I had a lunch networking event on my calendar today, one where you bring your own lunch, so I stopped by one of my Town Planner sponsors on the way and used one of the coupons she placed in the calendar. That gave me a chance to support her business, talk to her about how the calendar has performed for her so far, and to try her chicken salad that I had heard good things about.
Being the industrious networker and advocate for my sponsors, I took my chicken salad wrap to the networking lunch. A couple of people looked at it when I first unwrapped it, but it got lots of attention when I took out my blackberry and photographed it. “Why?” they asked? So I can put it on facebook of course.
It has already made it on Facebook, a picture of the chicken salad wrap and an entry telling my fans where I got it and that I used a coupon from the calendar. Not even TWO minutes later I received an instant chat message from a fan commenting that it looked really good and asked me if it was. I described it better for her and now she’s on her way, coupon in hand, to go and try some herself.
So, one chicken salad sale took some print media, some social media, and some word of mouth promotion on my part. But I’m blogging about it to drive home the point about marketing and segmentation. Not all of your customers are on Facebook, not all of your customers read the paper, and not all of your customers watch television. That’s why a comprehensive marketing program is best. Keep the things that work for you, but don’t limit yourself to not trying new things because it could spark an interaction to make a sale.
What a great idea !! You are so creative.