Using Human Billboards to advertise your business may seem a little strange unless you understand the concept I am going to explain to you in a minute. I would imagine most people would picture a human billboard as being someone carrying a placard joined at the shoulders with messages on the front and back advertising a business or a special offer. That would certainly be a good guess, but it is not exactly what I had in mind.
How to Use Human Billboards to Expand Your Business
The kind of human billboard I am talking about is advertising a business, but not in the way previously described. For example, when you compliment someone’s new hairdo and the person says something like, “Thanks, Susan at XYZ salon is really a wizard”, that person is being a walking talking human billboard for Susan at XYZ salon. When someone compliments someone’s outfit and they say, “Oh, that boutique around the corner from my office has such cute things, you should try them sometime”, that person is also being a human billboard, as I am defining it here.
Bedros Keuilian, a boot camp marketing expert known as the hidden genius behind many of the most successful six and seven figure earning fitness trainers worldwide, took this concept of having human billboards a little further as a way to help new fitness trainers get their businesses off the ground.
Here is how it works:
- Call and email everyone you know and let them know that you are starting a fitness boot camp and are looking for people who want to be human billboards for you. You are looking for people who will get in great shape and then tell others about you.
- Then let them know that, as a human billboard they will not have to pay full price, in fact all they will pay is $50 per month – which is about 70% savings. However, they will need to pay for six months up front.
- Your goal here is to get 15-30 human billboards. So let us go middle of the road and assume that you got 20 paid human billboards. At $300 each, that puts $6,000 in your pocket right away. Not too shabby, right?
So, if you had a friend that was 20 pounds overweight the last time you saw him that suddenly slimed down along with becoming more “fit” looking shall we say, would you notice? Would you comment on it and then ask how he came to be looking as good as he does? Do you think your friend would help his fitness trainer friend out by recommending him? I think that is entirely possible. So, see how this works?
Another suggestion Bedros’ boot camp marketing system suggested is getting a well-known person—I am thinking a local TV on air person, maybe—to take advantage of the fitness trainer’s services free and as the audience watches him get thinner and more “buff” day after day that might get some notice, you think?
Regardless, it is this type of low cost strategies that Bedros’ boot camp marketing strategies recommend. He advocates using the low cost way of getting clients over the higher cost traditional methods. For example, the only thing taking a raffle box and sign around to local businesses and asking if they will let you put the box in their store will cost you is your time and maybe your feelings if they say no. However, the number of fresh leads that you will gain from those stores who do allow the raffle box in their store should make it all okay.
His script for getting lead boxes into local businesses goes something like this: “Hi, my name is John and I’m the owner of Fit Body Boot Camp down the street and I wanted to stop by and introduce myself to you. I have an email list of clients and prospects who I think would be interested in learning more about what you sell. Would you mind if I told my list about your business? Is there a special offer I can make for them? I also wanted to invite you and a friend to come out to my boot camp and try out my 21 day rapid fat loss program for free, and if you’re happy with the fast results you get then maybe you can tell your customers about me or maybe even host one of my “win a free month” raffle boxes.”
Back to the human billboard idea: Bedros’ boot camp marketing plan includes referral generation that is dependent on the human billboard concepts. When a new boot camp client signs he says to be sure to set the expectations by saying something like this: “Mrs. Jones, as I help you get in the best shape possible and teach you how to tone and tighten your body, can I count on you to help me get what I want, which is more clients like yourself?”
This will set the expectation that as long as the fitness trainer helps the client get in shape, they will help the fitness trainer get more clients. He also recommends giving out $100 gift cards, or other type of discounted coupons for your clients to pass along to others.
These and some of the other Boot Camp Marketing strategies advocated by Bedros could easily be adapted to many other service oriented businesses who depend on getting fresh clients in order to grow. Bedros’ boot camp marketing system basically says that you just need to have a plan of attack that you test, tweak and track in an organized manner in order to know what works and what doesn’t. He also advocates keeping “several poles in the water” at the same time meaning using all your tricks all of the time for the long term. The lack of having a plan, he believes is the reason why 85% of fitness trainers do not make it in business. Bedros however, not only has been very successful, he is now teaching other fitness centers his boot camp marketing methods that is helping them go to making $10,000 to $20,000 a month just by using his boot camp marketing techniques.
Can you think of a way to use the human billboard concept in your business? It might just be the thing you need to get you planning your attack and growing your business, something that is always necessary when you own a business.