I'm not sure yet. We just started talking about it today. I just wanted to see what other people think of this item first to see if it would even be worth it.
Thanks.
Hard to answer if it'd be worth it (from a business standpoint) without knowing much about your business.
If I were to, for example, own a local hardware store and wanted to try and grab more customer base, a promo idea may be worthwhile, especially if the things you could win in the promo was something actually worthwhile and useful that sparked interest enough in the local population to come check it out. But you'd also need to calculate out your demographics for the area. Is a decided amount of people in the area working in a particular industry, or even one big employer?
If you have a rather large concentration of people that are say, working for a large manufacturing company building heavy equipment implements... I would call the company, explain who you (hardware store owner) and that you're wanting to do a promo and you'd like to know what brands of equipment they use most in the shop. If they threw out names like Dake, Wilton, etc I would assume that a lot of the people working their are familiar with them and that will already create some 'brand-recognition' for you. What if they only use, say Yost vises? A Wilton may not be preferred as much by the locals because they're familiar, comfortable and have relied on Yost to earn their living. Offering up a Yost model in this situation would most likely create a higher participation rate.
Also, if your in a smaller community - you need to decide how many potential customers you could gain. Calculate out how many transactions you had last year, and the amount of net income you earned, and divide that out to find out what your average income-per-customer is. Decide how much $ you want to put into promo ideas, and figure out what your ROI would be to earn that money back.
Demographics will also tell you the average income in the area... I don't think I'd have much luck selling my 8" Reed in downtown manhattan next to a designer jeweler. If I were in a place with a stronger concentration of tool-nuts and do-it-yourselfers that like tools, I could probably gain more interest in the item.
If your running an online business, I would check your site stats and (assuming you have Adsense or something) I would look at your CTR and see what advertisements are being clicked on the most. Has a DeWalt advertisement seen much heavier CTR's than other advertisements? Perhaps that could be a look into what your viewers interests are and than offer a promo in accordance to what you find.
Is that Wilton machinist vise a good promo item? Um, it has financial value. I am a ******** vise-junkie and own over 30 vises... however I do zero machining work and if I were to win it through a promo, it'd be up for sale on ebay that night. That lack of interest in the product, probably wouldn't create much interest in your business, would it? I'd wake up the next Saturday morning and head to the hardware store I've always went to and spend the money I made on Ebay. *shrugs* If I were a machinist on the other hand, I'd probably love to own it.
It's hard to give you a valuable answer to your question without you supplying some basic information to base an answer off of.
I second the gunvise idea. look how deep an smooth the jaws are. i really like that vise...
The picture is deceiving as to the size of the vises.
