There’s a LOT of bad marketing out there – money wasted, missing calls to action, ho-hum offers abound. So when you see good marketing, it’s worth noticing and taking a little inspiration from.

Red Balloon have been a “business to watch” for many years. Founder Naomi Simpson is a regular speaker at business events, flying the flag for her business in a one-woman PR campaign!

As a successful but purely online business, they’ve honed what works in terms of online promotion – which is why I was interested in this “account credit” promotion I was sent from them.

I was recently the recipient of TWO Red Balloon gift vouchers, so created an account and spent the vouchers on a weekend away.

A month later, I received this offer: A $15 credit in my account to spend, with 6 weeks available to spend it.

This is an immediately enticing offer. Let’s face it: I feel that I have been given FREE MONEY.

And I am highly likely to use this “free money”…and likely end up spending a whole lot more with them! They’re on the road to making me a repeat customer, something I hadn’t even really considered before receiving this offer.

It’s a clever zero budget marketing tactic that is not used enough in the online sphere.

Why is this ‘zero budget’ marketing. There’s no cost to Red Balloon if I don’t use this offer. It’s a zero budget marketing tactic because the business really isn’t spending money unless it’s MAKING money. And if someone spends a “voucher” like this, the spend is usually 5-8 times a voucher’s value. They’re also moving me from a ‘gift recipient’ to a ‘customer’ with this type of offer – rather clever in itself.

So if you’re in any sort of retail or B2C marketing, consider how you could use this type of offer in your marketing.