Page 248 - 101 Ways to Market Your Business

ANOTHER 20 MARKETING IDEAS

118 Send money to get attention

It is always hard to get someone’s attention with a letter,
especially if you are trying to sell them something. I have
seen (and discussed earlier) a number of cute ideas, such
as attaching a tea bag and starting the letter with ‘Enjoy a
cup of tea while you read this letter’. The problem can be
that it is done to death. In the space of one week I received
about ten letters with tea bags attached. While I think it
is a great idea (and my shopping bill was cut down dra-
matically that week), why not try to be a little more
creative?

A clever idea I discovered recently was based on attach-
ing a coin to a letter. Stick it right slap bang in the middle
of the page. A gold coin looks great but a silver one will
do. You start your letter off with a big bold heading like:

Do you earn the equivalent of $249 600 per year?
Because that is what I would like to pay you to read this
letter. It will take about 30 seconds for you to read the
attached letter. I would like to pay you $1 for your 30
seconds. That is the equivalent of $2 per minute or $120
per hour or $4800 per week or $249 600 per year. It
really is 30 seconds well spent.

Now that you are on the payroll, here is what I
would like to tell you about . . .

Now this idea works for two reasons. The first is that
it will definitely stand out from every other piece of junk
mail that we receive on a daily basis and second, who could
resist reading the attached letter after an introduction like
that? I am sure the odd cynic would put their hand up
but, believe me, the vast majority of people couldn’t help
but read a letter as unusual as this.

Of course you could face the problem that after a
while everyone will be doing it but the best way to avoid
that particular problem is to be the first. If you want to

233