Piggybacking

Piggybacking – it’s when you make an offer to somebody else’s clients. This approach is as old as the hills but it seems nobody uses it well these days.

Think about your business and ask yourself what other businesses would have clients or customers like yours. For example, a young woman who buys a cell phone today could well be looking for a pair of jeans tomorrow. If you sell jeans, go to the phone store and give them $20 vouchers redeemable in your store to give away to customers who buy a cell phone.

Explain to the other retailer that this enhances the deal they’re doing with their customer but it will also encourage that customer to go into your store. If they then give you vouchers for your customers to spend in their store, you’ll then be able to send all of your customers their way. This is called cross promotion and it works gangbusters.

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It’ll work in any business too! A painter can set up a cross marketing deal with a builder and easily say “When I paint your home, I’ll give you a voucher for $750 worth of building improvements that you’ll want to have done once you see your home looking so good!” and the builder can say “When I do your renovations I’ll set you up with $400 toward getting your painting done!”

Now it could be vouchers to give away or the enticement could be in a well written email or snail mail.

Of course there’s an extra powerful motivator that makes this work so well. And what’s that? Simple… the credibility of word of mouth recommendation. Your customers or clients know darn well that you wouldn’t recommend some other business unless you were happy with that business. And that’s powerful stuff!