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Contests as a Retail Marketing Strategy
By Jim ODonnell

 Contests are an excellent retail marketing tactic for generating ‘buzz’ and increasing foot traffic to a retail store. Contests are also a method by which to collect contact data from customers, to be used for direct mail and e-mail marketing campaigns.

The types of contests a retailer can plan are as limitless as his imagination. The objective of any contest should be to create the best possible incentive to get customers into the store, and to motivate them to place their contact information into the drawing box. Usually the incentive is a valuable grand prize, but can also take the form of a small gift given just for entering.

One example of a contest idea might be to ask customers to help name a mascot or character associated with the business. A retailer can create an entry form providing space for a contest entrant’s name, address, phone number, e-mail address and mascot name suggestion. If the retailer has a website, customers can enter the contest via an online entry form as well. The retailer can set dates associated with the contest such as an entry deadline, a first round selection of three finalists, and finally the date to announce the grand prize winner. The contest rules and progress can be included in all advertising and marketing campaigns within the contest timeframe, including the store’s voicemail greeting, flyers, media advertising and website.

The grand prize for this contest might be an opportunity for the winner to appear in a series of local advertisements with the mascot and to have her name and photo appear on the air, in the press, and on the website. In addition, a prize basket could be offered to the winner and to the two semi-finalists.

Another tactic to collect additional contact data and to add longevity to the event might be to conduct the contest in two parts: once the three finalists have been selected, customers can be called back into the store or to the website to vote for their favorite of the three possible choices. In addition to being a fun idea, this type of contest can create great word-of-mouth advertising and a great deal of foot traffic.

Contests with media tie-ins are particularly good traffic builders, as the reach for potential entrants is greater than usual. An example of this type of contest might involve a retail store owner inviting customers to come into the store to obtain a lottery-type ticket of numbers, in exchange for entering the contest via the entry form providing their contact information. Customers would be instructed to listen to a particular radio station at a particular time, or to purchase the local newspaper on a particular date to obtain the winning numbers drawn and compare them to her ticket. The customer holding the winning ticket is the grand prize winner.

The publication or station printing or airing your ads benefits from a tie-in contest, as it receives an increase in listeners and newspaper sales on a particular day. A radio station may provide a discounted advertising rate to motivate a retailer to direct listeners to a show in need of a ratings boost, or to a particular section of the newspaper in need of readers.

Contests are great opportunities to obtain contact information, generate foot traffic, and inspire word-of-mouth advertising for a retail store. Include a series of contests in your annual retail marketing plan.

Jim O’Donnell of Jaguar Consulting, Inc. in Kingston, NH provides marketing and business development services for small business and has developed a series of Retail Marketing Checklists designed to help small business owners achieve a higher growth and profitability. He can be reached at (603) 642-8338, JimODonnell@JaguarConsulting.com, or http://WWW.Checklists4Business.com to review all checklists that are currently available.

Operating A Business From Home
By Obinna Heche

 Convincing your family to like your business opportunity is hard. On the one hand, running a home business with one or more children in the household seems like a recipe for disaster. Raising children can certainly be a full time job in and off itself. Adding entrepreneurship to your routine might be just enough to drive you around the bend.

On the other hand, its been done for thousands of years. While the modern concept of a home business or a home office may seem relatively new, people have been mixing trade and family life for a long time. Certainly the traditional family farm is a mix of home and business as are any number of other trades and retail stores. Kids can learn a heck of a lot about life from having a business right there in front of them. Valuable lessons about trust, responsibility, work ethics, and human interaction are available on a daily basis.

Many kids get involved in the home business opportunity magazine. Over time, it may grow into less of a home based business and more of a mid sized family business. Or you may find your kids taking the entrepreneurial lessons they have learned from Mom or Dad and putting them to use through the proverbial lemonade stand, a lawn care business, or in this high tech age, a teenage computer consultant business.

Whether running a home business is right for you and your family is a matter of personal choice and will be influenced by the kind of business and the nature of your personal values. Running a home business opportunity magazine or and a household with children will require you to be a time management expert. You will need to schedule your work time and stick to your schedule. The older the kids, the easier it will be but kids and businesses have at least one thing in common, both are very demanding.

Many home business people work out of their home so that they can spend more time with their children. In that case, you have probably picked a home business conducive to stop and start activity. Others, however, may consider using day care just as they might if they were employed full time at a traditional job. Having even a few hours a day to yourself during which you can concentrate exclusively on your business opportunity magazine or arrange to sit down with an accountant can make a world of difference.

If your are not comfortable with formal day care, you may be able to form an alliance with a few other home businesses nearby to share baby sitting chores. Perhaps three of you will agree that one person will look after all the kids one day a week which gives you each two days a week without the children to focus on your business. Running a home business is all about finding creative ways to make things work.

Obinna Heche. Los Angeles - California

Delivering the best home based business ideas and

opportunities so you can work at home successfully..

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Friday, August 29th, 2008 at 9:50 pm and is filed under retail. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.