"Fast Cash with Club VIP Cards"
The concept for this technique came about while I was in the
restaurant business about 12 years ago.
I was the manager of a small "mom and pop's" type restaurant doing
pretty well until a competitor moved in next door and started really
cutting into our business. We decided to fight back with a promotion
aimed at local businesses.
Now, if you have ever done any advertising -- in the newspaper,
direct mail, Penny Savers -- or other traditional methods, you know
the response rate is very low compared to the circulation. A direct
mailing that pulls 2 people out of 100 is considered outstanding.
Newspapers and other printed media usually pull way less than 1%. I
remember placing a 2 for 1 coupon in the local newspaper that only
pulled in 2 customers out of 200,000 circulation!
Not wanting to repeat our past failures we decided to try something a
little different. We printed up business cards with our logo and the
text. The card looked something like this:
Then we drove around to all the office parks within about a 3 mile
radius of the restaurant and passed the cards out to all the
businesses and offices.
What we would do is walk up to the receptionist, introduce ourselves
as managers of the restaurant and tell her we would like to give 2 for
1 VIP cards to all the employees.
We must have passed out cards to 200 offices and not a single one
turned us down. Many of them included the discount cards in their
employee's pay envelopes. The rest either passed them out or put
them in each individual employee mail box. We achieved almost
100% distribution.
We passed out the first batch of cards on a weekday afternoon --
right after lunch. The next day I was scheduled to be in at 12:00. At
11:30 my phone rang. It was the general manager calling to see if I
could come in ASAP because they were slammed. Truthfully, it didn't
even cross my mind it was the cards bringing in the extra business. I
just assumed it was a full tour bus which we would sometimes get
during summer.
I arrived at about 11:50 and noticed there were no buses parked in
the parking lot -- but the line of customers was out the door!
As I walked in and saw people -- local business people -- waiting to
be seated I remembered the cards. All these people were there to
use their discount cards.
We were slam busy up until about 2:30. Finally, we got everybody
fed and then scrambled to adjust the schedule to handle the added
volume for the next few days. Then we went out and passed out
more discount cards.
Our lunch business continued to be brisk for the next week. After the
dust had cleared and we counted the cards that had been redeemed,
we were absolutely shocked to find 22% of the cards had been used!
That is an amazing redemption rate by any standards. The cost was
just what it costs us to have the cards printed less distribution.
Why was the response so good? I have a few ideas:
1. The phrase "Courtesy of your employer" makes it sound like the
employer arranged for the employees to receive the discounts
cards. This makes them more valuable than if you just passed
them out yourself.
2. The receptionists "talked it up" to the employees because they
recognized what a good deal it was.
3. We were actually getting out there and meeting people face to
face which is good PR.
How does this translate into you making money?
Easy -- create a VIP discount card you pass out to local businesses --
and they in turn give to their employees. You want to make it look
like this card is a perk or benefit the business offers their employees.
Here is a sample of one such card:
Notice the $10.00 price. This price is just a "suggested price." You
don't actually charge for the cards. It's worth $10.00. But the
employee doesn't have to know their employer didn't pay $10.00 for
it! The suggested price is on the card to increase perceived value. If
the employee thinks the card costs $10.00, she is more likely to use
it.
Now what you do is get out your local newspaper, shoppers, penny
savers and anything else with print ads. Call the businesses that have
advertised in these papers and tell them you are distributing 5,000
VIP cards to the employees of local businesses and you would like to
include their offer on your card. The cost is $25.00 for 5,000 cards
distributed to local employees. The cards will expire in 1 month.
The offers for each individual business can be included on a separate
piece of paper that is 1/3rd of an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet which you can
staple to the cards. You could get 100 or more offers on each 1/3rd
page sheet.
The best way to work this is to spend a day calling the businesses
and selling spots on your VIP card sheet. If you can sell 10 the first
day you have earned $250.00. Get their ad copy over the phone. Just
ask them if they would like to run the same offer that was in the
newspaper. Tell them you will be out the next day to collect the
money. The next day, go out and collect the money and spend the
rest of the day on the phone selling more.
At $25.00 each, if you only got 25 ads, you would gross $625.00.
Your costs would be about .03 cents each for the business card and
attached sheet. That works out to $150.00 for 5000 so your profits
would be $475.00. You can easily distribute 5000 VIP cards in a day
by going to businesses in business parks and to factories with a lot of
employees.
This is a super simple but extremely profitable business anyone with
a little drive and spunk can do tomorrow.