I am putting together a website for my area which will give all the eating establishments in the county a place to display their menus and other info about themselves. A restaurant directory basically. I am trying to think of the best way to advertise it to the businesses to get them to sign up. I feel I need to get the businesses to sign up first rather than getting the consumers to visit so I want to promote to the businesses. I plan on giving away the service at first. I figure that this is a way to get the businesses to sign up and I think its fair since at first their would not be much traffic on the site. Once the site has a decent amount of businesses signed and is getting some traffic, I would then start charging. I am probably going to make it a 3 month trial period. I would certainly explain to businesses this intention in advance. I plan on charging a month to month fee after the trial. I want to figure out a good postcard design to promote it but I am having a hard time as I have terrible design sense. Not sure if I should make it a humorous and colorful design, or simply something basic and to the point. Below is the front of one of my ideas which is the humorous design idea I had. The backside of would black and white and be more detailed and to the point, explaining my service and have all my contact information and web address. I've changed the site name to protect my interest. While I think this design would be fine when sending to consumers to generate traffic, I want some opinions as to whether it is right for promoting to the restaurants themselves. Thanks in advance Adam
It's a bit too wordy. too much work for anyone to read. Advertising should be quick and to the point. Bold headline, call to action
Considering that you are targeting restaurant owners and managers, I would scratch the humor idea. It must be professional and direct fact. You only have a few seconds to catch their attention. I can help you with this. Just pm me if you're interested.
I would shorten it to: Q: "Food mood?" A: "Good Food!" And have your web address (url) more visible underneath the image, but that's just IMHO.
If you want to target businesses you'll need a stronger card. A successful direct mail piece will have a strong headline, benefit copy, feature copy, call to action, and perhaps an offer. On top of that you will probably need to mail these three or more times to the same list to get a decent response. Direct mail is a tough nut to crack, but it's relatively inexpensive and can be quite successful with the right creative and enough frequency. Headline: You need to capture their attention with a strong headline. You have to get their attention, inform them as to what this mailing is about, and convince them not to toss it in the trash and your headline has to do all of this in the span of the 2 or 3 seconds they will spend with your card before chucking it in the trash. Benefit Copy: After you have them, you have to move them directly into the "what's in it for me" mode by hitting them with the benefits of your listing service. Benefits are emotional and tangible response items that the customer will benefit from by using your service. They are NOT the same as features. Feature Copy: After the benefits you can start getting into the feature copy. Features are usually nuts-and-bolts type items. For example, if your site has a mailing list that your customer can advertise in, that is a feature. The increased exposure for their business would be the benefit of that feature. Call to Action: You need a call to action. It almost sounds silly, but you have to ask for the sale. You need to literally ask the prospect to do something. Call today. Visit us online at www. Email us for details. Offer: And then you can sweeten the deal with the offer. A free trial period, featured placement, whatever works for your site.