My advertising co-op project - an invitation

Business Money
1

Hi everyone

I’ve been meaning to post this for a while. I run a small advertising co-op, as outlined below. The website is still getting set up, but I send out promotional packages around Taiwan daily. As I have an ad coming out in a few days in a baby magazine, as well as working with “Babyhome” (Taiwan’s largest family-oriented discussion board) and other family-related groups, I am looking for more material to fill out the packs I send. If you are looking to reach local customers who might be interested in your business, please read the information below. Any questions you have after reading the information are most welcome. - Katrina

Open Letter to Forumosa Entrepeneurs Club

This is an invitation to all interested parties to join THE PARENTPACK, a free, mutual advertising initiative for family owned and oriented businesses and organisations in Taiwan.

THE PARENTPACK is coordinated by Katrina Brown (www.kmjoy.com) Our goal is to help others and ourselves promote our businesses, in a way that

  1. Reaches our target markets

  2. Offers our potential customers something of value

  3. Doesn’t require a large financial outlay for any of us

We do this by

  1. Working with individuals or groups who fit with our goals

  2. Collecting marketing materials, called “fillers” from these groups and redistributing them to people in THE PARENTPACK so they can hand the packs out to their customers or leave in places where our potential customers go

  3. Promoting THE PARENTPACK website and the packs themselves to further our reach

By joining THE PARENTPACK you will

  1. Get a free listing on www.parentpack.net (information to be provided by you), including link to your website

  2. Be able to put some marketing material of “value” into our pack (must be bilingual Mandarin/English). Ideas are:

Information sheets relevant to families in Taiwan
Maps
Voucher for free trial of your service/free shipping/discount on first order
Promotional item such as keychain, pen/magnet
Sample of product
3. Agree to distribute THE PARENTPACK to your customers, friends, or acquaintances, which will contain material supplied by other THE PARENTPACK members

  1. Commit to supplying at least 100 items to the PARENTPACK. For ease of planning, 500 is best, but if you cannot commit to that, just be aware that we cannot guarantee that all recipients of the PARENTPACK will receive information about your business.

Upcoming PARENTPACK promotions include:

l Giveaway offer in one of the most popular baby magazines in Taiwan (subscription 60,000)

l Cooperation with Taiwan’s largest family chatroom (Babyhome, 450,000 members), where members can redeem points for a PARENTPACK

l Indirect promotion through giveaways with Mamaway (one of the largest retailers of imported nursing wear and other products for mothers in Taiwan)

This model has been running successfully overseas for several years, and we are confident it will be successful here in Taiwan, too.

As we have a goal of doing a full update on our website August 25th, we would really appreciate it if you could reply to this email and let us know if you would like to join the pack, and to let us know what items you could supply us by August 20th.

We look forward to working with you!

Katrina and Jennifer

2

Once your site is up and running, Forumosa will be happy to do a link exchange with you. :slight_smile:

3

The big question is:
How much do you charge to put an ad on your site and be include in your advertising pack?

4

scott123,

To be listed on the site and included in the pack is free of charge. By joining the group, you are committing to providing your own materials (not just an ad, something of perceived value) to be included, and to helping other members promote their businesses. This would be through giving your own customers and friends the promo packs, or leaving them in your store for people to take, and by putting a link to the parentpack site on your website if you have one.

So, for example, I have a sample of my product in each pack, with a discount voucher that can be redeemed once by the new customer. Other items currently include a free trial class not usually offered, a free shipping voucher with a sample, and information useful to parents with young children. We would add your contribution to the pack, then you would tell us about how many you would hand out in the short-term, and we would send them to you.

We are not Taipei-specific, and send the packs island-wide. They are becoming popular, due to people blogging about them after they receive them with orders.

I can’t guarantee how much business you will get from this co-operative project, but you are welcome to try for a while and see if it is worth it for you.