Thursday, June 16, 2011
by Natalia Klishina Some business-owners are under the erroneous impression that a deal must provide huge savings in order to attract customers. But it doesn't matter how small or big it is -- Americans always want a deal. Sure, the bigger the better, but it's the concept of "saving money" in general that's so attractive to consumers. Here's the perfect example of a small deal that set records in just 10 days. Redbox recently launched the "10 Days of Deals" campaign that offered between $0.10 and $1.50 off movie rentals at any Redbox location. Customers were asked to text "deals" into a shortcode every day, and they would receive a different discount coupon code back each day. In less than a week, the promotion prompted over 1 MILLION text messages. And these weren't just from their existing customer base. The campaign also significantly increased Redbox's new subscriber list. And people were saving as little as a dime! So when setting up your promotions with CallFire, take away these marketing lessons from Redbox:
  1. Provide a deal on something your customers want. If it's something they're interested in already, they'll definitely take advantage of any available discount on it.
  2. Require minimal effort on the customer's part. One of the reasons Redbox's promotion was so successful even though it offered a very small discount, is that it didn't ask the customer to do a whole lot.
  3. Engage in cross-channel marketing. If you're running a promotion, advertise it everywhere. Redbox ran its ads online, in e-mails, at its kiosks, etc. Tons of discount websites and blogs picked it up, too -- so don't forget to target people who'll spread the word for you.
  4. Target both existing customers (increase customer loyalty and thus lifetime value) and new customers (drive customer acquisition). Both are valuable in the short-run and in the long-run.