A How-To Guide For Leveraging Existing Marketing Assets For Multi-Channel Promotion
Posted on 29 October 2008 by Patrick FlanaganNo Comments
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Free is the name of the game in today's marketing budget
The economy is in the crapper. Budgets are tight. We all get this news cast at us every day within the retail world. So now is the time to make the most of internal and essentially free marketing tools that nearly everyone has at their disposal to drive additional in-store traffic and sales. Often times these resources go overlooked and are vastly untapped due the common, low-tech nature of many of them. That however is the beauty of many of them. The price is right (free), the complexity is low (quick implementation) and there is still potential (as many of these ‘stones’ have not yet been turned over).
Below is an examination of a few techniques that I have personally witness retailers using over the last 4+ years that are designed to drive consumes cross-channel.
1. Web – To – Store
a. Search - Every single site has a keyword search box. However most sites only search items available online and ignore those items on sale OR for sale in the store. By simply integrating these data sets and providing a holistic view to search across all channels,. ShopKo for example does a great job of this on their dot com site where store based on-sale items are included in the search and browse results.
b. Email - Who doesn’t have a million plus house email list these days? It’s a well proven method of driving on-line sales. Consider however how email could easily be made to serve an additional master – the store. By simply including in-store promotional content within. Retailers such as JCP, OSH, Staples and others faithful use email to promote and drive people in-store. Just sign-up for their newsletters and you’ll get the picture immediately.
c. Store Locators – OK. This one is becoming a personal ‘soap box’ for me. It is however probably the most powerful method defined here. Online store locator visits = in store visits. It is the closest, most well established measurement proxy for how to track the effectiveness of the web driving in-store sales. As such, by including in-store messaging as to give an incentive for the user looking at the online store locator to actual take action and drive to a local store (via what is happening in store, what’s on sale in store, etc). Here is another good example of how this key asset can be best used.
2. Print – To – Web
a. Inserts / Circulars / Flyers / Catalogs – Print ads are not cheap to produce or distribute. Help keep print costs in check and add additional users by messaging that the same in-store promotional content is available online.
Here is the front cover of a recent JCP ad that has messaging that is cross promoting the online weekly ad site
b. Direct Mail – Same story as circulars above. Cross-promotional messaging is the key here.
c. Bill Inserts – Another variation for those retailers that run their own private label credit cards. This customer touch point is one more area that cross-promotion can naturally occur.
d. Newspaper Insertion Add-Ons – These come in many forms. Yellow sticky notes on the outside of the shrink rack bags that hold all the FSIs / inserts. Other actually branding the circular bag itself.
Highly branded shrink wrap bag that all the circular ads got stuffed into
Special call out on the front page of the newspaper drawing attention to in-store deals
3. Store – To – Web
a. Cash Register / Point of Sale (POS) Receipts – This is a technique that I first noticed at my local Target store. I just checked out and I looked down to notice that on the bottom of my receipt was a message that stated “No Newspaper? No Problem. The Target Weekly Ad Is Online At http://weeklyad.target.com“ Simple, useful information, high exposure and cost effective.
b. In-Store Signage / Bulletin Boards- Your local stores are a huge marketing machine. Making sure that all of the places where informational channel specific or cross-channel signage is displayed have the proper messaging in place to make shoppers aware of all the options, communication mediums/tools and channels you offer. Wal-Mart always has this huge glassed-in bulletin board by customer service that has the weekly ad pinned up. I see consumers actually getting out scrap paper and making notes of which items are of interest, the prices, etc. This is exactly the type of opportunity to drive these information requests to a better channel. Enter mobile site, kiosk standing right there with the ability to print, etc. Basically anything has to be better than making people do their store shopping research through a piece of glass.
c. Registries / In-Store Kiosks – Bringing the internet inside of a store is a brilliant idea, as it opens up a whole hoard of information to store shoppers. As more and more kiosks get deployed (Borders has made a big investment in this area), these store and web experiences get really blurred quickly. This is the exact reason that their needs to be good bi-directional messaging and promotion across both the online and in store channel. Registries are also another great example of how in store and online are all mixed up as users add items in store, edit the registry list on line and friends and family consume it back in store. Talk about a system that is ripe for cross-channel promotion.
d. Ad Racks – Walgreens is the retailer that comes to mind here. Every time I go in store, the first thing that I literally run into is a large chrome wire rack that has a stack of paper circular ads stuffed in it. However more times than not, the rack is empty. What if however there was a sign on this rack that said, “Go online to our mobile WAP site to find out the deals in our local store at http://m.walgreens.com” It would solve the out-of-stock issue, be ‘greener’, always up-to-date and drive awareness of a WAP site.
e. Check-Out Point Of Sale (POS) Terminal Screens – Whole Foods has really fancy, large LCD monitors that you are suppose to watch when you check out. There are of course the details of what you are buying but in addition there are tons of display ads and messaging that wrap around the transaction area of the screen. Again I see an opportunity here to drive cross-channel messaging and behavior by promoting that consumers can figure out what is on sale in that specific local store BEFORE they leave their house by going online to the weekly ad.
Whole Foods POS screen that has almost half the screen real estate being used to promote products in store
4. Mobile – To – Web
a. SMS Text Alerts / Reminders – Urban Outfitters has a pretty simple and cool mobile messaging effort that send periodic updates to a house file of mobile numbers that their customers have entrusted the retailer with. How about including in the bottom of each message a simple & short URL (like a www.tinyurl.com redirect) that links back to a mobile compliant site that has in-store content, events and promotions? That would be a perfect cross-channel promotional opportunity.
5. Phone – To – Web
a. Call Center: Recorded Messages - How many times have I been on hold hearing the same endless loop of music and messages? Too many to recount, but each time I get lost in phone tree hell, I always think about what a lost opportunity to ‘talk’ to a customer. The retailer has a very captive audience that it can easily expose to any ideas or messages it wants. Smart sellers should take advantage of this and provide teaser content to help build future demand for a future web or store visit. Tell the users what is on sale, for sale or being promoted. Keep fueling the demand fire.
b. Call Center: Catalog / Circular Requests – Mailing a physical circular ad or catalog to a customer is expensive and takes forever. Some cost conscience retailers are instead offering to email a virtual copy of the ad or catalog to the customer. This is a Win-Win. Cheaper for the retailer and faster delivery for the customer.
Am I missing other promotional methods? Have experience using any of these you would like to share? Are even better, results? Leave a comment and let’s discuss.
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