Cash Mobs, Your Store, and Loyalty

Cash mobs, Promotion and Your Store
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There's something new on the online horizon. So far it's being used effectively by small retailers, but I see no reason why it couldn't also be used by manufacturers to sell particular products and, though so far it has been a flashmob phenomenon, why couldn't it be adapted to online fan pages?

What is it?

It's called cash mobbing, but checks and credit cards are accepted.

It was started by buy-local advocates in the retailing industry. It uses any kind of media including the Web and traditional media to get loyal folks to support a local business on a specific day, sometimes at a specific time. They are encouraged to come spend a minimal amount of money out of loyalty (with, perhaps, a little self interest stirred into the mix), and people do. They come. They come to be supportive, to feel part of the crowd, because it's an event, because it's a fad.

Time magazine reports it was started in 2011 by Chris Smith who read that Groupon methods of increasing business using mass discounts might backfire because retailers or service providers couldn't sustain the discounts and remain profitable. And he liked the term "cash mob." The idea was to get people interested and he did. Time reporter Katy Steinmetz says, "100 of Smith's fellow citizens [in Buffalo, NY] each spent around $10 at a wine shop with local media in tow. He's been hosting cash mobs ever since." 

Then Andrew Samtoy tried it in Cleveland. And he is using @Cashmobs moniker on Twitter to promote these events. He is also incorporated as Cash Mobs, Inc. You could use his service—or do it on your own, but do think of your own name. Samtoy apparently has a stranglehold on "Cashmobs."  Yours could be the name of your book or store plus the word "mobs." Of course, if you go the do-it-yourself route,you'd need do your own promotion (which you'd probably need to do some of in any case!)

Do use the second edition of The Frugal Book Promoter (http://budurl.com/FrugalBkPromo) to give you tons of ideas of how to attract the crowds. And my A Retailer's Guide to In-Store Promotions (http://budurl.com/RetailersGuide) to help get the whole event right.

Let's combine a couple of mottoes. "Just Do It and They Will Come."

Online or in person.

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson's FRUGAL book for retailers is A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques launched at the National Stationery Show at Javits Center. Because she is the author of the multi award-winning how-to books for writers,The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't and The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success, retailers will also find essentials of writing for blogs, Web sites, and newsletters on this blog. She is the author of an award-winning novel, This Is the Place; and other fiction and poetry. She blogs on better writing at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor blog. Find her tweeting for retailers at @frugalretailing . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use this little green widget to let them know about it: