Fridge Magnet Marketing

Now, I’m going to share with you two common types of advertising, and in doing so I’m going to share with you a very successful advert I ran hired [verbatim 0:16 ] for about 2 to 3 years. It was the most effective ad I had ever done for a certain division of my business, i.e. the parting [verbatim 0:28 ] division, i.e. the small equipment division, targeting a specific target segment or a market segment in my target market.

Let’s have a look at the two common types of advertising. The ad that I’m going to share with you from my business was in the sales driver. Let’s have a first look at awareness building, and then we’ll have a look at the sales driver. So, awareness building. Here’s an ad from Bunnings [verbatim 0:54 ] and I think we all know what an awareness building ad is. In this instance, they’re telling you the dates they’re open over the Easter time. Awareness building could be an ad promoting a business that you’ve moved location, reminding customers what you offer, owning a new outlet, introducing new products and services. We know what an awareness building ad is.

Here’s the ad that I ran as a sales driver for my business, and I’ll just talk you through this particular ad. Now, this was a fridge magnet. It was just half an A4, a B5 I think is the right terminology. Half an A4, and it was a glossy kind of cardboard fridge magnet or form, and it had a fridge magnet on the back. Now, we would deliver a hundred thousand of these in a radius around my Blacktail [verbatim 1:55 ] store, because the target market I was looking for was small equipment hiring, party hire [verbatim 2:01 ] generally speaking because I never knew, as a hire company, when you were going to have a party. I never knew when you needed a chainsaw to cut down that tree. I never knew when you needed my services. What I wanted to try to do was keep in your face, keep top of mind – we call it in your face marketing.

We developed this fridge magnet, and this fridge magnet had the offer of 9-kilo gas refills, only $13 – and I would give you x5 9-kilo gas refills for $13 in gas refills. Now, most of my target market, most of the people in this world have a 9 kilo gas bottle, they have a barbecue bottle in the backyard. To fill up a 9 kilo gas bottle at the time would have cost you $25 at a local service station. What I was doing was a – what was I doing? It’s escaped me! I was doing a loss leader, so come in, fill in your gas bottle for $13, and for that $13 I was breaking even. I wasn’t making any money on that. Can I tell you, you had 5? You had 5 chances to fill up your $13 gas bottle, and you’d bring your coupon on and we would clip it for you at the bottom.

Can I tell you that it takes you a long time to fill up 5 9-kilo gas bottles? It can take you months, if not years, if not eighteen months. Here, I wanted to stay on you fridge. I was going to stay on your fridge for a long time. If you filled up your 5 9 kilo gas bottles in a hurry, my staff would give you another coupon because I always wanted to be on your fridge. Like I said, I didn’t know when you needed to hire a chainsaw to cut down your neighbor’s tree, but the day that you wake up and say “I need a chainsaw,” hopefully I’m top of mind, I’m on your fridge – that crazy David Caruso – thinking, and at least I’m going to get an opportunity to quote you for that chainsaw. I’m going to get that opportunity because if you used our 9 kilo gas bottle service, you got very good service when you came into the shop. You were particularly looked after, you saw what we were, you saw how professional we were. We had a good chance of winning your chainsaw hire business because I didn’t want your 9-kilo gas bottle refill business, I didn’t make any money from that. I wanted your chainsaw business; I wanted your party business.

It was a very, very successful campaign and it increased our exposure for our business. Please, if you feel you can take something from that promotional thing, please do so. Sometimes i get asked, “David, what is the most successful marketing endeavor you ever did?” Usually, for shock value I say “fridge magnets!” And it was true, fridge magnets were very effective for us. Some people in the audience say, “Dave, are you crazy? We’ve tried fridge magnets, fridge magnets don’t work.” Well, I disagree with that. The point I want you to take over, the point I’m trying to make for you, is that every marketing channel will work for you if you’re targeting the right target market with the right offer, it’ll work for you. Nobody can tell me that fridge magnets don’t work. Fridge magnets kick butt! Yet, we use a channel not to its best ability – we use a channel ineffectively and then think the channel doesn’t work. So we go back to that marketing strategy, the four pillars, understanding our target market, understanding the right channel to use. Once you’ve done that, you’ve got to have the right offer to the right target market.