Here's something that may float your boat....

I have a friend who owns the largest sub sandwich place in town (and the best!). I've talked with him about creating a "coupon" campaign. We've talked about many options. But I think we have decided on one.....

Tell me what you think about this idea:

I've signed up for desktoplighting virul marketing. Here's my link (hey I make no money off of giving you my link)

http://www.desktoplightning.com/rmorris

We're thinking about putting up a drop box for email address's. When the customer gives us an email address, we will invite them to join (hey it's free for them). Thus putting the menu, specials, coupons on their desktop (via desktoplightning) vs. email.

And if it works well for my friend I'm going to expand it to other food service business's.

I guess I'm a little nervous that they may kill the free accounts. Does anyone have any experience with them and if so what are your feelings.....

Anyway I'm sure there are lots of ways to use this medium to open up new avenues of business.

Maybe this will help open some "head" waves and give someone an idea or two.

thanks.....
Pappy

Hi Pappy:

Unfortunately, I don't have any experience with desktoplighting, or any other
desktop communications software.

However, I do have experience in using online viral coupon marketing to get
more business for restaurants(and other brick and mortar type
establishments), and to collect customer opt-in email addresses. It works
great if you know how to do it.

I hope this doesn't sound too much like a self promotional ad here, but your
sub shop friend may be very interested in trying a viral coupon distribution
system I created. Even if you're not interested in my system, maybe the
below info I provide can give you and other smart marketers some ideas of
your own.

My system creates an online "buzz" referral campaign that will collect both
new and current customers' contact info rather quickly.

HOW IT WORKS is the restaurant's current customer invites his friends to
receive a "free meal" on him via a special "Refer-A-Friend" web form. His
friends will then automatically be emailed the "free meal" invitation message
prompting them to click the special web page link where they will sign up for
their free meal. Once they sign up, a printable "gift certificate" is
automatically generated that includes a unique certificate number as well as
the coupon recipients' sign up information. The new customer is then
encouraged to send a "free meal" to their friends, thereby repeating the
referral process.

The latest viral coupon campaign I created generated over 650 "new
customer" coupon signups in 4 weeks for just one restaurant in the mid sized
town of Bloomington, Ill. These are all people who've submitted their email
addresses and opted to receive additional promotional messages from the
restaurant. Most importantly, the restaurant will be getting new people in
their door to try their food, increasing their customer base for many years to
come.

Pappy, if you (or anyone else) would like more details on how my system
works (I'll include demo campaigns, and a link to the campaign that's
generated over 730 sign ups so far), just drop me an email.

Thanks for letting me share.

- Eric

Hi Eric.


I've been working with coupons for a while and I love creating coupons... I would love to team up with anyone who wants help with that business model.

I have a web site called www.couponsgenie.com or www.couponsmachine.com and I've created the coupons template.

If you have a web site, I'd be interested in viewing it!

Thanks.

John Davin

Hey Pappy,

If you get going with this please let us know how it works for you, but I'd be leery of any service where you're at their mercy to contact your "list". Yeah, email has it's share of deliverability problems, but I'd rather take my chances with a real email list instead of trusting a service I know nothing about.

I do think almost any business can use email to their advantage and restaurants especially, but be careful what kind of coupons you encourage people to pass around, as you wouldn't want to repeat the fiasco Starbucks went through earlier this year http://www.seedsofgrowth.com/the-sta...sco-venti-size

I'd take some lessons from California Tortilla http://www.geolocal.com/public/79.cfm?sd=45 who's got a nice list of over 6000 folks they market to on a regular basis.

Good luck!

Steve