IF YOU DON’T, THEY’LL WALK

At the same festival where I witnessed the brilliant Mentos & Diet Coke marketing, there was also live music on multiple stages.

One of the acts was a woman with an incredible voice. She played acoustic guitar and her backing band was the traditional electric guitar, bass, drum line-up. The songs she sang were originals and very well written. After hearing only 2 of them, I started looking for a merch table to see if there were CD’s available.

Sure enough, a small table set-up at the side of the stage had 3 different titles displayed. Also on the table was a big vinyl CD carrier full of back stock, and an old “knuckle buster” credit card machine.

The only problem? There was nobody there to take the money. A little later in the set, the singer announced the ‘honor system’ for buying her CD’s at $15 each...just drop the money in the vinyl carrier. Of course, this didn’t solve the problem for people who needed change or wanted to use a credit card.

If you are going to market yourself, your company, or your products in a location that permits buying, make sure you are also prepared to make the sale there and then, and make it EASY for your customers to give you their money. If you do, they will. If you don’t, they’ll walk.