Friday
Offer Product Samples/Coupons
By Joseph Jaffe
Someone once told me that people use the Internet for three primary reasons: to be informed, to purchase and to save. (I’ve since added a few more to this list such as to be entertained, to connect, and to communicate.) Clearly the person who uttered this phrase was coming from a transaction-centric perspective and for the purposes of this week’s article, I’m going to focus on the roadmap that takes us from consideration to purchase via trial.
I had another interesting conversation the other day about the seismic disconnect between the way marketers advertise and the way consumers buy. The category in question was bottled water and the brand was Dasani.
Atop the ivory tower that is marketing, we extol the virtues of power behavioral states such as awareness, consideration, preference, trial and loyalty. These terms are critical to those who request and acquire marketing budgets, but essentially meaningless to consumers who ultimately end up paying for them.
Here’s an example: Why did I purchase a bottle of Dasani water yesterday? Was it because of the breakthrough advertising? To be honest, I couldn’t begin to tell you what a Dasani 30-second spot looks, sounds or smells like. Was it the brand reinforcement that ultimately led to adamant insistence on my part? Hardly. In fact, it was the 90-degree temperature and the Coke machine that just happened to carry one – and only one – brand of bottled water: Dasani.
The point simply being that location, location, location, combined with convenience and an element of impulsivity is more likely to end up resulting in a purchase than any amount of product-focused offer-based advertising.
And then there’s trial. Some believe we’re returning to a world in which content and product dominates and brand does not. Putting it slightly differently, you can get everyone in the world to try your product once (read: through advertising), but if the experience is less than satisfactory, the likelihood of a repeat purchase would be as thirst quenching as sand.
But life is a little more complicated than bottled water. All things being equal, let’s assume that all products are equal. In a world peppered with rabbit-like explosive choice, how does a marketer entice, incent or engage a consumer to the point of trial?
“Coupons are a tried-and-true sales incentive,” says Jeff Weitzman, COO of Coupons, Inc., “but what makes them particularly effective online is the combination of the incentive with the ability to collect data and track behavior offline. A small incentive can generate enough momentum to get consumers to provide a wealth of information.”
He provides this example for Colgate Simply White gel (the initial page and the sign-in form).
In this instance, traffic to the site is driven by both online and offline media. Once a consumer prints the coupon, having provided contact info and opting in, Colgate is then able to:
Follow up with those who printed but didn’t redeem the offer by providing them with additional incentives
Send an additional offer, when it is time to “whiten” again, to those who did redeem the product.
Cross-sell other Colgate products, for example encouraging the “newly whitened” to use a Colgate toothpaste to keep that new smile at its best.
“Time and again, technologies that have been truly successful are those that not only allowed users to improve on what they could previously do, but do new things that weren’t possible or feasible before,” says Dadi Akhavan, president of e-centives. “The best practice in Internet couponing is NOT to take what’s done in the physical world – like Sunday newspaper coupons – and just mimic it online. Instead, the real benefit comes from doing it better.”
The ability to attach a direct means of fulfillment to a piece of advertising communications is exactly the kind of missing link that can bridge intent to purchase with purchase itself. The distance between these two stages is probably best expressed by the phrase, “I’ll go on that diet tomorrow.”
Calling toll-free numbers is so 20th century.
Relying on memory is risky business.
A click of a TiVo remote or mouse, however, is effortless. More importantly, it is a moment of truth in which a consumer can instantaneously weave interest into action, so much so that Rumplestiltskin himself could not have been more proud.
Akhavan submits Reckitt Benckiser’s online consumer relationship marketing program as one stellar example. Reckitt Benckiser used online couponing to improve its promotional targeting and minimize the cost of brand switching. Through a combination of multiple brand microsites and a holistic monthly e-newsletter called HomeSolutionsNews, the CPG company delivered targeted online coupons to its consumer database. Tracking online interactions helped it close the loop to track actual in-store purchases.
Weitzman suggests that this is one best practice that is not only close to the hearts of traditional CPG marketers, but more importantly is the key to leveraging several other leading Interactive Best Practices. Think of it as the key to the door if you will. Driving Offline Sales, Purchase Intent, Rewarding Interest with Immediate Fulfillment, Viral Marketing and Commanding Awareness with cross-media blitz are just some of them.
In the arena of rewarding interest through the immediate fulfillment of a coupon, Weitzman offers up an example for a recent Maybelline product introduction. A rich-media advertisement captured consumer interest and an instant coupon rewarded that interest right away.
Weitzman also offers up these Words of Wisdom:
Follow Up! If a consumer asks for more info, provide it!
Continue the dialogue and keep watching for interest.
If your goal is information, don’t muddy the waters! A free product coupon is sure to generate lots of units moved, but are you learning anything other than that you can successfully give your product away? “Freebies” often hit offer-seekers, not product-seekers.
Don’t do it yourself! Particularly when it comes to measurability, control and fraud detection.
Ironically coupons have been embraced most by the very industries that have tended to lag behind other verticals in terms of their adoption of the Internet as a marketing and advertising medium. But even within the CPG space, there is still some reticence towards adopting this best practice.
Akhavan attributes this to three misconceptions:
1) the limited reach of the Web
2) the concern about online coupon fraud
3) the unprofitable “coupon junkies” who will naturally look to the Internet for a good deal.
In response: Reach-myopia ignores more important variables such as targeting, measurement and profitability. Secondly, many e-coupon fraud detection and prevention systems are now tighter than their offline equivalents. And finally, habitual coupon junkies are habitual coupon junkies, whether online or offline.
And if you’re still not convinced, consider the fact that more than eight out of 10 Americans use coupons when grocery shopping. Now who’s myopic?
By Joseph Jaffe
Someone once told me that people use the Internet for three primary reasons: to be informed, to purchase and to save. (I’ve since added a few more to this list such as to be entertained, to connect, and to communicate.) Clearly the person who uttered this phrase was coming from a transaction-centric perspective and for the purposes of this week’s article, I’m going to focus on the roadmap that takes us from consideration to purchase via trial.
I had another interesting conversation the other day about the seismic disconnect between the way marketers advertise and the way consumers buy. The category in question was bottled water and the brand was Dasani.
Atop the ivory tower that is marketing, we extol the virtues of power behavioral states such as awareness, consideration, preference, trial and loyalty. These terms are critical to those who request and acquire marketing budgets, but essentially meaningless to consumers who ultimately end up paying for them.
Here’s an example: Why did I purchase a bottle of Dasani water yesterday? Was it because of the breakthrough advertising? To be honest, I couldn’t begin to tell you what a Dasani 30-second spot looks, sounds or smells like. Was it the brand reinforcement that ultimately led to adamant insistence on my part? Hardly. In fact, it was the 90-degree temperature and the Coke machine that just happened to carry one – and only one – brand of bottled water: Dasani.
The point simply being that location, location, location, combined with convenience and an element of impulsivity is more likely to end up resulting in a purchase than any amount of product-focused offer-based advertising.
And then there’s trial. Some believe we’re returning to a world in which content and product dominates and brand does not. Putting it slightly differently, you can get everyone in the world to try your product once (read: through advertising), but if the experience is less than satisfactory, the likelihood of a repeat purchase would be as thirst quenching as sand.
But life is a little more complicated than bottled water. All things being equal, let’s assume that all products are equal. In a world peppered with rabbit-like explosive choice, how does a marketer entice, incent or engage a consumer to the point of trial?
“Coupons are a tried-and-true sales incentive,” says Jeff Weitzman, COO of Coupons, Inc., “but what makes them particularly effective online is the combination of the incentive with the ability to collect data and track behavior offline. A small incentive can generate enough momentum to get consumers to provide a wealth of information.”
He provides this example for Colgate Simply White gel (the initial page and the sign-in form).
In this instance, traffic to the site is driven by both online and offline media. Once a consumer prints the coupon, having provided contact info and opting in, Colgate is then able to:
Follow up with those who printed but didn’t redeem the offer by providing them with additional incentives
Send an additional offer, when it is time to “whiten” again, to those who did redeem the product.
Cross-sell other Colgate products, for example encouraging the “newly whitened” to use a Colgate toothpaste to keep that new smile at its best.
“Time and again, technologies that have been truly successful are those that not only allowed users to improve on what they could previously do, but do new things that weren’t possible or feasible before,” says Dadi Akhavan, president of e-centives. “The best practice in Internet couponing is NOT to take what’s done in the physical world – like Sunday newspaper coupons – and just mimic it online. Instead, the real benefit comes from doing it better.”
The ability to attach a direct means of fulfillment to a piece of advertising communications is exactly the kind of missing link that can bridge intent to purchase with purchase itself. The distance between these two stages is probably best expressed by the phrase, “I’ll go on that diet tomorrow.”
Calling toll-free numbers is so 20th century.
Relying on memory is risky business.
A click of a TiVo remote or mouse, however, is effortless. More importantly, it is a moment of truth in which a consumer can instantaneously weave interest into action, so much so that Rumplestiltskin himself could not have been more proud.
Akhavan submits Reckitt Benckiser’s online consumer relationship marketing program as one stellar example. Reckitt Benckiser used online couponing to improve its promotional targeting and minimize the cost of brand switching. Through a combination of multiple brand microsites and a holistic monthly e-newsletter called HomeSolutionsNews, the CPG company delivered targeted online coupons to its consumer database. Tracking online interactions helped it close the loop to track actual in-store purchases.
Weitzman suggests that this is one best practice that is not only close to the hearts of traditional CPG marketers, but more importantly is the key to leveraging several other leading Interactive Best Practices. Think of it as the key to the door if you will. Driving Offline Sales, Purchase Intent, Rewarding Interest with Immediate Fulfillment, Viral Marketing and Commanding Awareness with cross-media blitz are just some of them.
In the arena of rewarding interest through the immediate fulfillment of a coupon, Weitzman offers up an example for a recent Maybelline product introduction. A rich-media advertisement captured consumer interest and an instant coupon rewarded that interest right away.
Weitzman also offers up these Words of Wisdom:
Follow Up! If a consumer asks for more info, provide it!
Continue the dialogue and keep watching for interest.
If your goal is information, don’t muddy the waters! A free product coupon is sure to generate lots of units moved, but are you learning anything other than that you can successfully give your product away? “Freebies” often hit offer-seekers, not product-seekers.
Don’t do it yourself! Particularly when it comes to measurability, control and fraud detection.
Ironically coupons have been embraced most by the very industries that have tended to lag behind other verticals in terms of their adoption of the Internet as a marketing and advertising medium. But even within the CPG space, there is still some reticence towards adopting this best practice.
Akhavan attributes this to three misconceptions:
1) the limited reach of the Web
2) the concern about online coupon fraud
3) the unprofitable “coupon junkies” who will naturally look to the Internet for a good deal.
In response: Reach-myopia ignores more important variables such as targeting, measurement and profitability. Secondly, many e-coupon fraud detection and prevention systems are now tighter than their offline equivalents. And finally, habitual coupon junkies are habitual coupon junkies, whether online or offline.
And if you’re still not convinced, consider the fact that more than eight out of 10 Americans use coupons when grocery shopping. Now who’s myopic?
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