A Marketing Challenge For Y'All

Hi Everyone,

I have a marketing problem/situation that I'm hoping you all can help me out with. A friend (and potential client), Tom, is an optician with a store in a good-size outdoor mall. He has been there about 7 years, if memory serves. It's a prime location, right in the middle of town (Northern NJ), but he says that business has been particularly slow for all the tenants the past few months. Frankly, he is barely paying his bills. He acknowledges that November is usually a slow month in his industry, but as I said, this has been going on for awhile.

Tom has a very nice store, well lit with very nice displays. He prides himself on carrying only quality merchandise at reasonable prices and is very patient-focussed. He is very friendly and recognizes regular patients by name, knows their families, occupations, hobbies, etc., and keeps detailed records. Overall, a very classy operation.

I have presented him with many good marketing ideas/concepts (a la Jay Abraham & others), which he likes and sees the value in. The main problem (and his main weakness) is that he is slightly technophobic and doesn't own a computer, so naturally he doesn't have his patient info in any kind of database that can be used to do mailings. I've given him some advice on hardware & software, and between Tom's wife and I, we have convinced him that he needs to do this. (It will be a major project, but I recommended he start with a small segment -- namely, the more affluent patients.) But, he doesn't feel he can spare the bucks, at this point. Plus, he has some aversion to leasing a PC or laptop, partly because he doesn't want to get locked into a 2-year contract and then go out of business in 3 months....

He doesn't do much advertising, though he has recently been testing display ads in a very small, bi-weekly, local paper that targets some of the more affluent communities in our area. They haven't pulled very well, so Tom let me design a new ad to test, which just came out last week. The headline is "Are You Suffering From Any Of These Eye Problems?", followed by 5 bullets, four lines of text urging regular examinations and pro-active eyecare; then his name/address/phone & logo, flanked by photos of him and the optometrist. The bottom is two coupons, one for "$29 Eye Exams (reg. $80) every Friday" and one for a Holiday Special of $50 off lenses w/ purchase of new frames. I followed all the rules (I think) about fonts/typeface and color. We both thought it would work pretty well, but tonight he said he hasn't had ANY response.

Tom continues to blame the economy in general (national, not just local) for the poor business and doesn't really blame me for the new ad not pulling, but I'm not sure that's the only problem. In fact, if we could just do some mailings to current and inactive patients, I think we could get him some business. Since this doesn't look like it's gonna happen real soon, I'm struggling to come up with something that's going to bring him some cash flow before he decides to pack it in.

So, after doing some heavy thinking since talking with Tom earlier this evening, here are the 3 things I've come up with. 1) Consider getting a small, Small Business loan; although, I don't think he'll like that one, especially since another local optician is going out of business and is heavily in debt. 2) Something we've already discussed, which is to mail to other businesses' customers/clients, either as a JV or endorsed mailing or renting the list(s), etc. Of course, with any mailing there are printing & postage costs, but even a limited, test-mailing might prove worthwhile, then re-invest in more mailings, and so on. Also, I figure we may be able to trade for Tom's products/services or perhaps for future use of his list. And that brings me to... 3) Barter. I was just reading some Jay Abraham materials on barter, and it dawned on me that this might be just the ticket. We might be able to barter Tom's products/services (at retail) to pay off some of his bills. And, we could barter them to local radio stations (and maybe newspaper or local TV/cable) in exchange for advertising.

Now, my questions for you guys & gals are:
1) Does anyone have any other suggestions for Tom and/or for his fellow tenants at the mall (maybe a group event)?
2) Any ideas why my ad didn't work? (I'll see if I can get a copy from Tom or the paper, so I can scan it in.)
3) Have any of you done any trades/bartering of products/services like I described, and what were your experiences?
4) As for radio & other media, does it make more sense to approach the Marketing/Advertising Director to suggest the barter deal, or should I go straight to the General Manager? And, what is the best place to get the up-to-date names/numbers for these people? (Yellow Pages doesn't even list all the local stations.)
5) Any recommendations on how (not) to "pitch" these people?

To all those who have read thru all of this, you do me great honor. I greatly appreciate any suggestions or input any of you have.

Best Regards,
Chris Harris