My wife, 3-year-old daughter, 1-year-old son and I are in the midst of a three-week vacation throughout the Midwest. On Thursday we traveled to Mackinac Island, a 3.8-square-mile island in Lake Huron between Michigan's Upper and Lower Peninsulas.

A popular tourist attraction, the island is only reachable by ferry, private boat or aircraft -- and cars are prohibited. As a result, you can only get around by walking, biking or hopping on one of the many horse-drawn carriages.

The instant you set foot on the island, it's impossible to ignore the scent of fudge saturating the air. Like many tourist towns, stores, restaurants and candy shops line the streets.

As you can imagine, competition for tourist attention is fierce among businesses.

While walking the downtown area -- in the hopes of calming our fudge cravings -- we couldn't help but notice the number of people wearing yellow butterfly stickers. Prior to arriving on the island, we heard rumors of a house with an extensive butterfly display and had a feeling these stickers were related to the attraction.

The problem was we had no idea how to get there.

Finally, my butterfly-loving daughter saw more stickers than she could stand. So my wife stopped the next sticker-wearing tourist and asked how to get to the Butterfly House.

Within minutes we were surrounded by the largest collection of butterflies I've ever seen.

In this case, a simple sticker was all it took to land the Butterfly House four new customers. I can only imagine how many other times these stickers were responsible for bringing other tourists to this Lepidoptera location.

Here are some reasons why the sticker was effective (you can see a picture of it at http://www.originalbutterflyhouse.com).

After paying admission, an employee slaps a sticker on everyone who walks through the door. In addition to the picture of a butterfly, the sticker includes the location of the Butterfly House (behind St. Anne's Church).

The location is important because the Butterfly House is not in the island's downtown area -- or even on one of the main streets. Even with these challenges working against the Butterfly House, the sticker makes the attraction easy to find because all you have to do is look up to see the church steeple and then walk toward it.

Without the directions on the sticker, however, there's little chance most tourists would find themselves near the Butterfly House (or be able to tell others how to get there).

The stickers also represent social proof. After all, tourists wouldn't keep the stickers on their clothing if they had a negative experience. Also, you can't help but think you're missing out on something special when you see so many people wearing the same sticker.

Without a doubt, stickers are more effective on Mackinac Island where tourists are always among each other and not cooped up in cars. In effect, the Butterfly House's customers become free promotional vehicles the instant they step out the exit.

For the Butterfly House, the benefit of a sticker as a marketing tool is that it works continuously without extra employee involvement or expenses.

Sure, stickers may not work as well for your business. But it's likely there is some marketing tool you could use in a similar manner.

One of the easiest marketing tools that works without extra involvement or expenses is articles. Once written, your articles can reach new audiences every day with help from the Internet, publications, and other people who pass your educational information to friends and business associates.

Thanks,

Tom

P.S. Online video is another marketing tool you can use to attract new customers. Best of all, you can easily get started today with just a simple camera. Here's a f r e e interview with online video expert Mike Koenigs that gives you all the details: http://www.writewaysolutions.com/blog/201/how-to-get-started-using-online-video-to-promote-your-business/.