7. Give Stuff Away for Free
7. Give stuff away for free. (I don’t think this contradicts the previous point but maybe?) People love free. Offer a free version of your product, provide coupon codes, etc. Whenever we include a coupon code in a newsletter, there’s a big uptick in upgrades.
Over at 37 Signals, they have a great post today on 10 Ways to Get Ink. While we’re not giving something away outright for free, we are sponsoring another contest with PhotographyCorner.com. This time we’re providing some prizes for their 2007 Photograph of the Year Contest. I joined the forums over there myself last week when I got word we were sponsoring Contest Corner Challenge #43: Holiday Alphabetography. It’s a great little community over there, being a hobby photographer myself. Room for professionals and amateurs alike!
So go on over, join the forums, get to postin’, and enter to win!
25 Death-Defying Design Principles for Direct Marketing … in 25 Minutes
Anyone interested in a free webcast to pick up some marketing tips, come on down! Sandra J. Blum brings experience in direct marketing, advertising and marketing communications to her highly rated sessions. Register for free at the Dynamic Graphics website.
From the Dynamic Graphics website:
In this fast-paced webcast, sponsored by PsPrint, you’ll see the visual elements of persuasion and moments of truth that trigger response. You’ll learn about specific changes (often minor) you can make to improve response significantly. And you’ll hear the latest research on design approaches that work. This is one practical session that’s focused on helping you evaluate creative content with innovative insight.
This will be a great session for small businesses, copywriters, and graphic designers everywhere. I’m personally looking forward to catching this one as I missed the last webcast we sponsored, and I hear it was fantastic. For 2008 we’re really looking at some cutting edge new marketing techniques and I’ll be on the supreme lookout for new things to try! New contests, viral marketing, and blogging like crazy! The new year is going to be exciting here at PsPrint!
Forget The Mitchell List: We’re sponsoring a CONTEST!
Why focus on the downward spiral of steroids in the MLB? With the success of our Brickfish contest hot on our heels, PsPrint is sponsoring a fun holiday contest through PhotographyCorner.com.
You ever notice that some objects kind of look like letters? Like the brim of a mug looks like an “O” or the top of that roof makes the letter “A”, or even a stick in the shape of the letter “Y.” Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to photograph these objects that look like letters, and put them together to create a holiday word (like peace, joy, Christmas, Jesus, lights, wreath, Hanukkah, festivus, etc).
More details, as well as entry details, can be found on the PhotographyCorner.com forums.
Read MoreOne Fish, Two Fish…
Brickfish! This is a nifty little website that Anne stumbled upon. They describe it better than I can, so here’s their spiel:
- Create content for your favorite brands and bands.
- Win exciting rewards for reviewing, voting and sharing content across the web.
- Earn rewards like the chance to meet your favorite bands, clothes, scholarships and even cold, hard cash.
The best incentive to participate in viral marketing I’ve seen in some time. We’re kicking around a campaign to launch on Brickfish, and it might be ready as early as Monday! Stay tuned for more details next week!
In other news to wrap up the week, I’ve booked my flight to John Wayne Airport in Orange County for the California Associations of Realtor’s Expo next month. I’ll miss the first day of the show, but will be there staffing our booth October 10th and 11th. I figure while I’m down there I’ll see some friends in the area and enjoy a slight change of pace from Nor Cal life. The day before the show I’ll be staffing our online booth at eComXpo from the comforts of my office here in Oakland. So two shows in three days… that should be an interesting week to say the least!
Trade shows seem to be going well, customer acquisition is doing okay but could be better, and the affiliate program is pretty stagnant. We had a two and a half hour metrics meeting this morning, only half of which focused on the affiliate program, which I felt like a moron during. I guess I’ve been more focused on the quantity of affiliates than the quality, so that ends now.
We want to help our affiliates to be better affiliates. We’re also considering some BIG changes to the structure of payments, but I’m not at liberty to announce them yet. We’re going to start looking more at our affiliates individually and see what they’re doing and what is working. Hopefully this helps everyone. Me, because I won’t look like a goober when asked questions and I’ll have the answers, the affiliate, because they’ll be making money, and the other affiliates, because they can learn from the big money makers.
That makes sense, right?
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