Throwing down the first throwbackthursday post with my top 5 hella long ago marketing tactics!
Only rule? You have to have actually executed and/or been involved in the brainstorming of said ideas! J
- CTA = Fax back your reply. Oh yes. True story. I even sorted the replies alphabetically to then type into my spreadsheet (and yes, we had spreadsheets back).
- Stuff it! The envelope that is – more specifically, the window envelopes – with a sure-to-get’em offer all typed up and ready to roll (typed up on a computer and then printed, give me a break, I haven’t touched a typewriter since high school). Oops – did I just type that out loud?
- Stuff it continued… Oh yes, made even more interesting when all 500, 1000, 2000 letters are dropped into a big messy pile and then have to be sorted one-by-one because you, er, umm, someone thought it would save time to use window envelopes. Meaning the names and addresses were all included in the letter header (I think that’s what we called it – header, right?)
- Take a walk on the wild side... So, you’re doing your grocery shopping and someone – a stranger – walks up to ask you if you’d like to open a new checking account. Seriously? Yes, it was an in-store bank location – I was one of the strangers – and we were backed up w/ announcements across the store sound system every 10-15 minutes, something like “Look for the girls from Bank XYZ walking up and down the aisles sharing ways to save with a new checking account at Bank XYZ.” It was a continual “just kill me now” moment.
- Hook, line and sinker! Back in the day, if you attended some of the same trade shows one of my previous company’s attended, you would have been walking by our booth and – what? Right in front of you was a quarter. Or maybe a dollar. Regardless, it was taped down and when you bent down to pick it up – as a surprising number of people did – we (as in the sales guys, not me, but I did egg them, er, encourage, them on) – walked up to reel you in to our booth. I can’t remember the ROI of it, but I do remember the sheer craziness – I just wish I’d had a video camera.
There you go – my top 5 hella long ago marketing tactics – so, what have you got, Topliners?
Cheers!
Kristin