Discount Cards!

This is the continuation of the Discount Cards article on the "Guest Coolest Corner" on Biz Marketing 47.

Some businesses will prefer to pay 100% upfront, which is just fine! You shouldn't deal with businesses that won't pay anything upfront, unless you have some desire to deal with collection headaches.

You should be thinking about how to distribute these discount cards. If there is a college in your town, here are few ideas.

Contact the admissions department at the college, explain your discount card, and see if they would consider putting a card into the orientation materials each incoming student gets.

Also, find out places where you may put a stack of discount cards for students to take. Prime locations are cafeterias and dining halls, snack bars, libraries and any other places where students group.

For the general public, great distribution spots are similar to the college spots. Restaurants, grocery stores, theatres, apartment buildings, anywhere where there are large groups of people.

Don't forget that you can give a good supply to each advertiser, to give free to their customers. All you need to do is a few good, persuasive phone calls, and your distribution will be taken care of easily.

Stress to the person you're speaking with that making the discount cards available to their customers will be good business for them, even if they don't advertise on the card, because their customers will appreciate being given these discounts and will look upon the business as their friend for doing so.

Now that you have your printing quotes, determine how much you can charge for advertising. Estimate what your phone, advertising, driving and postage expenses will be.

Lump these all together and you have an idea of what your costs will be.

Now, multiply that figure by five. Divide that figure by the total number of advertisers you will have on your discount card. The number you end up with is the average price you could charge per ad.

Does this sound reasonable, considering the number of discount cards you'll be distributing? If so, it should make a good starting point.

For example, if you are planning to distribute 8,000 cards with 26 advertisers, and your estimated expenses will be $1200, the formula is ($1,200 x 5) /26, or $230.77 average ad price ($28.85 per thousand), and your profit would be $4,800.

Considering the benefits the advertiser will get from the discount cards (they will be kept and used for a long time, usually 3 to 6 months, and 5,000 people will be exposed to their ad repeatedly over that period of time), this will probably be reasonable.

You need to consider the economy in your area, the size of your area, and any competition you might have, as this can effect what you may be able to charge.

When you decide how much to charge for ads, here are a few things to keep in mind. Ads on the front of the card should be much higher priced than on the back, and, as a result, should be slightly larger.

On the back, you can set two different ad rates by putting using "boxed ads." An ad with a black box around it will be noticed more than one without, so it can be slightly higher.

A good example of ad prices corresponding to the above average ad price would be $200 for a plain ad on the back of the card, $230 for a boxed ad on the back, and $260 for an ad on the front of the discount card.

Now's the time to contact potential advertisers. Here's a short list of the types of businesses that will be most likely to take advantage of your service:

Restaurants, particularly fast-food and snack establishments + Theatres + Printers + Dry cleaners + Oil change and auto parts businesses + Travel agencies + Clothing stores + Hair salons + Formalwear stores.

This is not a complete list, but it should give you an idea of the types of businesses you need to contact.

* Believe It Or Not

There are more business reports you could benefit from at the Ezine Acts Offline Businesses (site map 21 A) with its extension into Online Free Consulting (site map 21 B) below.

Whether it is about offline or online business, the reports cover many businesses you can do and support by using discount cards.

If you have ad sheets you design in your advertising, as explained at the Ezine Acts Advertising, you can maintain that business by discount cards. In fact, you should do.

If you have aerobics classes, you can use the cards to offer discounts and encourage all fitness lovers to attend your classes, or you aerobics center.

If you have auto tune up shop, or any garage sale business, you can offer cards to bring interested people to your garage.

If you have bartering, or catering, you should offer them also on discount cards.

If you have cleaning services including carpet cleaning services and window washing services, you should also use discount cards to promote your business.

If you are planning to sell using party plan sales, you would also find yourself thinking of the best ways to bring guests to your saloon, garage, or back yard, so you could achieve more sales. Use discount cards.

If you were stay at home mom making some baskets, you can use discount cards to promote your gourmet gift baskets.

* Read the entry at Ezine Acts Forums.

* Read Discount Cards Comments.

The examples are many at the following offline businesses to see how to do them and use discount cards for each:

Bulletin Boards| Catering Services| Classified Ads| Dating Services| Dream Home| Flea Markets| Freebie Ad Magazines| Free Radio Advertising| Home Based Secretarial Service| Home Based Typing Service| Newspaper Clipping Service| Personal Improvement Seminars| Personal Sport Scorecards|

In addition to discount cards, there are many articles in the newsletter editions below:

Biz Marketing 36| Biz Marketing 37| Biz Marketing 38| Biz Marketing 39| Biz Marketing 40| Biz Marketing 41| Biz Marketing 42| Biz Marketing 43| Biz Marketing 44| Biz Marketing 45| Biz Marketing 46| Biz Marketing 48| Biz Marketing 49|