There was once a man named Charlie who sold insurance for a living. Charlie was a salt-of-the-earth kind of guy who enjoyed what he did. Charlie had a friend named Steve. Steve was in his late thirties and happily married, with a wife and two kids.

Charlie and Steve would play the occasional round of golf with some friends. Charlie would tell Steve about the importance of having life insurance for someone in his situation, but without being pushy.

Steve had his reasons for not buying at the time and would always put it off. Charlie, being the good, persistent salesman that he was, would bring up the topic regularly without being annoying.

One morning while Steve was at work, a colleague who was about the same age, with two kids and in seemingly good health, had a sudden, unexpected heart attack and was taken by ambulance to the hospital.

Guess who Steve called that very afternoon to get the paperwork started for the life insurance policy he had been putting off for years?

What’s the moral of our story as it pertains to your business? You can have the greatest product, the best service, and a great price, yet some of your prospects will still not buy. The reasons are many, and some are a mystery that you won’t be able to solve right away.

While you’re scratching your head trying to find those answers, your real job is to continually market your services by educating your target audience about what you can do to help them achieve their objectives. Why? Because one day soon, your prospect will be ready to buy, and she will remember the persistent, but pleasant person who has been looking out for her best interest all along.

Charlie knew that secret, and now you do, too.

Flash sales have become one of the marketing industry’s hottest new ways to not only grab attention but also boost web traffic and create front-of-mind awareness. While email is typically the key driver of flash sale campaigns, social media is a close follower. Here are a few tips to help you get the most out of your next flash sale marketing campaign:

• Create urgency with a short time window for your sales. These can range from a few hours to a day or two maximum. The longer customers put off buying, the less likely they are to make a purchase. Studies show that flash sales with a three-hour window have the best transaction-to-click rates. Most purchases are made within the first hour.

• Be sure your inventory is adequate for a flash sale, and alert customers if supplies are limited.

• Consider a flash sale with an open-ended coupon promo to increase foot traffic. For example, you might offer a $150 salon coupon for only $75 from 11am-1pm.

• Use multiple avenues to spread the word quickly. These may include email, texting, mobile coupons, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social sites.

• Encourage recipients to share or forward your message to their friends.

• Create an attention-grabbing subject line or header, and follow through with a concise message that communicates the necessary details of your sale.

• Consider sending a reminder. Light a fire under the feet of customers who are interested but dragging their heels, and remind them that your offer expires soon.

• Remember that timing is everything, so determine the best times to blast your recipients. The most common times for a flash sale revolve around lunch or evenings, making the sale accessible to buyers who work during the day.

• Monitor your social accounts closely during a flash sale, since customers will want immediate answers to any potential questions or concerns before the sale expires.

• Consider mailing postcards for big weekend flash sale events to grab attention and give customers a little extra time to prepare for your sale. For example, grab attention with an oversized postcard that says “Save 40% off everything in our store for four hours only on Saturday!”

• Consider offering a live online counter to show how many “deals” have been purchased. Popularity sells, so if XX other people thought it was a good deal, many others will think they need to buy one, too.
• Suggest that shoppers follow you on Facebook or Twitter to ensure they don’t miss out on your next exciting sale!

Inside every human being is a desire to connect in real and tangible ways. This desire for connection permeates everything we do and every decision we make: even our decisions of what to buy and when. We respond to ads because we connect with them somehow. A spokesperson, scene, or catchphrase resonates with us and makes us laugh, or cry, or both.

• A soldier sits down in a quiet moment to listen to a recordable storybook his child sent from home.
• A team of clydesdales pulls an iconic wagon into New York City, then bows silently before the Statue of Liberty in reverence.
• A couple drives frantically to the top of a parking ramp. The man jumps out and signals his confused girlfriend to follow, just in time to… miss the airplane banner flying by, asking her to marry him.

Each of these commercials (and many others like them) tells a story that, at first glance, has little to do with the product they’re selling. Instead, they show the product (or in the case of the clydesdales, a symbol of the product) in real-life situations that make it far more relatable than a simple product shot or feature list ever could.

Here are links to the three commercials I mentioned in this post. A quick warning: If you haven’t seen these, you might want to have a box of Kleenex nearby for the first two. Feel free to list some of your own favorites in the comments at the end of this post.

“Active Duty” Hallmark Commercial

9/11 Tribute from Budweiser

Wherever Life Takes You (Chevy Cruze ECO)