ATLANTA, GA - Tonight's Halloween, and our neighborhood is packed with kids. My wife and I have five kids, so Halloween is one of the most eagerly anticipated holidays of the year. I'm the candy guy in our house; When the doorbell rings, it's my job to give out the candy to trick-or-treaters.
Obviously, everyone's in a festive mood ...
At roughly 6:00pm, the little kids start to arrive. It's the usual mix of pirates, ghosts, princesses, etc. Smiles all around. You know the drill.
Then at roughly 6:45pm, two co-eds from our local high-school ring the doorbell. Agewise, they're on the high side of trick-or-treat and the low side of adulthood. I'm guessing 15. They're not in costume, but they look nice in their Roswell HS sweatshirts. I answer the door.
"Trick or treat?" I ask. "No thanks!" they chirp. "We're raising money for Habitat for Humanity! Can you make a small donation?" This was a first. I've given out lots of candy for Halloween, but never money.
But seriously, what am I going to say? "No??" Grinch! So I say yes. And here's the thing: I WANTED to say yes. After all, I had been saying yes all night long to other kids whose requests were far less noble.
This is a marketing blog, and this is a marketing post about a three point marketing plan that I think is brilliant:
- Target a market that can afford your product. We live in a desirable neighborhood, and the amount of the donation was discretionary. I presume that Habitat for Humanity had HS kids working the nicest neighborhoods in Atlanta.
- Market to the prospect when you know you can reach them in the right frame of mind. Marketers, this is so important. The difference between salad and garbage is timing. These kids knew we were home -- and they knew that we'd answer the door with our guard down. If they had come on any other night, I'm not sure we would have answered the door. Well, maybe I might have, but my wife might not have. Safety first. And on any other night, it's almost a given that we would have been in a less charitable mood. We're charitable, but like everyone, we're more charitable at some times than others.
- Give your prospect a chance to jump on the bandwagon -- then appeal to his vanity. As they were pitching their cause, they asked me to look over a manifest of people on my street who had already donated (and the amounts). Naturally, since I could tell that the average neighbor had donated ten bucks, I wanted to donate more because my ego shouted out "Don't be average!" Again, the larger donation was about my ego -- not my benevolence. Maybe deep down, I wanted my next door neighbor to look at the manifest and say to himself, "Check out Harry's donation. What a guy!" Again, this makes me more schmuck than saint. Whatever. No surprise there.
Of course, I'm sure Habitat for Humanity planned it this way. Which is fine. It's a great cause and I'm glad I could help out. But I have seen a ton of door-to-door marketing in my time, and I thought this fund-raising tactic was pretty slick.
Don't you?
