Sen Ze’s Business In Your Pajamas! Blog

Businesses want their Customers to return again and again to buy from them so that those businesses can increase their profits without having to keep looking for new Customers all the time.

Thus many companies like Starbucks print special Loyalty Cards with boxes for their stamps which will be filled in at the counter every time you make a purchase. And once those boxes are filled up with your repeated purchases, you’ll be entitled to a free something from them.

Well, how many times have you forgotten to bring your Loyalty Card with you? And how many Loyalty Cards do you actually have that make your wallet bulge unnecessarily, resulting in your not carrying them at all?

Both these factors will reduce the effectiveness of Loyalty Card Programs.

But there is a way around this because there’s a card you will ALWAYS bring with you all the time in your wallet.

Because without it, you may not be able to buy products or services.

This card is your credit card, of course (if you own one). Banks are literally giving away credit cards to anybody, so you’ll likely own one.

And if you’re like me, I use my credit card for about 99% of my purchases. By doing so, I collect points that will accumulate over time. Points that I can exchange for an air ticket, or for whatever products or services that the bank offers to its credit card Customers.

Now I look at my credit card every time I use it to purchase something. I have to, because I need to take it out from my wallet.

And if carry I all the time with me and I look at my Credit Card every time I purchase something…wouldn’t my Credit Card be the PERFECT Loyalty Card for any outlet to take advantage of?

Of course! This credit card Loyalty Card would be a Loyalty Card that I would never forget to bring out!

And how would an outlet take advantage of their Customers’ Credit Cards legally?

By printing nice little STICKERS with their outlets’ logos - and sticking those stickers on the Credit Card  itself!

Now every time I take out my credit card to pay for something, I see their sticker. And if the sticker is done properly, I’m reminded to go back to the outlet every single time I use it to pay for something else!

Here’s how my credit card looks like after the Manhattan Fish Market restaurant has done its job:

See that restaurant’s logo with the fish on it, just below the Citibank logo?

This is an absolutely brilliant and simple marketing idea!

All it costs the restaurant is some time spent to design the sticker. It can easily do this on its own. The Manhattan Fish Market restaurant’s sticker is nothing more than their logo, which has already been designed. Or it can get the printer of the sticker to help it out with it. Time taken - maybe 20 minutes max!

And then there’s just the printing cost which would be minimal, since each sticker is so small in size, and one sheet of stickers would be enough to give the restaurant maybe 50 - 100 stickers or more!

So each time a Customer uses his credit card to pay, the restaurant’s cashier simply peels off a sticker, and sticks it on the credit card in a few seconds. The waiter then returns the card to the Customer, and the deed is done! There’s absolutely no extra cost involved in putting the sticker on!

Imagine that - the restaurant saves on high printing costs for separate, big Loyalty Cards that many Customers will not be using most of the time. And if their card is not with them, there’s nothing to influence them to go to the restaurant.

And the stickers will continue to work for the restaurant for as long as the Customer’s credit card is still valid, and provided the Customer leaves it stuck on his credit cards. He will likely do so, if the sticker looks professional enough and there is some value to him for leaving it on.

So far, there’s only one sticker on my credit card. Did I mention that I use my credit card for 99% of my purchases?

This simply means that there’s lots of potential in this wonderful lost-cost marketing idea where I am and probably where you are too. And you don’t have to be a restaurant to be able to take advantage of it.

I’ll be covering a couple of simple, extra steps the restaurant can take to make this superb low-cost marketing tactic even more effective in a future post.

Stay tuned!

Sen Ze

I’ve just spent about 40 hours looking at the various options available for me to get the “exact” layout for this Business Blog looking the way I want it to.

But the journey hasn’t quite ended yet!

Wordpress comes with a basic “shell” that is great to use on its own. If all you want to do is to post your thoughts regularly, it’s the easiest Blog software I’ve ever used. It’s kinda intuitive in a sense - so the learning curve isn’t very steep.

However, my requirements far exceed simple postings and I went searching for enhancements. 

I found that there are a zillion WordPress addons that I can use. So many, it made my head spin thinking of the time it would take me to try them all out.

If you’re following this Blog, you’ll notice some neat stuff that I’ve added since my first introductory post.

Look at the sidebar on your right, where you’ll see RSS Feed icons for this blog for the various RSS Aggregators. I found a way to do this with just a few steps and just 5 minutes of my time, rather than creating each feed icon separately on my own as I had done earlier, which took me close to an hour to do.

I also managed to ensure that all the Categories I’ve created in the sidebar will show up no matter which page of my Blog is read. Previously the Categories will show up only on the Home Page of my Blog. Most Wordpress templates are set this way.

This tweak alone took me more than 8 hours to discover - because I was barking up the wrong tree. And in the end the solution was just a few seconds’ work!

Being able to control the sidebar to show all the things I want to show is important because my readers may come from the various pages on my Blog, not just from its Home Page.

There are a few more things to add - and you may just see them over the next few days if I can manage to include them all.

This Blogging experience is quite something - and I continue to be amazed at the creativity, energy and dedication of those who are involved in the Blogging Revolution. I’m learning new things every single day I’m testing out my Blog - and I can tell you it’s something worth looking at to add more impact to your marketing efforts.

Stay tuned!

Sen Ze

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