Small Business Summit Center

There is always room for creativity in your marketing. Let's see one example:

I just got this email promotion from charming UK clothier Boden:

29 orders to be won today

Here's the body of the email:

The copy: "Every four years, whoever manages the solar system gives us a 29th day in February for free. We always like joining in, so Barry, who manages our warehouse, will give away 29 orders today, also for free."

Clicking on the "Try your luck" takes you to their home page.

Essentially, they're giving refunds on 29 orders placed today, February 29.

What an excellent, simple offer, presented tastefully and clearly. I bet this increases orders and per-order amount.

You may not be a big business like Boden, but you can always come up with a neat offer for your customers.

Addendum: I wondered how likely I was to win, should I order. Some back-of-envelope calculations: Boden's ecommerce partner claims they were doing about $100 million online in 2006. Let's bump that to $120M for 2008. Divide by 400 days (to correct for seasonality/Christmas) and a wild-guess $120 per order, and I expect they average 2500 online orders per day. Assume 400 new orders coming from this email promotion alone. I chose 400 in part because it brings us to 2900 orders today, giving me (and you) a clean 1% chance to get your money back. Too low for me.

But I'll keep opening their emails.