Ellis Communications, L.L.C.

Free: The Ticket to Improving Your
Marketing and Growing Your Business

            Free is more than a simple word that can grab people’s attention.  It also can be a motivating factor in a nutritional retailer’s marketing.

            "Some people think that free appeals only to the dregs of society, to those who have no money or who are too lazy to work," says Martin R. Baird, president of Phoenix, Ariz.-based Nutritional Marketing.  "That just isn’t true.  Don’t throw out the opportunity to use something free in your marketing because of your limiting beliefs."

            Baird offers the following seven tips on how to generate new business with the power of offering something for free.

Number 1 - One effective marketing technique uses a direct mail piece to offer a free survival kit.  "The recipient of the mailer must contact the sender to receive the kit, but they’re not likely to do so unless they’re reasonably interested," Baird says.

Number 2 - Those who make contact for the kit may become a qualified prospect.  That’s exactly what you want your marketing to generate.

Number 3 - Before you decide on a survival kit, identify your target market.  "Who are they and what do they want?" Baird asks.  “What would get them motivated enough to expend the energy to come see you or talk with you on the phone?"

Number 4 - While identifying the target market, think about their fears and frustrations.  "One of the best ways to get people to take action is to connect with their fears," Baird says.

Number 5 - Poor air quality and its negative impact on health could be the basis for an excellent survival kit.  The kit could contain a few items pertaining to air quality and related information on your products and services.  "What are the fears people have about air quality?" Baird asks.  "A top-five answer has to be cancer and how poor air quality affects them or their family."

Number 6 - Take the air quality survival kit one step further and bring another retail store into the picture.  "What if you offered free seminars on air quality and its relationship to health and held them in a children’s furniture store?" Baird suggests.  "Parents or parents-to-be are the perfect market for healthy babies and children.  You could send the seminar invitation with your offer for a free air quality  survival kit."

Number 7 - An off-the-wall idea like a free survival kit is an effective marketing technique.  All you need to do is take the risk and give it a try, Baird says.

Nutritional Marketing provides a variety of services to nutritional retailers to help them improve their marketing methods and increase revenues, including seminars and conference speaking engagements on such topics as referrals, marketing, goal setting and customer service. 

Nutritionalmarketing.com is the premiere Internet-based source for free marketing advice, information and tools for self-driven, success-oriented nutritional retailers who are demanding information that helps them market their business, meet the needs of their customers and increase sales.  It offers such services as a free weekly electronic newsletter, free reports on how to conduct different kinds of marketing and evaluation of retailers’ marketing materials that is provided at no charge when the critique is posted online for all nutritional professionals to read.  Nutritionalmarketing.com also offers an electronic forum where retailers can learn from each other by discussing common problems, sharing ideas and gaining new insights from their peers. 

Nutritional Marketing may be reached at 480-991-6421.