Marketing Your Computer Jigsaws

You can purchase one jigsaw and simply have it on your web site for people to buy. Or as a Free Gift if they make a donation above a certain amount. This is the minimum you can do, but once the Jigsaw is on your web site it sells it's self without any work or effort from you. However, consider this marketing strategy.

Purchase at least two Computer Jigsaws, one of which should be a 100 piece Jigsaw and the other should have at least 250 pieces. The 100 piece Jigsaw is your "Give Away" Jigsaw. It is quick and easy to do and serves as a taster for the Jigsaw with more pieces.

Make it available as a free download on your web site, and tell your members know it is there. You can use your newsletter, ezine, email list or whatever other method you wish. But let as many people know it is there as possible. Be sure to tell them to pass it on the friends, relatives, colleagues etc.

To help you get started we are giving away free, one 100 piece Jigsaw with your first purchase.

People will download it and pass it on to others. A jigsaw downloaded by one person could be passed on to 10 or more others.

This "Give Away" Jigsaw contains links back to your web site, where people can purchase the second Jigsaw. Every person who gets a copy of your "Give Away" Jigsaw could visit your site and purchase more Jigsaws. They will also pass the Jigsaw on to other people. See below for more about this.

Don't forget that, the more Jigsaws you have for sale, the more sales you will make as different people prefer different types of pictures on their Jigsaws.

This should be your "Give Away" Jigsaw and it can be the same picture as the one you purchase, or it can be different. See below for why your Jigsaw will be passed around.

Floppy Discs and CDs

Floppy Disks, Blank CDs and labels are very cheap now, especially if you buy in bulk.

You can copy the Jigsaws onto Floppy Discs or CDs and sell then in other ways. If you have a shop, stall at a fete, coffee morning, or any other event, you have an opportunity to sell Jigsaws. Be sure to print out a picture, so the customers can see what the jigsaw is before buying.

Your members or supporters could help out with copying the discs. It's very easy to do and they can do it in their own home at their convenience.

Maybe your members or supporters could sell them to friends, relatives and work colleagues. Many people collect for charities at work, and people give simply because they know the collector. If they get a Computer Jigsaw in exchange for their donation they will be more likely to donate. You can set a limit, donate over a certain amount and you get a free Jigsaw.

Once you have seen how well they sell, you will want more Jigsaws. The more you have the more you will sell. If you only have one Jigsaw on sale, you will only sell one Jigsaw to each customer. But if you have a selection, each customer may by more than one.

Please note that the Jigsaws cannot be run from the CD, your customers have to copy them to their Hard Drive to run them. Please see the FAQ for more details.

Jigsaw Collections

When you have a selection of Jigsaws you can make your Floppy Discs and CDs into Jigsaw collections. On average you can fit three Jigsaws onto one Floppy Disk (a lot more on a CD) If a disc has more than one Jigsaw on it you can charge more for it.

You could have the same Jigsaw, in three different piece sizes on one Floppy Disc. A 100, 250 & 500 piece Jigsaw with the same picture. Or three different 500 piece Jigsaws on the same disc.

You could even have collections of themes, three Bird Jigsaws on one disc, three Flower Jigsaws on another etc. Maybe even collections of photographs by the same person. A collection of Jigsaws from photographs taken by Mary Smith. The possibilities are endless.

Selling the Same Jigsaw to the Same person more than once

You can even sell the same jigsaw to the same person more than once with collections. Pop stars do it all the time!
Fans buy their albums even though they have already bought half the songs as singles.

Why do they do buy the albums? Because they want the other four songs which they haven't heard yet.

It's exactly the same with Jigsaw collections. Put ten Jigsaws on a CD and even if people have already bought two or three of the Jigsaws as single Jigsaws, they will buy the collection for the other seven that they have not done yet.

A Jigsaw can appear if more than one collection too. If Mary Wilson donated a photograph of flowers, taken in her garden it can appear in your Flowers collection, your gardens collection and your Mary Wilson collection.

How Will Your "Give Away" Jigsaw Spread.

Almost every person with a computer has a Personal Network, either at home or in the office, or both. This Personal Network is a list of people who they forward interesting things to, by email. If they hear a good joke, find a funny picture or amusing video on the internet, they forward it on to the people in their Personal Network.

When they get a copy of your "Give Away" Jigsaw they will forward it to their Personal Network, thus increasing the number of people who see it. Remember also, every Jigsaw has links back to your web site, every one who receives a copy of your "Give Away" Jigsaw will have the opportunity to visit your web site.

The Personal Network is the driving force behind Computer Jigsaw Fund Raising. It is the best way to advertise your Jigsaws and your organisation.

The Army Amarillo Video is a prime example of the power of the Personal Network. So many people were emailing that video to their Personal Networks that it crashed the MoD servers. (You can read more about this below.)

How often do you get a piece of advertising, anything at all, and want to tell your friends about it? Have you ever emailed your friends to tell them about the Double Glazing leaflet you receive in the post? No, I bet you haven't. Did you even read the leaflet?

A "Give Away" Computer Jigsaw is just about the only advert that people do want to share with their friends. And that's what it is doing, it is advertising your organisation and the other Jigsaws you have for sale.

The Army Amarillo Video

Early in 2005 the British Comedian Peter Kay made a record, a cover of the Tony Christie hit (Is this the way to) Amarillo. It became a very big hit in Britain. The video to accompany the record mainly consisted of Peter walking in various places, with other well know British stars popping up to walk with him.

A few British Army solders based in the middle east made their own spoof video. It consisted of a solder, who looked a little like Peter, walking around the base miming to the Amarillo song.

One of the solders then emailed it to a colleague back in the UK. This colleague immediately forwarded it to his Personal Network, these people then passed it on to their Personal Networks, and so on.

Within 3 hours of the email arriving in the UK it crashed the MoD mail servers. An MoD spokesman said "It wasn't the fact that it was a fairly large file, that brought the system to a halt. It was the large number of people who were emailing it to each other".

This incident made news headlines all over the world and the BBC were inundated with phone calls and emails from people wanting a copy. If you do a Google search for "Army Amarillo Video" you will get over 500 hits. Use the quotes so Google only searches for the whole phrase.

No Jigsaw is ever going to be that popular, but it does illustrate the point that people do pass on anything they find interesting, funny or novel. Computer Jigsaws are novel and, if you have a good picture, can be amusing or interesting.