Are You Giving Your Business Away?

Problem

This pizza place was relatively new in town. They were trying to figure out ways to get the word out about their new business.

Since they were in a college town, they figured a good way to get people in was to offer coupons on the back of the college hockey tickets. So, on the back of every hockey ticket to the home games, there was a coupon for “one free pizza”. Note that there was no other requirement to get the free pizza. Just come in and pick it up!

Since a large majority of people who attend college hockey games are college students, this plan worked brilliantly!

It worked so brilliantly that the pizza place could not keep up with the demand for FREE pizza! Sadly, the free pizzas didn’t last long…Shortly after the start of this marketing campaign, the place went out of business.

Lesson from the story

Consider the consequences of coupons. Instead of offering something free, maybe offer “buy one, get one free” types of coupons.

Consider how many are in the target audience…. College hockey games in this town were a big draw, therefore this business underestimated the cost involved in offering “free” on the back of the ticket.

They got way more “business” than they planned for and it ended up costing them their business.

Thanks to

anonymous

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