"We were thinking outside the box" said Tasha Hardy, 1000broadcasts.com's owner, "because our sales people were getting discouraged."

Tasha suggested that they get their own plastic gift cards printed up like coupons saying "50 off your first order" and hand them out to local business. "Most businesses use them as gift cards for their products and services, so this was a big risk to use them as a marketing tool. In the past, we've sent out paper mailers and gone door to door with flyers. But unfortunately, people often just throw them away."

That suddenly was about to change.

1000broadcasts sent out one of their sales representatives to hand out fifty plastic cards a day, to businesses that would benefit from having a gift card program. Not even a few hours went by before the phone started ringing.

"People went nuts over these marketing cards and could immediately see, that they too could use them within their marketing campaigns, as well as use them as gift cards", Tasha said. "All week I was calling my sales guy and he wasn't answering because he was talking with business owners. He would walk in and hand them a card and not leave for fifteen minutes".

What started out to be a marketing campaign for a printing product, turned into a marketing campaign teaching people about a new marketing campaign. One of 1000broadcasts.com's clients, a small computer company, followed in 1000broadcast's footsteps and landed twenty seven new clients in two and half months. Before that, they did a marketing campaign involving flyers and magnets that had almost no response.

"I think it works for a couple of reasons. First, it's a high quality marketing tool. It puts whatever company is represented in a professional light. Secondly, people like the look and feel of the card and that represents value, so they don't throw it away."

In addition to selling plastic cards as gift cards, 1000broadcasts.com now also sells them as marketing cards.