The Great Minnesota Get-Together is almost here! Everyone at Plastic Printers loves the state fair. We love it so much, in fact, we’ve let it take center-stage as a promotional opportunity for this installment of the template of the week.
What’s not to Love?
The best thing about the fair is that everyone has their own way of individualizing the experience. In my family, we develop an itinerary days before making the trek to the fairgrounds. Each family member gets input regarding what they want to see and do. We coordinate our stops around our favorite fair foods. You can’t go wrong with:
- Breakfast crepes
- Free milk and a tub of Sweet Martha’s chocolate
chip cookies - Pork chop on a stick
- Crème puffs
- Fried cheese curds
- Roasted corn
- Wine ice cream (for adults only)
My brother always manages to find awesome new foods to add to the list; a task that’s been made easier now that the food finder is up and running. Feel free to add any of these choices to your 2013 fair menu:
- Breakfast sausage corndog
- Candied bacon cannoli
- Comet corn
- Chocolate chili ice cream
- Fried pickles and chocolate
- Idaho nachos
- Cicchetti Cones
- Dough-sant (not to be confused with the “Cronut,” which is
selling out in record time at the Dominque Ansel Bakery in New York).
New post-fair hair attractions include:
- Lumanarium Exxopolis
- Lego Road Trip
- Kraze Maze
- Horse cutting contest
- Giant sing along
By this point, you’re probably wondering what this preview has to do with our template of the week. Well, a fair is about more than the sights, sounds, and tastes of a certain locale; it’s also a prime marketing opportunity-an opportunity to utilize a signature business card.
From Humble Beginnings to a Community Staple
What do the majority of the food and attraction venders listed above have in common? They’re new. They are on a large list of businesses trying to get noticed and hoping to become a community staple through marketing their wares at the state fair. That’s not a far cry from how fairs got started in the first place.
Fairs where established for three main reasons:
- To celebrate religious observances
- To offer breaks from day-to-day labor
- To act as a make-shift market for vendors
These gatherings were bigger than the simple county fair used as a backdrop in Charlotte’s Web. People would come for miles around to trade and sell their goods.
Today, it is estimated that fairs attract over 150 million people a year. Minnesota has earned bragging rights. Our state fair attracts up to 10,000+ a day. You can’t buy that kind of exposure, but you can take advantage of it; especially with a vintage mustache business card.
Why a vintage mustache business card? The answer is simple: it gets people talking, and at the state fair, you want to get people talking; preferably about your business. In an environment packed with customers and venders, it is extremely important that your business stands out from the din going on around you. This mustache business card is your secret weapon because it naturally markets your business:
At large venues, that’s exactly the kind of marketing you need.
Fair-goers are attracted to things that are free and fun. I’ve seen people stand in line for free bags, painter’s buckets, and yard sticks. This plastic card is more fun than all of those things combined. The minute people start playing with it other fair-goers will be asking, “Where did you get that?” That’s what we here at Plastic Printers like to call:
The Million Dollar Question
As word-of-mouth spreads about your mustache business card, people will come to you to get one of their very own. It creates the perfect window of opportunity to become a self-promoter.
Develop a short “commercial" about your business, give people a takeaway, like a bag filled with coupons and more information, and make connections. You can even catch the post-fair crowd’s attention with some “as seen at the state fair” signage. How you promote your business is up to you. We can give you the tools you need to promote it properly on a budget. That’s what the template of the week posts are all about.
Get started by visiting our website: www.plasticprinters.com and download the vintage mustache business card template. Once you customized it, just hit print. It’s that easy. This is just one of 38 best-selling mustache card designs available. Choose the template that suits your business best.
The Minnesota State Fair runs from August 22nd to September 2nd. We wanted to get the word out early, so local businesses that are participating in or attending the event have time to get their business cards ready. For more tips on how and where to use your mustache business cards, contact us. Our staff is full of creative ideas.
See you at the fair!
