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Tag Archives: sales promotion

How a simple incentive made me the owner of Rebel the Frenchie…

03 Friday Nov 2017

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Advertising, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Customer Service, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Sales Promotion

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Tags

incentives, marekting, offers, sales promotion

If there is one constant in marketing, regardless of media channel or product category, it is this:

A relevant incentive will always pay for itself…

Here’s one of my most recent examples. About three years ago, my young teenage daughter (and her brother) started hounding me (excuse the pun) to get a puppy. “It’s not fair dad, you and mum had dogs when you were kids” they’d use as argument. It was a hard claim to counter.

As we don’t have a side or rear fence, and we back onto a lagoon, I wasn’t keen to get a pet of any kind. We already have ducks, pelicans, water hens and other birds aplenty, as well as Eastern Water Dragons and Blue-tongue lizards. But persist they did.

And my daughter didn’t want just any dog. She wanted a French Bulldog. Now if you don’t know what a French Bulldog looks like, just check Instagram. They are the K9 equivalent of the Kardashians when it comes to followers. Though unlike the Kardashians, these pups reek of cuteness and are amazingly photogenic.

They also happen to cost a small fortune. You could move to France, rent a farm and raise your own litter of pups, for what you pay for one of these bundles of joy in Australia. But I digress.

In her quest to convince me, my daughter bought me a French Bulldog coffee cup, a pug calendar (pugs are almost as cute), even a French Bulldog phone cover. But I stood strong and didn’t wilt under the onslaught, having never been a fan of house dogs.

my new favourite coffee mug…

At the end of first term in 2016 my daughter failed her maths subject terribly – despite my tuition. I think she has her mother’s maths genes – she believes buying something on sale saves you money, versus not buying it at all.

So I gave my daughter an incentive. “If you finish the year with a score of more than 75%, we can get the puppy”. I reckoned I was on a good thing, but you’ve probably already guessed the outcome to this story, dear reader. Here’s part of the text message my daughter sent me in November last year – it’s not easy to argue with facts:

Looks like we’re getting a dog…

So now we have a 12 month old puppy named Rebel, and she believes every piece of furniture is a chew toy. But she’s sooo cute…

As in life, so it is in business – offer your prospects an incentive to do what you want them to do, when you want them to do it, and you’ll increase the number of prospects who do – what you want, that is.

This doesn’t mean flog discounts at every opportunity – just give people an extra reason to act. Here are a few very successful examples to demonstrate the point:

A free pair of slippers for every home loan applicant…

A free drink at the bar for completing a survey about the hotel’s function room…

And who would have thought this would be a successful incentive – a free box of toilet paper and a 30 day free trial?

Earlier this year, my daughter topped her maths class and had the audacity to ask for a second Frenchie. Given I’m the human who most follows Rebel around with a plastic bag scoopin-the-poop, my response was, well let’s just say, it was a tad “disincentivising”.

Time for a nap…

Connect with me anytime: https://www.linkedin.com/in/malcolmauld/

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Uber and other startups starting to smell a lot like 1999 – again…

01 Wednesday Jun 2016

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Advertising, Branding, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Marketing, Media, Sales Promotion

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

advertising, branding, digital, digital marketing, disruption, Hello Fresh, marketing, media, sales promotion, Uber

I was working in New York just prior to the first dot.con collapse. I still recall the chancers and opportunists standing on street corners with suitcases full of business cards. They were literally handing them out to any random passer-by, as the primary way to get traffic to their websites. An early form of geo-targeting by the first generation of digital marketers.

business card

The activity reeked of desperation, but hey, they were heady times. Rich veins of gold were just waiting to be tapped by the dot.con zealots.

I’ve been reminded of those times again recently. It seems the street hustlers who harass you to support a charity, are now competing for sidewalk space with the latest cyber-hustlers selling online retail and App-based services.

Hello Fresh promoters are everywhere. I mentioned them in my last post – they are major users of print distributed by mail, letterbox, inserts and face-to-face (or hand-to-hand as some now call it).

hello

Interestingly, in a few short months Hello Fresh has moved from $30 off your first order to $50 off your first order. That’s not a good trend and indicates a very competitive market with too many suppliers. Watch this space for brand consolidation in the near future. Like 1999, the predictions are that some of these home delivered food brands won’t last.

hello fresh 2

Hello Fresh

And sometimes fate steps in. Just as I was finishing editing this post there was a knock at my door and a charming lady selling Hello Fresh appeared. She even agreed to a photo for my blog. I didn’t become a customer as we are well-stocked for food. But what an innovative channel – knocking on doors to sell things. Did anyone see that digital disruption coming? Well it certainly disrupted dinner.

Hello Fresh door knocker

Helpling also uses printed inserts, brochures in letterboxes and hand-to-hand via street walkers to grow its business. Like all online retailers, they use that amazing digi-breakthrough of giving away a discount with your first purchase. This is a disruptive technique used by marketers for, hmmm, since the beginning of time!

hello 2

helpling

And this week, outside a CBD train station in Sydney, an Uber street walker shoved this in my hand.

Uber 2

Uber 1

Now who in their right-digi-mind would have thought it possible?

The disruptive taxi booking service for the App generation, is resorting to handing out printed leaflets in the streets, with discount offers, to acquire new customers?

What’s really really really really old, is new again – again:)

SP_move-along

And just to clarify other digital myths doing the rounds:

  • Uber is not the world’s biggest taxi service. It’s one of the world’s biggest taxi booking services.
  • Airbnb is not the world’s biggest hotel – it’s one of the biggest accommodation booking services.

But why let the truth get in the way of a good digi-story about the disruption industry? It seems to me, the old quote applies more and more these days – “the more things change, the more they stay the same…”

Though it is ironic that by using fashionable marketing jargon like “disruptive” and disruption” I sound sooo 2016, yet these alleged disruptive brands smell like, umm well, so 1999…

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Newsagents should be wary of Instagram…

10 Monday Aug 2015

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Customer Service, Sales Promotion, Social Media

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Instagram, sales promotion, social media, Tiger Lily

Those of you who work in fashion will know how powerful Instagram has become as a tool for sales promotions. Of course they’re no longer called sales promotions – for some strange reason everything has been relabeled in the digital world. They now have new digi-names, like social activation event, or customer engagement experience, or content marketing lead magnet, blah, blah, blah.

So yesterday (Sunday morning), my bride and I went to quickly buy a birthday card and gift voucher for a 12 year old boy, before getting into the rest of the day. After getting the card at the newsagent, my bride went to buy the gift voucher at the surf shop, while I went across the mall to get some cash from the ATM. It was team work designed to get back home promptly.

Next door to the bank was a newly opened Tiger Lily store. My bride shouted to me “meet me in the Tiger Lily store – they’re having an opening event today, I saw it on Instagram“. I immediately sensed a trap. Why hadn’t we gone to the usual card shop where we get the funny birthday cards? Thoughts of Ole Lynggaard and Lee Mathews rushed through my mind.

Grabbing the cash from the ATM I ran into the store and straight to the manager. This very polite 20-something smiled beautifully and asked if she could help me – given my panicked state.

store maanger

Store manager with trusty assistant…

I said “this might sound strange, but could you possibly put a ‘sold out’ sign out the front or maybe close the doors with a ‘gone to lunch’ sign, just for a half hour? My bride knows about your promotion from Instagram and is on her way here soon – please help me?”

The women shopping in the store smiled knowingly. The store manager just said “your bride must have impeccable taste“. I said “she does, she married me, but that’s beside the point“. I went to the front door to head off my bride. As she approached I exclaimed the store was sold out, so there was no need to enter. But she was having none of it – she was on a shopping mission and I was doomed.

So I sat on the husband/boyfriend couch at the front of the store and was soon accompanied by another poor bloke. I told him I came shopping for a 12 year old’s birthday card and asked him what he thought he was doing when he left home? He and his partner were dressed in lycra and fitness gear – he thought they were out for a healthy walk. “It explains why she packed her credit card, not a water bottle” he sighed.

“Instagram?” I asked – “Instagram” he nodded.

Husband couch

The husband/boyfriend couch…

My bride tried on a dress. All the women shoppers and the sales staff in the dressing rooms gushed at how wonderful she looked, as they turned their heads to me. It was obviously a conspiracy. What is the collective noun for women shopping in a pack? I dare not guess.

The store manager’s trusty assistant offered me a health drink – beetroot, carrot and some other juice. I suggested single malt would be more appropriate given the circumstances.

Suffice to say we finally left the store with a new dress, new hat (thrown in, given the value of the dress purchase) a free posy of flowers (as we were one of their first customers) and a health drink. And now we’re on their database.

Mal in shock

Still in shock I carry the new hat, posy and health drink – damn expensive birthday card…

It’s no wonder newsagents are struggling – from now on we’re buying birthday cards online. We’ll go broke otherwise…

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