How to Adapt “Shop Here: Bowl Free” for Your Author Business

Another installment in cribbing marketing ideas from other fields

Storefront sign on Clark St. north of Diversey Ave. in Chicago (Photo by the author).

What? Free bowling!? They see us coming. Ok, not really, but I see them all over my neighborhod. The signs of the simple 2-part harmony of a local bowling alley’s real world, paper-based, no-graphic-skills-required marekting campaign.

Photo by the author.

I haven’t yet bowled for free, but I have at least five of the cards depicted above customized for different neighborhood businesses. It is a brilliant, low-cost partnership for both sides that consists of:

• Window signs encouraging passersby to stop in and shop in exchange for something free (bowling). (In reality, all the participant businesses leave the cards out for the taking, no purchase required.)
• Business-card sized flyers customized for each local business participating: Bowl Free Compliments of… (name, address, and phone number included).
• Both businesses get attention and exposure and possibly business from the synergy for the cost of paper and printing. One will also have the cost of using scotch tape on their window and one…