Monday, November 09, 2009

Take Advantage Of Invitation Only Offers

These days, with everything web-driven, companies will try to steer you towards their websites at any time they can.  Television commercials very commonly feature a website, bus stop ads, toilets in bathrooms (yes, true), anywhere.  What they will also do is try to target certain market segments with some sort of discount promotion for a variety of reasons: you're a new customer, you live in an area that they are trying to build business, you are a certain demographic, etc.  But, these efforts may not necessarily be limited to the people who they are trying to ensnare. 

For example, I just received an email from PayPal about getting a 5% reward for shopping on-line through their portal after spending $20.  While the email to me says it was targeted, I would encourage you to pop in your email address (if you are currently a PayPal member) and register for it anyway.  Computers are only as smart as their programmers are and you may just get lucky.  This goes for registering for any airline, hotel or other bonus, too.  The main goal of such promotional efforts is to drive traffic to a company's website in hopes that you spend (or overspend).  If you aren't qualified for these promotions, you are usually told right away, but basically, it won't hurt to try, just like in life it never hurts to ask.

If you are catching on to what I am saying, you will also notice this tactic utilized by the likes of large, national cable companies.  They lure in potential cutomers with bargain prices that aren't available to current subscribers.  Therefore, you should always threaten to cancel your service after a while so that you can take advantage of lower promotinal prices.  Funny how they seem to have the ability to discount people who haven't even built a relationship with them yet.  That's why after you have built one, you need to remind your cable, cell phone, etc. company that you have options.

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