embroidery is sewn on so that it doesn't bunch up after washing). We pushed it hard, and had three classes, bringing in people that had never heard of our business before, and doing a huge volume.
What exactly is an event?
An event is something that draws new people to your store/business, and gets them to spend money that they would not ordinarily spend.
What are examples of an "event".
1) Do a promotion with a radio show to offer a special sale.
2) Do a promotion with outside food and beverage (if you are not a restaurant). An example would be a car dealership offering free hot dogs and sodas to people on a Saturday.
3) Do a seminar. It doesn't even have to be something that you are giving, you could find a business that needs to promote their business, and you have the space, chairs, or tables to provide a seminar space. In that event, you can promote the event, without a lot of cost, and bring people in to your business that might not ever visit your store.
4) Have a musician play at your location. (This works best for bars and restaurants, but I have also seen it for retail stores.)
5) Have complimentary businesses, do a co-op event with you. Each of the businesses markets to your own customers/clients, and bring people to the event.
6) Have a promotional model come in (Pretty girls are the best), Do give-aways, coupons, and discounts and make it fun.
How do you attract new customers to your business?
The best way is to reach them through your current customers. Do a fishbowl, gather email addresses and tell people the BIG NEWS about your upcoming promotion. What's in it for them? Why would they want to come?
The next best way to do this is to advertise. I would suggest a co-op marketing campaign where you find neighboring businesses (non-competitive) that would like to have more business, and do a co-op advertising campaign to keep the cost of advertising per business low.
Another way to bring in customers is through a newsletter/blog/facebook/social media outlet. If you are skilled in creating exciting and interesting posts, invite people to come to your event, and give them a coupon or gift for attending.
Do's and Don'ts for an event:
1) Do know your costs. For advertising, speaker fees, premiums, everything that you will be spending money on, you must know the costs ahead of time, or you could grow your business into bankruptcy. If you have a 10% profit margin, you must get at least 10 dollars in new revenue for every dollar that you spend.
2) Do have a REASON for the promotion. Why would anyone want to come? If it is not compelling enough, make it compelling, or don't do it.
3) Do have a way to track attendance, sales, and profits, so that you can decide if you want to do it again. If you are not tracking your advertising dollars, you are wasting your money. Every person that comes into the store should be asked, nicely, "By the way, how did you hear of us?" That response should be noted, and put into a spreadsheet. List the source of the lead, the amount purchased, and the quality of the customer. (How often do they come in? How much do they typically buy? Are they a good customer?)Olympus Tg320 14Mp Digital Camera (Google Affiliate Ad)
