How to Market Effectively - In the Bathroom

So I recently made a trip from Moncton, New Brunswick to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia - a gorgeous little town where I had the great fortune of being born and raised. My wife and I drove the six hour trip and I thought, how can I market subtly on my way.

I'm actually quite the introvert and I hate the idea of face to face marketing: "Hey, I wrote a book. It's on Amazon. People like it. You should buy it!" Doesn't really work for me. Yeah, yeah, I know there are better ways to approach it and I'm getting to that.

On our travels, we drank a lot of fluids. Mostly Diet Pepsi and juices. This meant our bladders were at full capacity numerous times through our journey.

What do you do when your bladder is full? You urinate. We could have shaved precious minutes off our journey by urinating into the empty soft drink bottles, but we decided to be a little more civilized and stop at rest stops, Tim Horton's and gas stations and use their facilities.

Here is where my first line of marketing comes in.

I printed off about a hundred of these nifty little business cards. I found an original quote (by me of course!) for added humor. I showed a tiny graphic of the cover and the service that the eBook was on and added a link to the eBook's page through a QR code. That allows people with a bar code reader to scan it with their cell phone and view the Amazon page for the book.

We placed these in the bathrooms. Usually in a stall, facing the person that may be doing their business and in there for the long haul. "Little story to read while doing your business?"

Well, it was effective. We achieved a few sales during our trip (we didn't actually track them, but that could be done through a redirected QR link).

Try it! We've been placing these cards everywhere.

Oh, and Health and Safety is free today: July 13, 2012. Mwah ha ha!