Handing out business cards in high traffic area...thoughts?

[CleverTechnology]

Hey there Community,

I did a quick search in the Advertising forum and didn't find anything that quite covered this, but then again, that gold mine of knowledge and resources is over 1200 posts deep.

I recently started my own IT Consulting business, I haven't made the jump to full time yet so I am still holding on to my corporate IT position while my business is growing. I live in a small 'one-horse' town and when I say that, I mean it. We have a population of about 2,300 inside the city limits, we don't even have a stop light. The closest thing we have is a 4-way stop sign with a flashing red light. However, within 10-15 minutes of us are 2 much larger towns with populations over 15,000 at each.

In our small town we have a grocery store that does quite a bit of traffic, especially around dinner time. The other day I received permission from the store manager to stand outside and pass out business cards, to which I eagerly took advantage of. Over the course of a couple of hours I handed out somewhere in the neighborhood of 150-ish cards. I realize these folks are in somewhat of a hurry to get in and get out so when handing out my card, I tried to make it as quick as possible so as to not create a negative experience in their minds.

The typical exchange went as follows:

1. Pleasantly greet the potential future customer
2. Introduced myself as the owner of my company
3. Hand them a business card
4. Tell them that I was just handing out my business card so they would have it and if they ever needed any computer help, to give me a call.
5. They would thank me and I would thank them
6. Rinse and Repeat

So this leads me to a couple of questions...

• Has any of the members of the community tried this method of advertising?
• How successful was it (especially with the whole small town mentality if applicable)?
• Do you have any suggestions for a quick 5-second speal that I can use rather than what I'm using in #4 above? I've been brainstorming this morning over coffee and have come up with a couple of ideas but nothing concrete.

Thanks Technibble Community, you guys rock!

 

[Kitten Kong]

I haven't handed out business cards like that. But what I have done in the past with good results, is

Create a nice A5/4 sized flyer. Printed a few off. (By a few I mean like 100+.)
I then went round each and every newsagents, off licences, bakers, you name it in our area.

Asked the owner for permission to place my flyer in their window. Or with the newsagents etc, pay for 3 months of advertising in their windows.

Handed each store around 40-50 cards, and asked them really politely, if I could leave them on the counter. I also said to each store, any repairs or requirements you need, I'd give them 25% off the 1st repair.

The amount of work I got from this was tremendous. I was getting fully booked up 2-3 weeks in advance.

I had a special offer in the flyer, for something like a full diagnostic at 25% off my normal prices.

I'm not sure if your area has it or not. But do you have any magazines which are handed out on a monthly basis?.

I struck a deal with one in my local area. Whereby I write a column for the mag each month. I don't charge them for the column. ( as it's an open forum / thread, I'm not going into further details). But feel free to pm me.

This is basically the only advertising I do now, apart from my site. This column and mag is worth its weight in gold to me. The amount of clients and referrals I receive off satisfied clients is amazing. Well, well worth the time to write the column.

Btw. I live in a locality of c10,000 homes and small businesses. I've been writing and advertising in the mag for over 12 months now. I have in excess of 3,000 clients in my database. With more being added each week.

I wish you well with your strategy, and hope it works for you.

 

[Kitten Kong]

Hand each client some cards, and ask them to pass them around. You will be amazed as to how fast your name gets out there in your local community.

Do you have any direct competition in your area?.

How much competition do you have in your service area?

 

[trevm999]

Hand each client some cards, and ask them to pass them around. You will be amazed as to how fast your name gets out there in your local community.

Send an employer a resume in a small town and it makes it around town. I wasn't very impressed with that. People calling me to do computer repair jobs because someone gave them my RESUME.

 

[CleverTechnology]

@Cadishead Computers:
Wow, thank you for sharing that information with me. The closest thing to a magazine that is delivered in our area is a small local business type of publication that is printed in full color and is an area for local businesses to advertise and run specials. Its not the type of publication that has articles. If I remember right, it is delivered once a month and is full of coupons and what not, I haven't looked into the pricing yet but I think it might be a good place to try something out. I might even reach out to the owner of the magazine and see if he has a need for any It services and maybe we can do a trade.
Another thing I've been trying out is to write a bi-weekly article for a local website that puts out weekly info about events, school functions, and whatnot for our town. I haven't received a whole lot of response from the few that I did but I don't expect results overnight. Mainly it is for name recognition...plus the first few articles didnt really contain any calls to action and I'm working on trying to implement those more.

I really like your idea of placing a flyer in the window of businesses in the area and especially offering them a discount on their first repair. That is similar to what I'm doing with my testing of Kuboto, I called a couple of my established customers and asked to install the software on their computers for a couple of weeks, in exchange for their cooperation, I offered to fix any issues discovered by the software. Just my way of saying thanks for them being my lab rats.

To answer your other questions, there is another tech that has a 'business' in my town. However, he is a 'hobby' tech. He doesn't do any advertising that I know of and his website is severely lacking any kind of real meaningful information. In the two larger towns that are close by there are of course a few brick and mortar shops. However, doing some reconnaissance I was able to learn that the one closest to me has a somewhat bad reputation which leads me to believe that if I can increase the exposure of my business, then I have a greater opportunity to convert their customers into mine by providing top notch customer service.

Typically when I perform service for a client, I always leave them a couple cards and let them know that referrals are the lifeblood of my business and that if they know anybody that could use my services, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for the warm wishes and sharing what worked so well for you, I think I might give that a try in the next few weeks.


@trevm999 :
I cant believe that you actually got some work from someone having your resume, but hey if it got around town then everyone knows how qualified you are and i hope that as a byproduct it generates even more business for you.

 

[Dave R Mason]

Hey there Community,

I did a quick search in the Advertising forum and didn't find anything that quite covered this, but then again, that gold mine of knowledge and resources is over 1200 posts deep.

I recently started my own IT Consulting business, I haven't made the jump to full time yet so I am still holding on to my corporate IT position while my business is growing. I live in a small 'one-horse' town and when I say that, I mean it. We have a population of about 2,300 inside the city limits, we don't even have a stop light. The closest thing we have is a 4-way stop sign with a flashing red light. However, within 10-15 minutes of us are 2 much larger towns with populations over 15,000 at each.

In our small town we have a grocery store that does quite a bit of traffic, especially around dinner time. The other day I received permission from the store manager to stand outside and pass out business cards, to which I eagerly took advantage of. Over the course of a couple of hours I handed out somewhere in the neighborhood of 150-ish cards. I realize these folks are in somewhat of a hurry to get in and get out so when handing out my card, I tried to make it as quick as possible so as to not create a negative experience in their minds.

The typical exchange went as follows:

1. Pleasantly greet the potential future customer
2. Introduced myself as the owner of my company
3. Hand them a business card
4. Tell them that I was just handing out my business card so they would have it and if they ever needed any computer help, to give me a call.
5. They would thank me and I would thank them
6. Rinse and Repeat

So this leads me to a couple of questions...

• Has any of the members of the community tried this method of advertising?
• How successful was it (especially with the whole small town mentality if applicable)?
• Do you have any suggestions for a quick 5-second speal that I can use rather than what I'm using in #4 above? I've been brainstorming this morning over coffee and have come up with a couple of ideas but nothing concrete.

Thanks Technibble Community, you guys rock!

 

[Dave R Mason]

I hand out a lot if business cards.., literally!!!!
My favorite spots are computer flea markets, and ham fests.
...I even hand them out to people who work where Iam and doing Tech Caps (assuming the owner/manager does not object - and "I do ask before handing them out to their employees"

 

[allstarit]

What is your ideal client - Residential or Business? For me doing this at my local grocery store would be a time waster for me. i mostly work with Small businesses so my ideal customer/client is to meet the business owner. If your targeting home users this could work though.

I have been doing a lot of research on sales/marketing and i think Facebook Advertising is the best way to advertise towards your target market. You can pin point your ideal audience and target people who have visited your site. Do some research on facebook advertising.
Business Networking Events are also good - surround yourself with other business owners.

 

[Blues]

I have never done direct hand outs but have left cards at places with high traffic and while I haven't done this I have also considered leaving good small to medium sized flyers posted on high traffic advertising boards.

 

[InHomeComputerHelp.com]

I went door-to-door introducing myself and handing out my business cards to local businesses one day.

I have gray hair so it worked out I said I'm just doing some old-school advertising and introducing myself I'm your local Computer Guy
.
Picked up a couple of new computer clients doing that that one day one of which caused me on a regular basis

Rick

 

[InHomeComputerHelp.com]

I went door-to-door introducing myself and handing out my business cards to local businesses one day.

I have gray hair so it worked out I said I'm just doing some old-school advertising and introducing myself I'm your local Computer Guy
.
Picked up a couple of new computer clients doing that that one day one of which caused me on a regular basis

Rick

Shoot I did not notice on my phone how old this thread was if you want me to delete my response let me know

 

[Markverhyden]

Shoot I did not notice on my phone how old this thread was if you want me to delete my response let me know

Don't worry. I'm sure the tame little @Kitten Kong won't hold it against you. This time. LOL!!!!

 

[glennd]

Don't worry. I'm sure the tame little @Kitten Kong won't hold it against you. This time. LOL!!!!

Off with his head!!!

 

[Kitten Kong]

And the winner of the necromancer award for resuscitation of the oldest thread goes to...

 

[britechguy]

And the winner of the necromancer award for resuscitation of the oldest thread goes to...

Au contraire!

Clients wants customers to sign pdfs digitally​

Rooting android​

We have several recent necromancers who deserve the crown more than this pretender!

 

[VISA MC]

I blame it on the similar threads sections.

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www.technibble.com

On this thread, my similar threads are:

The most recent being from 2019, the oldest being 2014. I usually end up down a rabbit hole poking through those.