In most cases, if you are a true to heart bootstrapper, you will know already know how to think outside the box, and you won’t even notice it because it just comes second nature. For those of you who need a little guidance on how to set yourself up with some unconventional methods of promotion and marketing, this post was designed for you.
Lets face it, most bootstrappers starting a new business will not have thousands of dollars to spend on commercials on prime time television, and 99.9% of the time, you will not have the money to get one of those multi-million dollar super bowl commercial ads. So, what do you do when this happens? You think outside the box. Do something no-one else is doing, and watch the benefit of taking a little bit of time to think of those unconventional ways of advertising.
In this article, we want to break down a couple businesses for you to show you how simple it can be to think outside the box. Thinking outside the box is not only for advertising, but also a good way to get clients, and keep clients. The following businesses will be broke down with specific ideas on how to do these unusual methods of advertising and gaining clients:
- Residential Cleaning Company
- Record Label
- Software Developer
- T-Shirt Company
Now, if these are not companies you are looking to start, do not worry, we will be doing more of these posts, so feel free to drop a comment with the type of company you are either starting, thinking about starting, or currently running and we will put our heads together and give some methods of thinking outside the box for those companies as well.
Residential Cleaning Company
Now, this is one of the easiest companies (we feel) that there is to start. Little to no start-up funding needed as most people already have all of the tools needed (Vacuum, Towels, Mop and Bucket, and so on). Below are a few ways to get your company out in the open without spending much money. Some might seem a little over the top, but trust us, they all are proven to work.
- Allow potential clients their first cleaning for free – This might seem like a little bit much for you, and it might seem like a waste of time, but you have to remember, we are thinking OUTSIDE the box on ways to gain clients and get your company out in the open. Most clients will see that you are willing to stick your neck out for them on the first cleaning by giving it to them for free and if you do a good job, they will 99.9% of the time keep you around for future cleanings. After all, you have to be able to clean good in order to keep clients wanting you to come back anyways, right? So why not show them up front how great your company is. Now, you might run across the occasional client who only wanted the first free cleaning, but if you divide that with the amount of clients you gain from this first cleaning free method, you will notice the risk is much lower compared to the return of new clients.
- Unconventional Business Card Promotion *- Print up some business cards and go to your local Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Meijer, Target or any other store with cleaning supplies. Once you are at this store, go down the isles with the cleaning supplies (mop’s, bucket’s, broom’s, bleach, and so on), and take your card out and place it inside any box you can find. We’ve done Brillo pad boxes, hand sanitizer wipes boxes, vacuum’s, and paper towel packages. We are sure you can find more places. Now, the reason for doing this is that almost 100% of the people shopping for these products are doing the cleaning themselves, and odds are, they would much rather have someone else come and do this for them. Out of 1000 business cards, we have received 400+ calls, and 30 new clients. For the price of the 1000 business cards, compared to the weekly profit from the 30 new clients, this was well worth the trip to the store, and the little effort to place the cards.
- Retirement Homes are Golden For this Business ** – This is a cost free tip on how to think outside the box to gain new clients and promote your business (well, you will have to put gas in your car, so I guess it isn’t TOTALLY cost free, but close enough). You will not want to talk to the tenants of the retirement home first, make sure you always talk to the front desk, and ask them if its either ok for you to leave some business cards for them on the front desk, or if it would be ok for you to go door to door and talk to the tenants. Most places will allow the business cards to be left rather than have you patronizing their tenants, but some places will love the idea of you coming to try and help out the elderly (make sure you let the desk / manager know that you are also giving the elderly discounts to all of their tenants, they love this). We spent about 5 hours driving around to different retirement homes, and gained about 10-15 new clients doing this. The cost of a tank of gas was only $40.00 at the time, so 10-15 new clients definitely gained us a lot more profit compared to what we spent in gasoline.
Record Label
Starting a record label or at least thinking about the idea? Do you know a band or artist that you know would do very well in the business, but they do not have the funding to print their CD’s, print flyer’s, and so on? Well, these methods will help you promote those artists for a very small amount of money, and at the same time, gain some exposure to your artist(s)
- Stickers on EVERYTHING *** – So, you have an alternative rock band on your roster, and are trying to promote for them? What’s the one place that the majority of their potential fans go to the most? No, its not shows. No, its not clothing stores (although this is a close second place). The place their potential fans go to most is to get fast food (McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, Taco Bell). Place some stickers on the outside poles of the building (not ON the building, but the stop signs, light posts, ect – ONLY if this is not illegal in your area. Some cities allow stickers/flyers on street signs, others don’t). You will notice a lot of new fans showing up because they saw a sticker that only had the words “YOURBAND.com” on it. Simple and easy to remember names do better, as most kids don’t write it down, by try to remember it all the way home.
- Business Cards inside Record Stores * – Get yourself some business cards with your band’s/artist’s information on it, their .com link, their myspace link, any upcoming shows, where they can buy the album, ect. Take these to places like Best Buy, Circuit City, any store like Wal-Mart/Meijer that has a CD section. Once you are there, put those business cards in-between CD’s, in front of the racks, next to the listening center that most places have and if you can slip them inside the cases of concert DVD’s, try there also. If someone is picking up the new Staind CD, and your band plays music similar to them, and they see a business card next to it, most of the time, they will pick it up and go check it out. If your singer sounds like Shakira, then put your cards next to her CD’s.
- Free Concerts in Parks – This method does require you to buy some equipment like speakers, a sound board, mics, ect. But, there are a lot of places where you can rent these things for around $200.00. By setting up a free concert in the park, you can do various things to gain money besides ticket sales. Set up a few huge BBQ grills, and have people pay 5-10 dollars a plate, set up a t-shirt stand to sell band/artist t-shirts, set up a CD stand to promote the music. Lets say you sell 10 plates at 10 dollars per plate, and 20 CD’s at 10.00 per CD, and 5 t-shirts at 10.00 per t-shirt. You would make a total of $200.00 profit after spending the $200.00 on the equipment. Now, this is low-balling the amount of money you would make from a concert in the park as most of the time, you will get at least 100-400 people to show up so, 10 plates, 10 t-shirts, and 10 CD’s is an understatement.
We will be covering the next two businesses tomorrow in the follow-up to this. We also will be writing more articles like this, along with tips on thinking outside the box for businesses that you drop inside the comments. Stick around and bookmark our website and add our feed by using one of the buttons on the right side of the site.
* – We have used www.overnightprints.com for business cards and we love their service and quality of the business cards you get.
** – We also recommend doing this in apartment complexes. A lot of single men live in apartments and lets face it, they would much rather someone come and clean their bachelor pad, rather then do it themselves.
*** – We used www.psprints.com for stickers before. We are not saying this is the ONLY place to get stickers, but we do like their service. If you have tips or ideas on any of these places, feel free to drop a comment.
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