Alright, let’s talk about this “promo crossword” thing I worked on recently. It started, like many things do, with someone upstairs thinking it’d be a clever little marketing gimmick. “Let’s make a crossword puzzle for the customers!” they said. Simple, right? Well, not quite.
So, the task landed on my plate. First job was figuring out the actual words. Marketing had a list, naturally. All the usual suspects: BRANDNAME, SALE, NEW, OFFER, QUALITY, stuff like that. About fifteen words in total. Okay, seemed manageable.
Then came the tricky bit: actually weaving these words into a crossword grid. I thought I’d be smart and just sketch it out. Grabbed some graph paper, started trying to fit words together. Man, what a puzzle in itself. You get ‘SALE’ crossing ‘OFFER’ nicely, but then ‘QUALITY’ is just hanging out, refusing to connect to anything without making the grid look like a mess or needing weird, short, obscure words to fill the gaps. Spent a good chunk of time just drawing, erasing, redrawing. It was surprisingly frustrating trying to make it all connect logically.
After getting nowhere fast by hand, I figured there had to be software for this. Went online, searched around. Found a bunch of crossword generators. Tried a few free ones. You feed them the word list, and poof, a grid appears. Problem was, most of them either couldn’t fit all my specific promo words, or they filled the rest of the grid with really random, non-themed words. Defeated the purpose, didn’t it? I wanted our words, not ‘ERA’ or ‘OLEO’. Some paid tools looked better, but didn’t want to spend company money without knowing if this whole idea would even fly.
Eventually, I found a sort of hybrid approach worked best.
- Used an online generator to get a basic structure with most of my promo words.
- Then, I basically took that generated grid and started pulling it apart manually.
- Tweaked it, shifted words, sometimes had to compromise and drop a less important word.
- Spent ages writing simple, clear clues for our promo words, and slightly more generic ones for any necessary filler.
It was tedious. Felt like solving a puzzle just to create one.
Making it ‘Promo’
Once I had a grid I didn’t hate, I had to make it look like, well, a promotion. Dropped our logo onto the page. Added a clear title like “Our Super Summer Crossword!”. Put in a little instruction box: “Solve the puzzle and get a code word for a discount!”. The discount code was hidden as one of the answers in the grid, something simple like SAVEBIG. The idea was they’d have to engage with it to get the reward.
Printed out a stack, put them on the counter at the main store, and mentioned it in our newsletter email blast. Didn’t go crazy, just a small test run.
So, the outcome? It wasn’t a game-changer, let’s be real. We saw a small number of people actually bring in the completed puzzle or use the code online. Maybe twenty or thirty over a couple of weeks? Got a few nice comments from regulars who enjoyed the distraction. It definitely wasn’t setting the sales charts on fire.
Looking back, it was way more fiddly than anticipated. Creating a good, themed crossword isn’t a five-minute job. The tools help, but they aren’t magic wands. As a little piece of engagement, something different to catch the eye? Sure, it had some merit. Low cost, bit of fun. But I wouldn’t rely on it for serious lead generation or anything. It’s just another tool in the box, and like any tool, you gotta know its limits. Glad I tried it, learned something, but probably won’t be rushing to make another one next week.
