I have written before about the effectiveness of basic
promotional activities carried out as part of a marketing campaign. Simple
gimmicks such as ‘2 for the price of 1’, ‘quote this code to collect your
prize’, offering people a ‘free trial’ etc, etc, etc can all work really well,
both from a cost-effective point of view and as a way to monitor whether your
marketing is working.
BUT, they can also backfire horribly! Here are a few recent
examples!
Today we visited a very well-known British store where we
often shop for groceries. As we went to
check out, my partner noticed a pile of leaflets on the counter by the till which
said, in Czech, that if a customer handed one of these leaflets to the cashier over
the weekend of the 30th, and had spent more than Kc 400, they would receive Kc
100 deduction from their bill. There was nothing in the store to advertise the
leaflets and no mention of them by the cashier when we went to check-out. My
partner (who is Czech, but we were speaking English) picked up one of the
leaflets and said ‘can I give you this and get a discount?’ to which she
shrugged, said OK, rung up the leaflet and duly deducted the Kc 100 (and probably
put it back on the counter in front of her once we left!’).
We could only assume that (a) the leaflets were supposed to
have been given to shoppers the previous weekend, with a view to encouraging
them to come back again today or tomorrow, (b) someone had forgotten to put
them out the previous weekend and thought that they had better use them quickly
in order to show that they had done their job (since the deduction had to be rung
up) and (c) that no-one would explain the value of the leaflet to anyone that
didn’t speak Czech as, of course, they could probably afford to do without the
Kc 100 off (cynical? Me?).
Clearly some marketing person at a high level had thought
that these leaflets would be a nice way of driving customers back to the store
and getting them to spend more than they might usually, and had then spent
money themselves designing and printing the leaflets, distributing them to the
stores and then hoping to see an increase in figures. The result, though, since clearly the
leaflets were used on the weekend after they were supposed to be, was just a
few shoppers getting a Kc 100 reduction on a bill that they were already
prepared to pay the full amount for and, one would assume, most of the leaflets
being chucked in the bin.
The moral of the story – if you are going to do some sort of
leaflet promotion, then ensure with your own eyes that leaflets are being given
out on the right date and in the right spirit.
You can also help to ensure this by publicizing the fact that the
leaflets exist in advance of people receiving them so that the recipients are
looking out for them and the people giving them know that! By the way, I am
sure I am not the only person that has seen promotional people dumping leaflets
on the floor of buildings, in rubbish bins, etc… if you are going to use such
people, then you need to police what they are doing or you might just as well
chuck your money in the rubbish bin instead.
Another recent experience: I was offered a free trial at a
service company that was offering something that I had been considering using
for a while. I duly made my appointment
and toddled along to be greeted by one of the rudest receptionists that I have
had the pleasure of meeting. First she told me that I didn’t have an
appointment, and then, when I assured her that I did, she asked me how I
planned to pay for the upcoming experience.
I said I wasn’t going to be paying as I was here for a free
consultation, which she insisted wasn’t possible, and so it continued. Short of asking her security people to remove
me forcibly from the building, she couldn’t have been ruder. Luckily I am an
old hand here and when I got to see the main person the visit was a
success. But had I not been, the result
of this ‘free trial promotion’ would have been that I would never, ever, have
darkened this company’s doorsteps again (and, as an aside, they would probably
have been one of those companies that sometime in the future would tell me or
someone similar that ‘marketing doesn’t work’!!).
The moral of the story: if you are going to offer a free
consultation or promotion, make sure that every member of your team knows what
is going on!
Lastly, my own rather frustrating marketing experience. We
have an apartment in Spain that we have started to advertise on one of the
holiday rental sites. Of course, there are millions of similar apartments on
the site, and in order to get high up the viewing order we are dependent on
good reviews. So every time someone
books and stays through the website, we ask them if they would write a review
for us as we believe that the apartment is fantastic. A recent group – four 80
year-old Americans, paying their first visit to Spain, who emailed me questions
on a daily basis for weeks before their visit - had a bit of a bad time. Not
because of the apartment but because flying all that way, driving in Europe,
etc, etc, etc, all proved a bit too much for them. Believing that our own
service had been really good (we even laid out a bottle of champagne for them
on arrival) I duly asked them for a review.
And what a stinker they wrote.
The moral of the story – if you are going to ask for a
review, testimonial or reference that is going to be seen in public, make sure
that you know without any possible doubt that it is going to be good! I
probably should have known better…
