In September, I had a three-week sailing adventure in the Greek Islands. I enjoyed the time with my wife, excellent sailing, incredible sights, friendly people, and delicious food. Now, I'm back and ready to blog.
Last week, I spoke on "Boosting Your Rentals with Buzz Marketing" at the 2007 APRO Convention & Buying Show in Reno, Nevada. The annual event is the largest gathering of people in the rent-to-own (RTO) industry. Before the conference, I published an article in Progressive Rentals, APRO's bimonthly magazine, on "Leveraging the Power of Customer Buzz" which has lessons and ideas applicable to any retail operation.
In my sessions at the APRO event, I heard some great ideas from entrepreneurs who have created tremendous publicity for their RTO stores. One Tampa Bay, Florida store has an annual kid's fingerprinting and safety event. According to the store's owner, each year the event garners more media attention and and draws larger crowds. Another conference attendee told me about a strategy that he rolls out every time he opens a new store. He notifies the media that a convoy of his brightly-painted and vinyl-emblazoned delivery trucks will be pulling into his new store's parking lot to unload merchandise. Nearly every time, this visual image gets TV cameras to appear and lands big photos in local papers with headlines like "There's a New Store in Town."
Both examples illustrate how one good idea can continue getting publicity. If something works for you once, why not try it again? I've seen the same publicity ideas produce results whenever they're tried. Too often, people give up on a successful way to garner media attention because they become bored with it before the media does.
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