Give Aways/ Prizes?

Bsecdone

has anyone considered doing this?

Like giving a iPod away for the oldest service in your community?

or some other kind of contest to generate business in the fall and winter?

Mitch M

I started a newsletter a few months ago. I was not sure if anyone was really looking at it. So I decided to put a smiley face in the newsletter and I put a note about it in the email itself. Not the newsletter. The first one who could find it and email or fax it back to me would get a free gutter cleaning. I also put some general conditions in the email about the cleaning. My schedule, one home, my service area, etc.

I did the email or fax back so that I could have proof of timing in case if there was a question. I got 6 responses within two hours of sending it. I did not do one this last month but I am thinking about another one for October. Probably the same prize but a different type contest.

Meetre

Great idea Mitch I'm one of many sponsors for a benefit this week. Camp Rainbow Gold, for children with cancer. Kicked in a $300 gift certificate for the auction, made a sign for the sponsor list. Figure it will help the kids and $300 is a good foot in the door for a new customer who may not have heard of me yet.

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Bsecdone

Good to hear. I plan on doing something like this as well. Starting next month till Jan/Feb 2010. It get slow for service work. So, I think I could boost interest and sells this way.

Glad to hear I'm not the only one thinking like this and tha tit is working for you. Thanks for the feed back

handyhands

I've found the quickest way to the bank is generally a letter to all of your previous customers. My company does this always towards the end of Fall, and of course we put a "call to action". We start the letter by thanking them for their business and either inform them that there may be a price increase in the coming months, and if they have any pending projects they've had on the back burner that they may want to take advantage of some sort of exclusive pricing, we'd love a chance to get back together with them to go over their ideas.

Either that, or again, a letter to all of your previous customers with a gift card (to your business), or/ and a reminder/ notice that you're scheduling your annual service inspections and go out to check on your previous work while looking for new work.

All else fails, canvassing can be effective as well.

Good Luck!

cbscreative

You can use this strategy not only for immediate results, but it can also be very effective in link building to your site and developing a mailing list for potential leads.

Here's something you may find very interesting:
http://searchengineland.com/a-case-s...ld-links-23776

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Steve Chittenden
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One reason I know so much about the web and marketing is that I don't have to know as much about construction.