The Simplest Marketing Tactic to Get Business Moving

“I never thought that I would meet three people with so much free time,” Nathan Fielder says to three customers seeking a gas rebate in Season 1, Episode 4 of Nathan for You: “Gas Station/ Caricature Artist.”

To help a gas station owner attract more business, Fielder suggests that the price of gas per gallon be reduced to $1.75—after rebate. The rebate cannot be sent in via mail and must be placed in a box on the top of Mount Chile, accessible by an hour and a half car ride and two-hour hike. Once the passengers reach the top of the mountain, they must answer a series of riddles, spend the night sleeping outside, and then answer more inane questions in the morning. To Fielder’s surprise, three customers make it to the end of this grueling process. Despite their arduous work, after nearly 24 hours, Fielder convinces the three to walk down the mountain without submitting the rebate—after all, they gained wonderful friendships, something you cannot put a price on. Unknown to the three hikers, the rebate box is only yards from where they were sleeping.

Though this extreme idea exists within the realm of a comedy TV series, the notion of a company promising a reward that is (essentially) impossible to claim is not that farfetched. Think about all those times you put in your email address to receive 10% off on a brand, only to discover that, under the fine print, you were not eligible for the discount. Or the surveys that promise $250 gift cards to one lucky customer, but then fail to specify when the winner will be chosen, who it is, or how they chose them. Or when customers are enticed with a store credit when they refer a new customer, just to be told they did not meet every outrageous requirement set by the company. The product may vary, but one thing stays the same: Companies consistently use bait-and-switch tactics to attract customers. Oftentimes, like in this Nathan for You episode, the company hopes that the customer will give up before the corporation has to pay.

There is immense, sometimes irreparable, harm done to the company-customer relationship when these empty promises are made. Then again, the customer may not have even become a client had it not been for the false hope. What is better, to have a customer and let them down, or to never have the customer at all?

How about neither?

Nathan for You is a show about marketing tricks that ultimately fail. If you find yourself employing some of the same tactics, you should rethink your efforts. Thankfully, there are cheap marketing tricks that do work. Before creating a maze for customers to walk through to get their reward, consider taking the high road with one of the following strategies.

Three Ways to Attract Customers Without Lying or Losing Money

1. Giveaways + Sweepstakes

When I was a kid, my grandparents would often gift me random items from the storage container in their basement for my birthday. From these years I got bookmark calculators, funky watches, silver dollars, and tons of arts and crafts. Despite these things costing absolutely nothing to my grandparents, I thought it was the most hilarious and enjoyable part of my birthday each year. Why? Because I was surprised every time with something outrageous that I never would have purchased on my own. Most companies have a surplus of supplies in their offices. For every purchase a customer makes, they could get a raffle ticket toward winning a surprise item from the company. It will not help business to give away a pack of paper clips to the customer that spends the most money at your business. However, if you are a radio station, it is likely you have some extra headphones or microphones no longer in use. If you are a café, there is probably some old (but high-end) cooking equipment sitting around. And, if you are a gas station, you could give away t-shirts or other store paraphernalia.

2. Gamification

If the above form of gamification doesn’t sound appealing, there are plenty of other ones to choose from.

Gamification, or the addition of game elements to non-gaming activities, can get customers more involved with a product with little to no cost to the company. While sweepstake-type giveaways are a common form of this, they are far from the only way to include contests (and competition) into your business. At a gas station, gamification could have looked like giving customers a free cup of coffee for every 25 gallons of gas they purchase. It could be awarding them a small prize if they were in the top 5% of gas purchasers that month. It could be something as small as having customers get their picture taken for the company website if they went to the gas station five times in one week. Whatever the “reward” is, it does not have to be expensive. It just must be honest, something the Nathan for You ploy was missing. The business in the episode could have kept the structure to their idea but made it more ethical by framing it as a scavenger hunt: everyone who pays the full price of gas has the opportunity to take part in a group overnight hike. The first person to find the rebate box gets the rebate. In this case, Fielder would still limit how many discounts he was giving out while remaining honest and earning customer trust.

3. Community Involvement

Lululemon, one of the largest athletic fashion brands in the world, is also a leader for community involvement. When Lululemon sets up shop in a new town, they look to other local businesses to advertise with. As they gain their footing in the community, they employ local customers and employees to lead in-store yoga, running, and athletic classes. When reaching out to their larger, global community, they have an abundance of online programs and social media ambassador partnerships for those that do not have a retail location close by. More than being inexpensive and easy to implement, these ideas actually turn a profit for Lululemon. By making their stores a hub for community events and involvement, they attract far more customers than their products could alone. It does not matter what your business does—books, real estate, technology, gas—there are always creative ways to involve community members and attract more business.

With Nathan Fielder’s cheap trick, he attracted a multitude of new customers—for one day. The likelihood of a significant percentage of those customers returning after being fooled is very slim. For better results, consider the honest route. It does not have to cost much, and it will yield much better long-term results.

Photo by Derek Lee on Unsplash