Page 85 - 101 Ways to Market Your Business

101 WAYS TO MARKET YOUR BUSINESS

25 Use a spruiker to draw in the crowds

If your business is in the right location, ideally one with
plenty of passing traffic, a ‘spruiker’ can really draw a
crowd. Spruikers are the people on the end of the micro-
phone normally used to promote a sale within a store.
Sometimes the spruiker will roam from one ‘red light
special’ to another, driving the crowd into a buying frenzy.

Spruikers can be dressed in costume, amplified, ani-
mated on video screens or a combination of all, so long as
they are good on a microphone and not afraid to interact
with the public.

Before employing the services of a spruiker it is always
a good idea to check local regulations, particularly if your
business is in a shopping centre. There may be limitations
on the amount of noise you can make.

One business I know of uses a spruiker to walk around
the shopping centre handing out flyers. For an exercise they
stopped the spruiker for one month and found that busi-
ness dropped by 30 per cent. Obviously for this particular
company it works and it is considered an essential compo-
nent of the company’s marketing activity.

If you have never used a spruiker before and you are
planning a big sale or promotion of some sort, give it some
consideration. If you do use a spruiker try and compare
figures to a similar sale held previously to determine if it
works for your business.

A word of warning: some spruikers are shocking. Try
to check them out first. If you get one back to your
business and you have the unfortunate experience of find-
ing they are scaring people or using the microphone to chat
up passers-by, gently give them the rest of the day off.

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