Promoting your business

Tom Shay, a nationally acclaimed writer and business coach, offers marketing tips on his Web site, profitsplus.org ... it's free to browse.

Here's a marketing tip, especially for December:


'Tag team' coupons

December is the month when we see the most cars in the parking lot and you should take advantage of the opportunity to get your message to as many people as possible.

When we first did this in our business, we partnered with another business that was located on one of the out parcels of the shopping center where we were both located; for the most part each business had its' own unique customer base so by working together we could introduce our customers to each other's business.

We created 7 coupons - one for each day of the week, and we used the same 7 coupons for several weeks before making any changes. Each of the coupons were printed on a different color of paper so that a customer shopping on multiple days would easily see they were getting different coupons. One side of the coupon featured one business, and the other side was for the second business.

Each business agreed to hand out coupons to their customers as well as put coupons on the windows of cars parked in the immediate area of each store. This promotion is easy to create and implement, and costs very little.

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Localshops1.com encourages businesses to work together. It really does benefit everyone.

Please check out our Web site for hundreds of listings. If your store isn't there, you can add it. It's free.

-- Ester Venouziou
localshops1.com