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paidIf you were to be paid to do your marketing, would you do more?

It’s often one of the reasons why marketing gets shoved down the to-do-list.  Client work gets priority because you know you are invoicing for your time.  Or the orders that come through have to be packaged and dispatched because your customers have paid you already.

When you get busy with clients and customers, the article writing, press releases, networking events and newsletter writing gets re-scheduled or, even worse, cancelled all together.

But what if your marketing time brought you an income?  And I don’t mean income from clients and customers as a result of your marketing.  I mean your marketing activity actually generated a revenue.

Let me give you an example.

I went to a wine tasting event recently. Well, when I say wine tasting, it was more of a wine drinking evening!  But hangover aside, what impressed me about this event was the way it was put together.

We had already bought wine from this wine importer.  The owner is a real personality and his genuine love for Italian wines and food is infectious.  When we got a postcard advertising this weekend’s wine tasting event, we already knew and trusted this company and decided to bring some friends along for a good night out.

For £25 a head, we were promised a three course meal and tasting of ten different wines.  And we arrived on the night, there were another 90 people in the room, all of whom had paid £25 a head to taste the wines on offer.

As the evening progressed, we were introduced to two of the wine growers who had flown all the way over from Italy to tell us the story behind their wines.  And as the wines flowed and we were asked to grade which ones we liked, the orders started to flow.

We left with a promised delivery of 36 bottles of our favourites of the night and going by the rest of the crowd, you could be sure that most of the diners will be expecting similar sized, if not more, deliveries this week too.

Now why blog about this event?

Now, I can bet that there are hundreds of wine importing businesses offering wine tasting events.  I see them all the time.  “Free wine tasting. Drop in any time.” is the usual headline.  And yes, these events can work too.

But when you think big and start charging for what it is you deliver, your marketing can easily start to become an income stream.  AND a better conversion system in the process.

We got exceptional value from our £25.  The food was top notch.  The atmosphere was relaxed and friendly.  There was a real buzz in the room.  And yes, there is nothing like a good bit of alchol to loosen that credit card!

But this wine importers not only ran a fantastic promotion event, they probably made a good profit from it too.

What can you do this year that turns your promotional and marketing activity in to an income stream AND create a stronger conversion system in the process? Let me know in the comments below!

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