Hey Fastlane. So I'll start off by saying that my first two businesses were unsuccessful in getting them off the ground, boostrapped. Learning experiences (and humbling as well.)
What has helped me tremendously is the guidance of two fellow Fastlane members who have been steering me in the right direction, starting from scratch.
I am doing local SMS marketing for restaurants here in my resort town (top 10 tourist destination in the USA.)
I've been building a list targeting locals, and storing them in my database. The execution here is to solicit restaurant's and have them create a personalized message/deal/text "coupon" to send directly to the cell phones on my targeted list. Everyone who has manually opted into my list has made the choice to do so, expecting to receive my texts from local restaurants with exclusive deals.
How I've grown my list from 0 to its current status of 87:
Step 1: I created flyers with a call to action, stating that if you join my list you will get a free fountain drink from the restaurant.
In return for allowing me to put up my flyer in the restaurant, and them honoring the free fountain drink, I am giving the restaurant one free advertisement blast. I tried to make the restaurant's involvement as risk free as possible.
I was only successfully able to get into two restaurants using this method, and had 5 people opt in.
Step 2: I created business cards with my message "Local restaurant deals sent straight to your phone - for free."
My pitch has been to give restaurants a few hundred cards, and have them promote my business to their customers by including them in the check booklet when people are paying for their meal.
In return for their cooperation they get a free advertisement blast to my list.
I got about 30 opt ins through this method.
** I've also placed my cards in a few local businesses, and the biggest local grocery outlet. My cards are on the cashier counter where people pay for their groceries.
Step 3: I am advertising on the local radio station (two week campaign which commenced last Monday). We created a local radio commercial
49 seconds in length.) The commercial airs about 6 times a day on the radio station.They are also doing live DJ reads throughout the day, and also sent out 4 facebook blasts to their 1500 "friends" on FB.
As a call to action on the radio, I've teamed up with a local pizza parlor, and he agreed to give away one free large pizza per day to a randomly chosen winner who opted in from the radio ads.
(Through this process of walking into restaurants, talking to countless owners, I've been fortunate enough to meet the owner of a local pizza place who wants to see me succeed, and has been more than generous in helping me out. He has introduced me to countless restaurant owners, as well as helped me create an ad and is sending it out on all of his pizza boxes that are delivered.)
What I'm doing right now: I'm exploring my options with the local newspaper. There are a few different publications I could advertise in, as well as creating a banner ad on their website. $200 for 2,000 impressions. I just met with the paper this morning so I'm going to be reviewing my options today.
Tomorrow (Tuesday the 20th) I am doing the first test run of the business.
I'm meeting with the pizza owner today and we are going to create the ad for him to run tomorrow. I will be at the pizza place all day with my camcorder. I'm going to track the statistics of the 1st test run, as well as interview as many people as I can on camera to get their testimonials. Wednesday I'm going to edit everything into a video. I'm going to use this video to send out to restaurants here in town as a way to solicit their business/interest.
That is the progress which I've made in about 40 days so far.
I need to keep building my list, gather data and testimonials, and create the video in order to show/send out to restaurants.
I figure the more people I tell this to, the more accountable I will be with executing this business to my first successful sale.
Thanks for reading
* My bad, should have put this in the sub forum.
What has helped me tremendously is the guidance of two fellow Fastlane members who have been steering me in the right direction, starting from scratch.
I am doing local SMS marketing for restaurants here in my resort town (top 10 tourist destination in the USA.)
I've been building a list targeting locals, and storing them in my database. The execution here is to solicit restaurant's and have them create a personalized message/deal/text "coupon" to send directly to the cell phones on my targeted list. Everyone who has manually opted into my list has made the choice to do so, expecting to receive my texts from local restaurants with exclusive deals.
How I've grown my list from 0 to its current status of 87:
Step 1: I created flyers with a call to action, stating that if you join my list you will get a free fountain drink from the restaurant.
In return for allowing me to put up my flyer in the restaurant, and them honoring the free fountain drink, I am giving the restaurant one free advertisement blast. I tried to make the restaurant's involvement as risk free as possible.
I was only successfully able to get into two restaurants using this method, and had 5 people opt in.
Step 2: I created business cards with my message "Local restaurant deals sent straight to your phone - for free."
My pitch has been to give restaurants a few hundred cards, and have them promote my business to their customers by including them in the check booklet when people are paying for their meal.
In return for their cooperation they get a free advertisement blast to my list.
I got about 30 opt ins through this method.
** I've also placed my cards in a few local businesses, and the biggest local grocery outlet. My cards are on the cashier counter where people pay for their groceries.
Step 3: I am advertising on the local radio station (two week campaign which commenced last Monday). We created a local radio commercial
49 seconds in length.) The commercial airs about 6 times a day on the radio station.They are also doing live DJ reads throughout the day, and also sent out 4 facebook blasts to their 1500 "friends" on FB.As a call to action on the radio, I've teamed up with a local pizza parlor, and he agreed to give away one free large pizza per day to a randomly chosen winner who opted in from the radio ads.
(Through this process of walking into restaurants, talking to countless owners, I've been fortunate enough to meet the owner of a local pizza place who wants to see me succeed, and has been more than generous in helping me out. He has introduced me to countless restaurant owners, as well as helped me create an ad and is sending it out on all of his pizza boxes that are delivered.)
What I'm doing right now: I'm exploring my options with the local newspaper. There are a few different publications I could advertise in, as well as creating a banner ad on their website. $200 for 2,000 impressions. I just met with the paper this morning so I'm going to be reviewing my options today.
Tomorrow (Tuesday the 20th) I am doing the first test run of the business.
I'm meeting with the pizza owner today and we are going to create the ad for him to run tomorrow. I will be at the pizza place all day with my camcorder. I'm going to track the statistics of the 1st test run, as well as interview as many people as I can on camera to get their testimonials. Wednesday I'm going to edit everything into a video. I'm going to use this video to send out to restaurants here in town as a way to solicit their business/interest.
That is the progress which I've made in about 40 days so far.
I need to keep building my list, gather data and testimonials, and create the video in order to show/send out to restaurants.
I figure the more people I tell this to, the more accountable I will be with executing this business to my first successful sale.
Thanks for reading
* My bad, should have put this in the sub forum.
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