I recently moved into a new house and as we were moving in I came upon a creative marketing strategy that any small business can use…and the best part is that it’s just about free and is incredibly effective.

Here’s what happened.

We bought our bed from a local furniture store named "EFO" (I’m not sure if they only local or a national chain).

When the bed came to the house, the delivery men did the simplest target marketing strategy I’ve ever seen – all they did was hand me a small postcard giving me $20 on my next purchase…just for filling out a tiny little survey that took me about 20 seconds to complete.

Now some people might think that the importance was that I took the survey, but honestly I don’t think they cared about that.

What happened when they offered $20 off my next purchase is that I immediately thought …"wow, $20 for 20-30 seconds of work…nice!"

Which, as you can imagine, did 2 things.

#1 – It developed an instant rapport with the company.

#2 – I ended up going back to that same place and doubling the price of my original order (we got our couch from there as well, which was roughly the same price as the bed).

Now I’m not saying that a creative marketing strategy like this completely caused me to go back to them, but I can tell you one thing…it definitely made me more likely to go back.

And you might be saying, well…it’s only $20.

Yes, it’s only $20…but it’s the fact that they were giving me $20 JUST to fill out a tiny little survey.

And as marketer myself I knew all the psychology going on behind it and that they just wanted to get me back in the store, but for someone who didn’t know better…I think this marketing strategy model is a great one to follow.

All you have to do is simply change your offer and tailor it to your own clients or customers.

Little, no-risk offers like this not only help you get the customer back into your place of business, they help show that you're different from your competitors.

Here's your homework.

Think of some type of creative marketing strategy you can do that will help generate rapport with your target audience, and implement it immediately!