Evolving Digital Channels for Consumer Promotions
December 8, 2009
Digital channels are becoming more and more an integral part of many consumer promotion plans. Both mobile and internet are increasingly playing an important part. Online advertising is moving towards actioning the advertisement rather than only informing the consumer. In many cases, especially Financial Services providers are making consumers complete the lead form etc on the same page without making them go to another page/site. Also more and more down loadable coupons and deals are being used as a hook. Some of the interesting ideas currently gaining ground are-
- Online Loyalty clubs- Most of the pizza chains have put their loyalty clubs online and have been spending significant budgets on driving traffic to their loyalty pages. Dominos, Pizza Hut, Pizza corner all have created their online clubs and they have used innovative schemes to drive memberships. Members are regulary sent offers and coupons which can be used both as print-outs and as mobile downloads.
- Facebook pages- Facebook has been a big destination for many marketing managers, some of the well populated pages are for coffee day, pizza hut etc. This is gaining momentum and is likely to be a big channel for consumer engagement. The fact that users dont have to leave their Facebook page while interacting with the brand is a big plus.
- Twitter- Mallika Sherwat made twitter famous in India and this is becoming a good channel to communicate the promotions and engage with the consumers. This is also a great place to gather your consumer feedback.
- Mobile Loyalty programs- With more and more companies joining loyalty bandwagon, it is increasingly difficult for consumers to carry so many loyalty cards in their wallet. A simplified loyalty program with an easy execution is very critical. How you get your loyal members to walk into your stores and engage with you repeatedly is an important question. Using mobile to create the program, rewarding members based on usage with extra mobile vouchers/discounts are some of the interesting ideas which are gaining ground. Companies like Starbucks, IKEA are piloting mobile coupons in a big way.
While usage of digital channels is an important emerging trend, many companies are not leveraging this channel to the best possible results. This channel makes the Marketing budget very measurable and that is not fully captured. Also companies have to look at using this as a complete engagement tool with a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) approach rather than campaign by campaign basis.
We will discuss the best practices and how digital channels can be used for effective consumer promotions in the next article.
Changing Face of Consumer Promotions in India
November 27, 2009
Consumer Promotions in India have been generally about using Below the Line Marketing to drive a particular single promotion. Give a freebie, use a scratch card to get gifts or a percentage discount on the current purchase or giving the consumer a bulk discount i.e. Get one soap bar free when you purchase 3 bars.
Even couple of years back, this was the most visible face of Consumer Promotions. Not any more. With the advent of coupons and deals, the definition and execution of this kind of Marketing has changed completely.
Now just look around and find all leading grocery chains putting their top deals together and giving it out in one place to attract consumers. Star Bazaar, More, Spencers etc are putting their top deals in a paper insert and sending it out. In fact for grocery chains, deals based marketing has replaced traditional advertisements completely. For example, check the Big Bazaar ads in newspapers which are completely centred around coupons and deals and those deals and expected savings act as the major attraction for the consumers.
Pizza companies are going a step ahead. Large chains are regularly giving out coupons with the take away menus. These are also investing heavily in creating loyalty clubs where members are rewarded with good coupons on a monthly basis. Dominos has been sending a very well compiled coupons booklet to its loyal customers and Pizza Hut has created a VIP (Very Interested in Pizza!!) Club for its loyal base. In all these cases, the focus has all been around driving repeat purchasing using the most interesting and useful coupons. The next step could very well be customizing the coupons based on usage by the consumers. One consumer may get pasta coupons while the other one may get coupon on extra cheese toppings.
Marketing Managers of many other products and services categories are seriously working on using the deal and coupons driven consumer promotion to drive trials and repeat purchase. The most interesting ones have been in weight loss programs!! pay for one kg and lose two!!
Coupons and deals are changing the face and the weight of Promotions Marketing for sure.
open2save has worked with many of its clients to build coupon based consumer promotions including measuring ROI and effectiveness of deal/coupon and the channels.
open2save also lists consumer promotions of leading chains on open2save.com for its members.
In the second part of this series I will discuss how digital channels are being used for effective consumer promotions.
