Successful marketing campaigns can be expensive, and cost cutting measures usually lead to lower response rates. Especially in this weak economy, it becomes increasingly important to lower the cost of the campaign while achieving the same, or even better, results. For the past couple years, I have been suggesting a specific addition to my clients’ marketing campaigns that has been undoubtedly one of the most customer-attracting yet cheapest strategies I have ever used.

To increase customer traffic and therefore profits, all we do is create a desktop Wallpaper that is so compelling that recipients will just have to send it on to all of their friends. All it costs is little more than a few minutes to send a couple of e-mails to your existing customer base. The desktop wallpaper technique also allows us to touch and retouch current patrons as well – in case we have slipped into the back of their mind, this will bring us to the front again.

In order to maximize the benefits and reach more than your current customers, there are a few special techniques that must be used within the wallpaper design. Here are seven easy steps to making this campaign work for you:

1)    As I mentioned before, step one is to dream up a fun, compelling, motivational desktop wallpaper to entice customers to forward the e-mail on to their friends. The wallpaper should include an interesting photo that is representative of your company as well as a catchy quote that will remind the customer constantly of your products or services. (You can see an example of one of the wallpapers I created at http://pdamarketing.net/store_wallpapers.html)

2)    The second step is to add an offer to your wallpaper that just can’t be refused. You need to give the customer a reason to come in and try your product or service. If they are a regular at one of your competitors, this offer will give them incentive to stop in and purchase something from you at a reduced rate. If you make a good impression, they’ll soon become you’re regular.

3)    The next step is to put your contact information on the wallpaper as well so that you can easily be accessed. The customer needs to be able to reach you if they have any questions; don’t give them a reason to ignore their interest!

4)    Add a special live link to the desktop so that the customer will be able to easily reach your website at anytime. If you’re a restaurant, you want them to be able to reach the menu in one click; it will give them less time to decide to eat something else for lunch. No matter what kind of products or services you offer, you want the recipient of the wallpaper to be able to see your range of offerings quickly and easily.

5)    After you’ve created the perfect wallpaper with all of the above contributing parts, you need to e-mail the wallpaper out to your existing list of clients.

6)    Include a ‘forward to a friend’ link in the e-mail to make it as easy as possible to send the wallpaper to oodles of friends. We use an e-mail capture program that allows us to add all of their friends’ contact information to our customer list. This way, we can increase the e-mail list exponentially and have more people to send the wallpapers to in the future.

7)    Watch your contact list multiply and profits soar!