There are always threads discussing how to market your business.
Here's a little deal that my daughter put together over the weekend. It was extremely successful and all I had to do is put up a little money, which came back to us almost immediately...
My daughter is very resourceful. She had several banners made, along with several hundred pens, cooly's and key chains... we bought 6 cases of water (36 bottles in each) at Costco which amounted to about 10 cents a bottle... loaded up 3 coolers with ice... and paid a small fee to be a vendor at a local function.
Brunswick county Virginia is the home of "BRUNSWICK STEW" not to be confused with "SHEEP STEW" which is made in Lunenburg county (where I reside) and is being made next weekend in Dundas, Va. (pop. 155).
So on the site of the local community college in Alberta, Va. known as the Cochran campus... which is usually referred to by the locals as.... UCLA.... (University of Cochran Located in Alberta)
There is held an annual function known as the "The Taste of Brunswick Festival"... it has gained in popularity over the years and includes an antique car show... the group, Sons of the Confederacy, have a big cannon that they shoot about every hour and scare the hell out of all the horses... people sell all sorts of food and represent about every concoction that you can think of.... all for local benefits and charities. Bands play... kids run and have fun and a good time is had by all.
Of course the main deal is the contest to see who makes the best Brunswick Stew.... well, this year, we decided to put up a little booth with "Virginia Bail Bonds".... my little company... representing "Free State Bail Bonds", my daughters and sons company... "Blue Ridge Bail Bonds" with free water, pens, cooly's and this year Dawn decided to have a really nice "CORNHOLE" GAME made up by one of the locals who happens to be a police officer but makes these nice custom game boards. Well, the boards with the corn bags cost us $200. We got some tickets and went to selling them for $1 apiece.
The thing really garnered a lot of attention and we did rather well for a small town vendor... we sold almost 600 tickets in about 4 hours and got a lot of attention... gave out almost all the water, cooly's, pens and key chains and of course our business cards.... lots and lots of questions and smiles and your not gonna believe this but only one person that I am aware of... ask about.... yeah.... d-g.....
I cannot tell you how many police officers came around for the free water and to comment on our booth.... Gail, myself, Dawn's son and also her friend manned the booth and we did extremely well.
We closed up shop at 3pm.... drew the winning ticket for the "CORNHOLE" game and gave it to the winner who had a couple of kids that were ecstatic...
Within 4 hours of closing up shop.... our phones were ringing and we got 3 bond calls directly related to this function... needless to say, the marketing ploy worked very well and our names have been put out in the community, not just one county but all over south-side Virginia... we are also going to have a float in each of probably 4 different small town parades in the next several months and this will not be the last of our endeavors... Dawn is a great organizer and gets all the credit... here is a picture of the booth... I of course am sitting down resting... Gail is to my left and you should be able to read the signs quite easily...
There were over 7000 people in attendance... not bad for a very rural community and we got our name out to a very wide crowd.... who attended and took our free water in a cooly with our logo on it, bought a chance on the custom game boards and put our cards, pens and key chains in their pockets.
After paying for the game boards, Dawn donated the remainder of the proceeds of the drawing, which amounted to around $300... half and half to the Community College Criminal Justice department and the other half to the Brunswick county Chamber of Commerce.
