9 Winners Take Away Promotional Prizes from a $42,000 Give-Away Contest So Far

Winning! That's what Idea Café's visitors are doing. Each month, a few of the small business owners who have entered the $42,000 Give-Away Contest win promotional merchandise and/or free advertising packages to enhance the marketing and promotion campaign for their own business.

To be eligible, businesses can enter the contest with new and unique story as often as they wish until the end of the year by visiting http://www.businessownersideacafe.com/business/merchandise-giveaway.php . The winners are determined by the applicable and innovative approach of using Promotional Merchandise described in their submission.

The winners impressed our judges with their outstanding, clever, and unique ideas for advertising and/or using promotional merchandise to promote a business.

Winning entries (and all entries) are posted online and made available so that other businesses can be inspired and adopt these ideas to promote their own business:  Growing every day, there are currently 1,500 ideas posted.

Following are the four selections from the February entries:

• Cally Apicella, owner of Bella Vita Designs (www.BellaVitaDesigns.com,  won free advertising for her business with this winning entry: "My father was in food service his whole life; He went to numerous trade shows over the years and was given many samples and promotional items; My favorite was the company that gave him a can of dehydrated water; I believe the company made dehydrated potatoes, onions, and other foods; The empty can of dehydrated water was comical and I will always remember it; It was a simple idea that was funny, that's what made me remember it."
• Sandra Suisse won $500 of AmsterdamPrinting.com free promotional merchandise for her business with this winning entry: "I live in Michigan surrounded by 2 of the Great Lakes. There is always something to do on the water. Boating, fishing, jet-skiing, and last summer turned into a week-end scavenger hunt when we found a beach ball floating in the water near an island where many people swim and meet. When i picked it up i realized it was a coupon for 20% off of a meal at a local restaurant that we could get to by boat. Upon redemption we were told that 20 balls were released every week-end in our local waterways. It became an event in itself to search them out!"
• Molly Fisher, owner of Peak Mobility, Inc.  (www.peakmobility.com), won free advertising for her business with this winning entry: "My family owns a small accessibility shop and one day an elderly customer came in for grab bars for her bathroom. Once purchased, I asked her to sign her receipt; She looked up and said she wouldn't be able to and hasn't signed in years due to severe arthritis. I placed one of our promotional triangular grippers onto the pen and asked her if that would help. She slowly signed her name, looked down and began softly weeping. She was so proud to see her signature again, which quickly brought a tear to my eye as well; I immediately filled her hand with the promotional grippers for all of her pens at home and we hugged. The best money I've ever spent on advertising to this day."
• Toby Lorenc won free advertising for his business with this winning entry: "When I was in publishing, we had an author/music artist with a CD called Sunsets and Sushi and we paired it with our newest book, which had similar design; For the launch party, we gave all participants actual Chinese food to-go boxes with the CD and book inside, along with some other freebies."

And now the exceptional March winners and their entries:

• Jenny Downer-Tse won $500 of AmsterdamPrinting.com free promotional merchandise for her business with this winning entry: "The most interesting way I've see promotional merchandise being used is Bruegger's Bagels when they sell the bottomless coffee mug. It has their logo on it, it is a promotional material that they actually sell, but give unlimited refills of coffee and tea when people bring the commemorative mug to the store. It's a great way to encourage customers to use their promotional merchandise!"
• Paula Sacca won free advertising for her business with this winning entry: "The best way I have seen promotional items being used was by a company called Autism Toys who sells sensory types of items for children with disabilities.  At an Autism Speaks walk, the company had sensory light-up balls with the company name flashing that was included in the goodie-bag for children. An object like this would be great for any child, but for a child with autism it is brilliant.  If parents did not know what that company sold or what that company can do for their child, thousands upon thousands, after the many walks that Autism Speaks held that year, were sure to know now."
• Susan Priebe won free advertising for her business with this winning entry: "I purchased a completely bio-degradable watch recently and the company included information on the product, the battery, the packaging (how it could be recycled or composted at the end of its life) and also included a seed pad that could be watered and which would become grass.  Since I am always looking for "sustainable" ways to purchase goods, this type of promotion was a wonderful way to grab me as a customer and helped me make the purchase initially.  I would probably not have purchased the watch without all of this promotional information that was included."
• Erin Kozak owner of Estrellita Jewelry Designs (http://www.estrellitajewelrydesigns.com), won free advertising for her business with this winning entry: "While attending a local festival, I came across a booth for an insurance company. They had a camera set up and were taking souvenir pictures. The picture was free and each person in the picture received a lanyard with the company's name on it, which had a tag connected to it. The tag listed a code that when entered on the company's website would lead you to your picture that you could save and/or print. I thought that this was a very creative way of distributing a lanyard, which is a common promotional item. Instead of just distributing a lanyard, that people may just throw away, it forced people to keep the lanyard so they had the online access code for their picture. Then, when people went to get their picture online, they had to go through the company's website, which provided them with even more advertisement."
• Kevin Mackell, owner of Athlete's Touch (www.athletestouch.org) won free advertising for his business with this winning entry: "I own a solo Sports Massage business. I invested in standard business card magnets and went to all the triathlons and 5K road races in my area and would place them just above the driver's side door handle, knowing that when the driver returned they would 100% be exposed to my logo. To this day I still have new clients come in and comment that they still have my magnet hanging on their refrigerator, even after all this time."

Want to get some publicity for your business? Look no further. Just enter the $42,000 Contest NOW.

Best of Luck!