Yesterday I was given another Internet Marketing “system” by someone to review. It involves combining Cost per Action (CPA) offers with Offline Marketing services. I reviewed the system that the author said he has been so successful at, and I have to take exception
Here is the “system”:
NOTE: This can be integrated with SMS services to capture cell phone numbers for the “Offline” part of the system.
1. Approach a local restaurant with a Table Tent that has one of your CPA offers on it.
2. Tell the restaurant manager that you would like to run a promotion using his/her restaurant, and that the prize is a Gas Card or Restaurant Gift card.
3. Put the Table Tents on the tables and watch the money roll in as people participate in the CPA offer (the example used was an email submit offer).
4. At the end of the contest, choose a winner and present them with the card or other prize.
5. Take the customer information you have gotten from the restaurant patrons (phone numbers and emails) and go back to the restaurant to sell one time promos and marketing services.
The author claims that you can make $15,000.00 per month with this method. I completely disagree. This method also exploits the restaurant completely. Part of the Mission Statement for my company is to always think win-win-win (my client-the consumer-then me).
The author keeps all of the marketing information for himself so that he can then exploit the restaurant owner for more money later on.
Bad idea.
This will be a short lived relationship and will get you a bad reputation around your local market. Instead, I would offer to share the list with the restaurant owner and offer to send out SMS and email blasts up to 4 times a month for free. The restaurant owner also has the list to be able to use other services if they so choose. As the restaurant owner is not a marketer, he will likely turn to you for your advice and services anyway, but at least he now has something other than a gift card purchase, in exchange for allowing you to use his/her restaurant as a marketing engine.
Having dealt with restaurants and done restaurant marketing for quite some time, there are a few lessons I have learned:
1) Restaurants will only want to promote their internal offers on table tents or cards, not 3rd party offers.
2) A restaurant will never jeopardize their relationships with customers by promoting 3rd party offers if there is even a hint that the promotion company may screw up.
3) Most restaurants have loyal and steady clientelle. The “viral” aspect of this will NEVER happen unless the restaurant owner promotes it, or the marketing company promotes it heavily (which will almost never happen).
The only reason the WSO author has 2 restaurant clients is because those restaurants are desperate for new clients and will try anything. He probably tried to get 20-30 restaurants to sign up, but they were all too smart or protective of their clients.