Supplementing My Offline Business With Ads. Your Thoughts?
My wife and I have an offline business where we go to festivals and events and sell gourmet food products. At any given festival we might have 200-300 customers per day, each of which ends up with product which we put in a bag.
I've been thinking that there should be a way to increase our revenue with each sale. One of the first things that came to mind would be to place advertisements within each bag that we pass out. I could either place a newsletter/flyer in the bag that lists information/links to a few websites, or actual promotional items, like pens or letter openers, etc., that my advertisers provide.
I would then charge the advertisers at the end of each of our events for the quantity of flyers that were distributed. Some events will last 4-5 days, others are over in an afternoon. To a degree, the advertisers have to trust that I am actually distributing their items. But that goes both ways, as I would have to trust that my advertisers are not going to turn their links into spammy/hate/porno sites after I distribute the materials. I would be able, as part of the billing process to say, "X number of flyers distributed on X date, in CITY, STATE". Additionally, as mailorder takes off, I could, say, on a monthly basis give a summary of flyers included in our shipments, and the dates and cities, etc.
The goal is to make every sale for my wife's business more profitable.
What are your thoughts on this idea? How would you suggest going after and filtering advertisers? What would you recommend as a charge for either brochure inclusion or distributing promotional items that the advertisers ship to me? Any thoughts on the process of collecting the money first or billing, etc.?
Our customer base is gourmet food related, and quite loyal to our product. Obviously, we would not be sending them to online competitors, lol, but perhaps merchants that are nominally related to our niche. General wholesalers, gourmet kitchen equipment, high end furniture, maybe travel web sites, etc.
One obvious solution would be to build a couple of affiliate sites on my own and include ads for them. But the bonus of bundling in other advertisers is a fixed, nominal revenue stream.
Thoughts?
I've been thinking that there should be a way to increase our revenue with each sale. One of the first things that came to mind would be to place advertisements within each bag that we pass out. I could either place a newsletter/flyer in the bag that lists information/links to a few websites, or actual promotional items, like pens or letter openers, etc., that my advertisers provide.
I would then charge the advertisers at the end of each of our events for the quantity of flyers that were distributed. Some events will last 4-5 days, others are over in an afternoon. To a degree, the advertisers have to trust that I am actually distributing their items. But that goes both ways, as I would have to trust that my advertisers are not going to turn their links into spammy/hate/porno sites after I distribute the materials. I would be able, as part of the billing process to say, "X number of flyers distributed on X date, in CITY, STATE". Additionally, as mailorder takes off, I could, say, on a monthly basis give a summary of flyers included in our shipments, and the dates and cities, etc.
The goal is to make every sale for my wife's business more profitable.
What are your thoughts on this idea? How would you suggest going after and filtering advertisers? What would you recommend as a charge for either brochure inclusion or distributing promotional items that the advertisers ship to me? Any thoughts on the process of collecting the money first or billing, etc.?
Our customer base is gourmet food related, and quite loyal to our product. Obviously, we would not be sending them to online competitors, lol, but perhaps merchants that are nominally related to our niche. General wholesalers, gourmet kitchen equipment, high end furniture, maybe travel web sites, etc.
One obvious solution would be to build a couple of affiliate sites on my own and include ads for them. But the bonus of bundling in other advertisers is a fixed, nominal revenue stream.
Thoughts?
What if they're not stars? What if they are holes poked in the top of a container so we can breath?