Posts filed under 'Promotions'
According to Platform-A, AOL’s advertising business, more and more people are using on-line generated coupons for purchases than the traditional newspaper coupons that were popular in the past. Furthermore, “younger couples are the most likely life-stage group to use online coupons, indicating an opportunity to influence product choices within this segment.” Full story.
With this in mind, those of us in the gift basket industry might try incorporating more of this type of marketing on our web sites.This can be done simply. Create a coupon using Microsoft Publisher or any other design software that you use. Most software includes templates that you can use. Save your coupon to your desktop. Then simply upload the coupon to your web site just as you upload photos of your gift baskets. Send an email to your customers directing them to your web site in order to print the coupon.
A few other tips: Make sure you are very clear about the promotion you offer (Save $5 on your next purchase; Get 10% off your next purchase, Receive a discount on a particular category of products such as all Baby Baskets, etc.). State the dates when the coupon can be used. Also be sure to indicate if there are certain items that you carry that for which the coupon does not apply. Use your logo or your “tag line” on all your coupons.
April 18th, 2009
National Pet Week will be observed the week of May 4th and this is a grand opportunity to introduce some new basket designs to your line. According to the American Pet Products Manufacturer’s Association, almost 40% of U.S. households include a dog or cat. Moreover, pet owners are mad about their pets! (That’s me with my wonderful, loyal, best friend!) “Amidst one of the worst economic downturns in decades, the pet industry continues to remain robust. Total pet spending topped $43 billion in 2008, and a 4.9 percent increase to $45.4 billion is projected for 2009, according to the American Pet Products Association.
Check out Gift Basket Business.com for resources on pet products. Create some new baskets for dogs and cats that also include a gift certificate for a local pet spa or pet day care facility. This way, you can double your marketing efforts by joining forces with these other businesses to promote “luxury” items for the family pet.
April 14th, 2009
April is a big month for holidays which means you can add some fun to your offerings of gift baskets to your customers. Send an email to your customers or put together a flier that you can mail. Ask other retailers in your community to hang your flier in their stores. Include a 10% OFF YOUR NEXT PURCHASE certificate with your notice.
- April 1st is April Fools Day. Design a basket that includes some games/toys from your local variety store in addition to your gourmet treats. Alert customers that have kids in college: this might be a fun gift to send to students who are getting ready to study for exams.
- April is National Pecan Month. Offer a basket full of pecans, cookies and chocolates with pecans, etc.
- Easter falls on April 12th. Instead of loading your inventory with Easter candies and novelties, check out some Ready-Made Gift Baskets that you can advertise to customers.
- April is also Customer Loyalty Month. Send a small gourmet gift to your best customers to thank them for their continued support.
- For National Pretzel Appreciation Day on April 26th, design a basket with lots of flavored pretzels and dipping mustards.
Even though times are tough, this is the best time to market your business. Let your customers know that you have lots of new gifts that they can send their loved ones, friends and business colleagues.
March 31st, 2009
I’ve been reading a lot of articles these past few weeks about how to keep our businesses going in this troubling economy. Local newspapers and trade magazines alike include stories about how to move through tough economic times in a productive and creative manner.
I’ve noticed that a couple of suggestions keep coming up and although you might have heard these before, I think it’s important to keep stressing these iimportant points.
Provide Super Service! As our customers grow more cautious in their buying patterns, it is more important than ever to nurture our relationships. Review your past records and check out when your customers made purchases in the past. Is a special occasion coming up when your customer always sent a gourmet basket? Who placed orders last year for Valentine’s Day and Easter? If you handle corporate accounts, check last year’s records to see if orders were placed for Administrative Professional Week (April 19 – 25, 2009).Then, get on the phone and make calls! Although your customers may be cutting back this year, they’ll appreciate your being aware of their buying patterns and your call may remind them that it’s time to order again. Even if they don’t order the same amount as in prior years, your call will have an impact. All through the holiday season and continuing this month, the articles and research that I read continue to emphasize that price is not always an issue in customers buying decisions; rather they will often pay more for a better customer service experience.
Keep Promoting Your Business! I heard a story on NPR News that automobile companies, who in the past have purchased up to 40% of all TV advertising, have cut their advertising budgets almost in half. Consequently, ad time on television can be purchased now for substantially lower rates. (Have you noticed that infomercials have stepped up their ads? This is because they’re purchasing ad time at low, low prices.) While I’m not suggesting that you start to advertise your business on the local TV station (although this may be something you want to check out), I do think that this is a good time to call your local newspaper and radio stations and find out what advertising rates are available. And don’t forget to negotiate! Additionally, if you’ve been thinking about developing your own web site, this might be a good time to negotiate with a web developer to design a site for you and get it up and running. They need business too! The economy will eventually turn around and you may be able to make a great investment in your business right now at a great price.
Send Out Coupons! You’ve all received 100’s of coupons in the mail over the holiday season. Newspaper ads have tons of coupons everyday for everything from clothing to food to tires. The Coupon Council of the Promotion Marketing Association says that over 80% of consumers use coupons and are very responsive to coupon offers. Design some of your own coupons to mail, to leave on your check-out counter, to pass out in the neighborhood or to insert in a local newspaper ad. And you don’t just need to slash prices. Offer a free gift for every 3 purchases. Offer a one-time discount on shipping/delivery charges. Use your imagination to create coupons that benefit your customers while keeping an eye on your bottom line.
January 13th, 2009
As we begin planning for 2009, it is a good idea to think about our marketing strategies for the upcoming year. Since many business owners are looking for ways to cut costs, this might be a good time to get together with other business owners in your community and make plans to increase marketing efforts to your customer base.
For example, all of the businesses in your neighborhood could join together to initiate a marketing program for Valentine’s Day. Select a day in early February when all of the businesses will offer special promotions to bring customers to the stores to preview their Valentine offerings. As a gift basket business owner, you might offer samples of chocolate candies that you’ll be using in your Valentine designs. The local florist could give away a rose or other type of flowers that might be an alternative to the traditional gift of roses. A local restaurant might tastings from their Valentine menus. All businesses could offer coupons for future purchases to customers who stop by on the Valentine’s Preview Day. Even the local dentist could get in on the campaign by offering a discount for teeth cleaning and a “beautiful smile” for the holiday of love!
Now is the time to think creatively about how you can increase your customer base and your sales. By working cooperatively with your neighbors, you can continue to attract customers while sharing the costs for your efforts.
January 8th, 2009
A friend of mine who was very involved in this year’s elections is looking for a new job and she’d like to help out some the politicians who she supported. We talked about her checking out the offices of those politicians who won their elections on November 11th. The assumption is that those local offices will need to keep operations running even when the winner takes on his/her new responsibilities.
It occurred to me that these same politicians might be a source of business for gift basket businesses this holiday season. For the winners, there are probably many people who need to be thanked and acknowledged for their support. A gourmet gift basket would be a perfect way of saying “thanks”.
Why not take a gourmet basket to that local office along with your business cards and a “menu” of baskets that you offer. Before you go, try to get the name of the person who runs that office, then leave your basket and information with him/her. The local addresses for the politicians in your city are available on the internet. Who knows: you might get a holiday order!
November 17th, 2008
With reports that consumer spending may decrease this season, gift basket retailers still have time to jump on the email marketing train. In an article posted by The Associated Press, “Kurt Peters, editor-in-chief of trade publication Internet Retailer, noted that stores can easily react to a sharp sales slowdown in a matter of hours by sending out e-mail blasts, which is faster and more cost-effective than redoing a mailer to consumers. Julie M. Katz, another Forrester analyst, estimates that it costs about $2 for every thousand e-mails sent. The Direct Marketers Association estimates that marketers reap $45.06 in return on investment for every dollar they spend on e-mail campaigns. That compares with $7.28 for catalogs and $15.55 for direct mail pieces.”
The first thing you must do is collect email addresses from your current customer base. If you don’t already have these on file, have your employees start calling customers right away to collect those addresses. When they have some down time, each employee can call 5-10 customers per day. Your email program includes a way for you to create a “Group List” where you simply type in all of these addresses. Then, when you’re ready to advertise your gourmet baskets or run a special promotion, you type a single email and send that to the group list that you created.
You can even build “unique group lists” that target your special customers. For example, build a separate list for your corporate accounts, or customers who usually spend a certain amount on their holiday gift baskets, or customers who often order baskets that include particular brands of gourmet items that you carry. Then you can target those groups with very specific email promotions that appeal to their particular needs.
Use email marketing this season to boost your holiday sales. With a minimal amount of effort, you can create special email groups that include customers who will be gratified to receive your messages that are relevant to their buying habits.
November 9th, 2008
You may be the best designer in the world, but if your designs don’t reach your customers in perfect condition, no one will know how skilled you are. And no one will call back to place another order!
During the busy holiday season, it’s especially important to take time to pack your baskets carefully. Be sure to check all of your packaging supplies before the busy season starts. You may even consider calling your shipper of choice (eg. FedEX or UPS) and ask one of their representatives to give you some advice. (Our UPS representative came to our business, Apex Gift Foods, and gave our employees in the shipping department some great tips about packaging.)
Be sure to read Flora Brown’s article, “How to Pack a Peck of Pickled Peppers” for more tips on how to pack your gift baskets so that they arrive to the recipient in perfect condition.
October 28th, 2008
Target Marketing, an industry magazine and online newsletter, offers “strategies and solutions for profitable marketing”. A recent newsletter suggested that with the state of our economy, email marketing may become a very important part of our holiday marketing plans.
In the October 10th newsletter, author Joe Keenan reviewed a recent webinar that was presented by Target Marketing: “8 Tips to Improve Your Holiday Email Campaign”. Read the full article to find out about the first 4 tips; more will be revealed in a follow-up article next week.
Following are two points that I think are important to consider when planning your holiday email marketing:
- Be Prepared. Think about what you want to accomplish with your email campaign. For example, are you trying to attract new customers, encourage old customers to buy again, introduce new products? Depending on your answers, your email campaign should be tailored to meet your goals. You can’t do everything in one email promotion.
- Timing is Everything. Think about your customers: when will they be “ready” to receive your email message. Given that people may be hesitant about holiday shopping this year, try to time your messages with their buying habits in mind. For example, many people do on-line shopping the Monday after Thanksgiving (Cyber Monday). Research on internet shopping also reveals that the 2nd Monday of December is a big on-line shopping day.
Think about what you want to accomplish with your holiday email campaign. Then, think about how you will know if you achieved your goals. For example, if your goal is to attract new customers, be sure to devise a way that you can keep track of new customer orders and inquire whether they are responding to your email. This can be 1 or 2 simple questions when a new customer contacts you, but an important part of future email marketing campaigns.
October 20th, 2008
“Creating success begins with picturing it” says Ari Weinzweig in an article in September’s issue of Specialty Foods Magazine. Weinzweig calls this process “visioning” and he defines it this way: “A vision is a picture of the success of a project at a particular time in the future…It’s a vivid description of what success looks and feels like for us…what we are able to acheive, and the effect it has on our staff”.
I started thinking about using this process to plan an event for your business. Let’s say that you want to have a Holiday Open House. Start by getting together with your staff and talking about what it will “look like”.
Imagine 100 people strolling through your store. Create your displays in your mind; think about your favorite color schemes. See customers tasting your products and picking up the gifts that you sell. Visualize your staff walking through the store and talking to customers about the products (ingredients, customers’ favorites, how items can be used together in a basket). Want to provide some entertainment for your customers? Envision some musicians playing holiday tunes in a corner of your store. Then, picture your customers ordering holiday baskets for their family, friends and business colleagues.
Now that you have a vision, what do you need to do to actually create this scenario? Ask questions and elicit suggestions from your staff. Your questions should be specifically related to your vision. For example:
- How can you notify as many people as possible so that you can get 100 people into your store? Should you use email, phone contacts or do a mailing? is there a way you can get your local paper to advertise your open house?
- Do you have the materials and fixtures to set up your displays as you envisioned? If not, where can you get them? Do you know someone who can help you build or borrow what you want?
- What does your staff need to know in order to discuss products and designs with your customers? What needs to be done to help them prepare for the big day?
- Do you know anyone who can provide music? If you can arrange this, what do the musicians need in order to set up?
- What products do you want your customers to taste? Do you need coffee pots, plates, napkins, etc. Have you contacted your suppliers to request tasting samples?
- What does your staff need to know to take orders? What would make this an efficient process: new order forms? more computers? Is there a location in the store where you’d like customers to go when they’re ready to order?
This is just a preliminary list of questions. The more questions you ask, the better prepared you’ll be. This process, where you visualize your dream, then work backwards to work out the details, can be applied for any special project you may undertake. I think you’ll like the outcomes!
September 24th, 2008
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