Page 87 - 101 Ways to Market Your Business

101 WAYS TO MARKET YOUR BUSINESS

People love to win things. Most of us rarely win but
when we do it’s a lot of fun. We live with the hope of
winning, hence we buy lottery tickets, gamble at casinos,
punt at the races and generally live in hope of winning the
big one.

Try sitting down and putting a competition together to
encourage people to use your business. There are a few
guidelines to consider before embarking on this project:

• Check on gaming regulations to make sure that you
can run a competition in your area.

• Make the prize something that you would want to win.
• Make it easy for people to enter.
• Let people enter as many times as they want to.
• Make certain that you promote the competition.

Competitions don’t necessarily have to offer huge prizes
but they do need to be prizes that people would like to
win. A friend of mine owns a country hotel. Every week
she gives away a carton of beer and a meat tray in a raffle
that is free to enter. This promotion costs her about $50
per week. One of the conditions of winning is that you
have to be at the hotel when the prize is drawn somewhere
between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. on the Friday. As you can
imagine the pub is crowded and the draw is a big part of
the evening.

There is nothing to stop you giving away a prize every
week and in some ways lots of small prizes can be better
than one big one as you will end up with more happy
winners. Quite often sponsors can be found who supply
the prizes free of charge in return for the publicity.

Another added bonus of having a competition where
people leave their name, telephone number and mailing
address is that you now have a mailing list that can be used
in direct marketing campaigns.

I have never been to a doctor’s surgery where they offer
a free consultation as a prize or a mechanic where one lucky

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