Posts Tagged ‘Barter Advertising’
Turn Trade Dollars into Cash
Written by BarterPro
Saturday, 05 December 2009 19:33
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Virtually every trade exchange member regularly pays cash for something that could be bought on trade, which can then be resold for cash. If you can’t find it yourself, your trade broker should be happy to assist you.

For example, one of our clients is a magazine. One of its major expenses is color separations. We found another business that does separations and signed them up specifically for the magazine client.

The pre-press company does the separations and film on trade, and the magazine charges cash to its advertisers. With the help of a creative broker, the magazine now turns its Trade Dollars directly into cash.

The separations were an established part of the magazine’s fixed cost, so it was fairly simple to recognize the barter opportunity. Creative traders can also develop new product lines or new ways of doing business that turn Trade Dollars into cash dollars.

For example, a parking garage teamed up with an oil change and auto detailing company. Parking customers find it convenient to drop their cars off and not waste time on minor maintenance. The parking garage pays for the work in trade, then charges cash to its customers.

With the help of creative trading, the garage owner found a way to offer a new service and generate a new source of cash flow funded completely on barter.

There are numerous examples of how businesses can turn trade dollars earned from new sales to new customers into cash sales to customers that aren’t members of the barter exchange. A lawn maintenance company can use trade dollars to purchase plant material and sod on trade. An auto repair company can use trade dollars to buy auto parts on trade that can be sold for cash.

With just a little creative thinking, the possibilities of using barter to expand a business and improve the bottom line are endless.

 
Barter for Advertising
Written by BarterPro
Saturday, 14 November 2009 22:15
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Advertising is the best way to use Trade Dollars to attract cash business. Advertising media, including radio, television, magazines, newspapers, billboards, and direct mail, are all available on trade. After all, there’s no way to store advertising media and sell it later, so media companies welcome trade.

If a minute of available advertising time passes at a radio station without an advertiser buying it, that minute is lost forever. It can’t be put back on the shelf and sold tomorrow. The same is true in various ways for all other advertising media.

Bartered advertising is very affordable, particularly since your Trade Dollar income generally represents new business. This means the cost basis in your bartered advertising dollars is very low.

For example, a restaurant may have food costs representing 30 percent of the price of a meal. Since barter represents new business the restaurant would have been unlikely to attract, the actual cash cost of those Trade Dollars is 30 cents on the dollar. There is no additional cost in rent, electricity, insurance, payroll, etc. to service the additional business. The only expense is the incremental cost of the food.

Using Trade Dollars, the restaurant can buy advertising to bring in new cash business for less than a third of the regular cash cost. And advertising is a readily available barter commodity, one that represents an immediate opportunity to generate new cash business. In the example above, the restaurant has tripled the purchasing power of its actual cash cost.

Not everyone recognizes the opportunities barter represents, but anyone can learn. It just takes some creative minds and exposure to new ideas to fit barter into your every day way of doing business.
 
Earn Cash While Selling on Trade
Written by BarterPro
Tuesday, 18 November 2008 23:34
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Some businesses can also generate cash sales as a by-product of earning Trade Dollars. Hotels and resorts are a good example of this process.

The mortgage, insurance and utilities on a hotel are fixed, whether the hotel is fully occupied or nearly empty. The incremental cost of filling an unused room is minimal. To pay for the extra house cleaning, laundry, and complimentary items such as soaps and shampoos, it costs about $20 per room night.

But just think about how much cash revenue that twenty dollars can generate. The people staying in that room order room service, buy sodas from the machine, magazines and gifts from the gift shop and eat in the restaurant. It’s even more lucrative if it is a resort. When a destination resort offers sports, tours and entertainment, visitors spend a lot of money on peripherals.

The hotel has generated cash it would not have had while producing full value for the room in Trade Dollars. In addition to the new cash flow, the hotel can use the Trade Dollars to offset cash expenses, spend on capital improvements or enhance their advertising campaigns.