Grab a coffee (or your favorite beverage) and sit back...this is likely to be long...

First of all, yes, I know it's a cheesy name. I seem to be unable to resist alliteration. It was originally the 4E3C Simple Math Marketing Plan. There's a whole story behind that, but I cut it...because while it may seem interesting to me, I don't think it would've done much for my target market.

So what is this plan?

Well it's a marketing program that is aimed at small towns (I know it works in small towns...it hasn't been tested in other environments)

In any case...it revolves around a joint loyalty card that is sold by a non-profit group and sponsored by at least 50 businesses. The cards are good for one year and in addition to cardholder discounts the cards qualify the holders to entries in four prize draws throughout the year.

In return for the participation, monthly marketing investment and discount offer to cardholders, merchants are included in an online and in-store promotion that includes a full tab on a joint website, inclusion in weekly emails and in-store promotional materials. Plus, presence at at least the four draw events.

With the charity tie in and so many businesses involved all tied in with an overall shop local publicity campaign to tie it all together...it's really powerful.

And I can say that because I did it once already. Well mostly...my summer promotion didn't include the charity tie-in...but it did have the prizes :-) And I only had 24 businesses involved and they didn't (for the most part) have any special discounts for cardholders...

I learned a lot from it and that's why I am confident taking it to the next phase.

As soon as I get my marketing pieces in place.

The hard part, from where I am sitting, is that many in my target market are not online. At least not at the local small business owner level that I would need to be to sell it well. But the non-profits are...and so are lots of online/offline consultants.

Ideally, I'd think joint venturing with people who are already doing offline work with clients would be the best way to go. All I really want to do is the publicity & media relations and brainstorming with clients.

I can provide web development, writing, database management, advertising writing and booking, printing and all that jazz too

I did all that here but it was more out of necessity in that I did not charge enough for all the work involved and I had to be juggling individual client work as well as the local promotion - it seems like poor planning until you realize I expected 1000 customers to participate...not the over 3400 that did! And I did not figure out the automation part until the promotion was over...I had put this all together in three weeks.

Now the thing is, I am still not quite sure whether to turn all of this information into an info-product or sell this as a full service marketing plan. If I go full service, I'll have to outsource, with an info product there'd be a lot less outsourcing and a lot less work for me overall, but I'd lose control...and that scares me because I don't want this to be done poorly.

While I'm deciding exactly which way I am going to go, I have been contacting different resources to see if there might be a market for it (outside of my local community). That's about the only marketing I've done so far. I created a case study and an outline and sent it to a couple of leads...

I sense that the market is huge, but I also know how closed off some small towns can be when it comes to new ideas. Of course, if it comes from somebody who is already established in the community then it's a lot easier :-) But I haven't found anyone who is really interested in taking it on where they are yet...so I might have to just reach out and do it myself...which I wouldn't mind but would be an awful lot more work...

Not that I'm lazy...but you know if I can do less work...

In any case, I put this here because I am going to need some help deciding which way to go...and because having posted it gives me a little bit of accountability - I've been running on my own power since mid-June when I came up with the idea and it's getting tough to remain upbeat and certain all the time...