I'm With The Band

So last night, Jen Polanz and I (Pete) sat in on maybe one of the best sessions/gatherings of Short Course - the Retailer Idea Exchange. We walked out of there with 10 or 12 awesome ideas for retailers.

Don't worry, we'll eventually share them all with you. Here's one that I thought was pretty cool:

Now I hope I get this right. This one was offered up by a gentleman who works for Germantown Greenhouses in Wisconsin. How about working with a local or near local high school and their band or sports team.

Working with the band, the crew at Germantown made these brochures that were given to the entire band. The kids are told to give the brochures to anyone they want, and then tell those people to take the brochure into Germantown's store and hand in the brochure when they make a purchase.

Germantown writes the total of the purchase on part of the brochure and keeps it for their records. At the end of a given period, Germantown totals up all the purchase totals they've collected on the brochures. They then give 10 percent back to the band.

So going into it, the band will only get a donation from Germantown if the band members pass out these brochures to people they know. Viral marketing?

An additional bonus...the shoppers feel like they're killing two birds with one stone. They're supporting a local group, and they're making necessary purchases for their gardening needs.

You can take this a step further and try hitting a high school that's in an area your customer base is a little weak. This is a great way to reach out to a few new customers.