PDA

View Full Version : Update on Local Shopping Promotion



Patrysha
07-04-2009, 02:58 AM
The promotion officially launched yesterday...

It became apparent by early afternoon that I underestimated the impact of having the grocery store involved and I had to order 500 more registration cards from the printer. I got 300 more over to them this afternoon and hope that is enough to tide them over for the weekend. (If not, I plan to hit all the shops that are closed on Sunday tomorrow afternoon and redistribute on Monday) - One of the clothing stores also got close to running out of registration cards, but they were involved in the pre-launch week whereas the grocery store was not...

In the past, the grocery store cashiers have not been as keen on promoting things at the till as they have been with this promotion over the past two days. When I was with the radio station we did a joint Christmas promotion where people would pay to buy an ornament for the window and the proceeds got to the Christmas Hamper program and I never got asked once to purchase one in the three years they've done it. And two years ago when the Chamber did have a shopping promotion at Christmas, they never asked if you had a passport to stamp. So I did not expect them to be big pushers of this promotion...but they are...I've been through the till three times in two days and got asked all three times (and had fun saying I don't qualify because I am the inventor and manager of the promotion :-))

My original plan to have my eldest son do all the data entry was a little too ambitious as well. There are just too many customer registrations to expect a 12 year old to input them properly even though he does type faster than I do. So I'll be doing the original batch over the weekend. He'll still be doing the transaction entries once I get the customers into the system though. And he'll likely be able to do the customer registrations after the initial rush is over...

Radio ads start on Monday on both radio stations. On one station I am doing one sixty second spot at the same time every week, supported by 10 second promos to listen at that time. On the other I have just done a 10 second spots as news liners...$1000 over two months does not go very far. You can listen to the first 60second spot for the country station at http://whitecourtbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/SIZZLING-SUMMER-_-JULY-6-.mp3

The video board ad during pre-launch did nothing to drive traffic to the website...and no one mentioned having seen it. To be honest with all the driving I did last week...I only saw it twice myself. Now admittedly I was quite busy rushing around and did not actively look for the ad every time I drove by...and half the time I would not remember that I wanted to look until after the light had turned...but that's the way most people are I would think - so I likely won't try that again when the next campaign rolls around unless I have tons of participating merchants with a higher budget for experimentation.

The buzz factor amongst the customers is huge in the stores of participating merchants that I have been in so far...which is fun...only time will tell if it has an impact on sales for the participating merchants...but the initial reaction has been good so far ;-)

Business Attorney
07-04-2009, 08:57 AM
The radio spot sounds very good. I would suggest that you add something like "for a complete list of participating merchants, visit www.shopinwhitecourt.com." Then someone can learn where to get the card.

Just out of curiosity, why show shopinwhitecourt.com in the header of the website when you are really using whitecourtbusiness.com?

I don't know how much it costs to laminate the card, but I think the print shop is missing out on a bigger opportunity. If they offered to laminate the card for free, I'll bet they would get more people coming in who would decide that they had one or two other things that should also be laminated that are more permanent that a card for a two month long promotion.

By the way, you are missing a closing parenthesis in your 5th tip on your web page.

Patrysha
07-04-2009, 10:05 AM
I am using a different URL for each media outlet so I can gather a rough idea of where people are first hearing about us. ShopinWhitecourt.com is the one that I am using for the print materials.

The print shop is actually looking into being able to do that (offer lamination for free on the cards) but they first have to find a supplier for lamination pockets at a reasonable price on the wholesale end. Truth is people can go to the library or the stationery store to get it laminated as well...I just tossed that tip in to give them a name mention more than anything else.

Thanks for letting me know about the missing symbol...off to fix it...

Patrysha
07-04-2009, 10:11 AM
Oh and yeah...next week I will remember to add the check out participating merchants tag on the commercial. Too late to try and squeeze it in now since I recorded on Thursday and the station doesn't have production crews in on weekends...

KristineS
07-04-2009, 01:30 PM
Sounds like you're off to a good start. Keep us updated on how things go. It will be interesting to see what sort of response you get as the promotion goes on.

Patrysha
07-09-2009, 10:55 PM
The piles of registration forms coming in every day are getting a little smaller (thank goodness! because by Tuesday night I had inputted over 1300 customer registrations...I'm estimating by the size of my to do bag that there are about 400 more)

So the promotion is going well :-) Other than the fact I haven't had a chance to go out and sell a few more packages to participating sponsors between regular client work and making sure the promotion is running smoothly for those already involved.

There was a complaint to the Chamber about the promotion and the complainant was told if they really had a problem with it to put in a formal complaint in writing...which has not happened so far. I'm not worried as I have my bases covered with the fact that the Chamber rejected the proposal I put in last November (and that was before I was voted in as Promotions Director) and the fact that the Chamber has never to anyone's recollection ever done a summer shopping promotion...