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Frugal Marketing The Humble Flier, Part 2 of 3 Marketing lessons learned on a hitchhiking trip. You might think there aren't any marketing lessons to be learned on a hitchhiking trip—and you'd be wrong! * * * In 1976, as a 19-year-old skinny hippie, I spent the summer hitching across the US and Canada. And I learned that I had to market myself to people whizzing by on the highway: why they should want to interrupt their trip to spend some time with that long-haired kid out on the shoulder. One of the ways I accomplished this was by creating signs that could be read easily at highway speeds. I had black and red permanent markers, and cardboard was easy to find. I kept the message simple, often just one or two words. I made the letters as big as possible, often eight to twelve inches high—and I outlined the black letters, inside and out, with red to make it even more visible. In short, I made flier headlines. Similarly, if you're trying to catch people's attention as they're walking by, you need to have a headline that's big, clear, and visible. It has to attract attention both through its message and through the way that message is displayed. You may not need a two-color, foot-high headline that people can read at highway speeds—but you might need a two-inch headline that can be read easily at five miles an hour, as people walk by in a hurry. There were other marketing lessons in that hitchhiking trip, as well. Targeting, for instance. I learned quickly that if I was several hundred miles from my destination, I wasn't likely to get a ride through-and if my sign had the far away destination, I'd be out there a long time. But if I made a sign for the next major city or junction of another highway, say, 150 miles away, the odds increased that either I'd get a ride at least that far, or that someone would take me a hundred miles or so and feel like it was a real help. And for even more precise targeting, on local roads where speeds were slower, I had a small sign with a graphic of someone in the back of a pickup truck and the letters "OK." Since a lot of people in the Midwest drove pickup trucks, I got a lot of rides I wouldn't have otherwise gotten—including some times where other thumbers were ahead of me, and the truck passed them by but stopped to let me in. Mind you—I don't recommend hitchhiking. I'm older and more careful now, and times are different. But back then, it was the best way I could find to see the country—and it helped me formulate the concepts that led me to write books and assist clients in affordable, effective marketing strategies and materials. And I'm not the least bit sorry I had that experience. Next month, well look at specific techniques to make your flier stand out on a crowded bulletin board. If you missed Part 1 last month, click here to read it.
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