In today’s economy gaining new customers can be a huge challenge. People are spending less, they are more skeptical, and advertising rates are increasing. What is a small business supposed to do? Well, it is not a widely known fact, but almost every TV or radio station has unpaid airtime. Now, if you would just call them up and ask for the “unpaid airtime slots” they would say they don’t know what you are talking about. If you are aware of the barter opportunities that exist for this airtime, then you will be able to thrive as a small business in a down economy. Here is what one small company did years ago to gain a foothold in retail markets, and become a huge success.

Icy Hot, a brand name soothing gel for your aches and pains was a small company with no advertising budget, and a small customer base. They knew they had a good product though because most people that bought the product stayed a customer for an average of three years, and bought 4-5 packages a year. The product cost about $1 to make a single package, and sold for $3 per package. The company had a lot of extra inventory because not many retailers would sell a product that there was little or no advertising for.

The company took the inventory and went to a radio station and offered them the opportunity to sell the packages for $2 each (a significant discount from any retailer). The radio station would get to keep the entire sale of $2 just for promoting it on the station. The radio station agreed and less than a week later, had sold over 20,000 containers of the product.

This campaign raised over $40,000 in profits for the radio station which they loved, however the big winner was Icy Hot, who gained over 15,000 new customers. The lifetime value of these customers was over $350,000. The company “bartered” their extra inventory (cost of $20,000) for free advertising, which gained them many new customers. The company did this with many radio stations, and before long were getting huge orders from retailers. The total gain over the new customer’s lifetime product purchases was millions of dollars. Not to mention all of the free advertising they received from the radio stations.

{ 3 comments }