Coupons Benefit Retailers
August 31, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Most people think that discount coupons only benefit consumers, but actually grocery coupons benefit retailers and here’s why. There’s no doubt about it – our world has changed and the current economic climate seems to be in a downward spiral. With all the massive lay-offs, decrease in income and reduced buying trends, businesses are suffering while individuals are looking for creative ways to save money. So, if you’re a retailer or grocery chain owner or manager, you have probably felt the decrease in buying patters and desperately want to improve your bottom line.
Well, the good news is that now you can by catering to these coupon-clipping enthusiasts and making coupons a valued part of your advertising strategy, you can help your customers save money by encouraging them to buy and use coupons.
Your first step is to understand why people use coupons. Many individuals who use coupons are middle class individuals that are concerned about their family’s financial future. They aren’t necessarily in any kind of financial distress, they’re just smart and savvy shoppers. They use those coupons published online to capture the thrill of savvy shopping and enjoy the thrill of those one-of-a-kind deals be in groceries. For instance, over 35 million people have visited coupon sites this past year to search for coupons.
Next, coupons get people to the store and once you have them within your reach, you can use other advertising techniques to get them to buy more. Plus, the really strange thing is that most individuals don’t mind a bit because the item was “such a good deal” or simply something that was “too good to pass up.” For instance, let’s say Mary comes to your grocery store to purchase a gallon of milk with her store coupon and expects to pay $1.99. Well, once she gets to the store, she realizes that cereal is on sale and so is bread for individuals that purchase 2 gallons of milk. She then purchases five more sale items when she simply came into the store for one gallon of milk. Might sound strange but this is happening all around the globe. Savvy retailers are using coupons and other advertising strategies to squeeze more money out of their shoppers.
Offering coupons benefits retailers because they can cater to the savvy customer, they can increase their bottom line with upsells and other offers. In essence, it gets the customer into the door so that they can use other advertising strategies on them. After all, everyone loves being able to spend less for more, and they don’t feel they was scammed into buying something totally useless. After all, they got a good deal – and what could be better than that?
If you’re interested in launching coupon driven campaign to an audience of grocery buyers, then Download our Media Kit or Request a Proposal from our team.
More Cooking at Home
August 15, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
The recession has certainly changed the behavior of consumers greatly when it comes to cooking at home. A recent study by Zagat survey confirms that since the economic downturn, 61 percent of those surveyed say they’re cooking dinner at home more than before. Not surprisingly, only 1 percent of the respondents said they’re cooking less. Although this study was specifically into the eating habits of New Yorkers, the increased trend of cooking at home is no doubt widespread across the nation as people cook to save money. There is no doubt that less people are eating out at restaurants in order to save money. With more cooking at home, I thought I’d look at who is benefiting from this trend as well as how companies with the most to reap can interact and engage with consumers online.
Supermarkets, Grocery Store and even Gourmet providores are seeing the benefits of people eating in. Many supermarkets are now printing recipes ideas as soon as you enter the supermarket in order to help consumers choose something for dinner. Companies that market core ingredients have the most to benefit, which is why nearly every supermarket has developed their own brand of private label products. One supermarket has even developed two of their own private label brands; one which is cheap and the other a little more gourmet proving consumers a real choice.
So supermarkets and grocery stores have a real opportunity to expand their consumer base during the economic downturn. One such strategy to increase market share would be to run a campaign with a CRM focus asking consumers for their contact details including email address. Then supermarkets and grocery stores could run a series of email campaigns sending weekly catalogs, discount vouchers or any other special offers. Alternatively they could send a weekly newsletter with ideas of what can be cooked this coming week with links to the shopping list making it super simple for consumers to go to the store and buy the ingredients.
The other major industries to see growth from the downturn in eating out, is both kitchen appliance manufacturers and companies that make and sell kitchen accessories or cookware. I recently was talking with a company that sells a $1000 kitchen appliance. They indicated that they are nearly selling double the about of individual units than they were last year. Another manufacturer who makes a kitchen appliance for around the $100 is also seeing product sales increase. This illustrates how people still have money, but are looking longer term than just months with them prepared to invest in new kitchen appliances in order to save money.
For any company selling kitchen appliances, the key to educating consumers on how to use their products is via recipes. One such strategy for online campaigns would be via a branded recipe widget which allows people to search for recipes which can be made with their products. People eat with their eyes, so making sure every recipes has a image is key to the success of any recipe based marketing program.
So if you’re tasked with increase consumers to your supermarket / grocery store or are tasked at selling more kitchen appliances, now is the time to develop an advertising campaign to take advantage of the trend of more cooking at home. Gourmet Ads can certainly help you develop either short term advertising campaigns or long multi month campaigns to hit your sales and revenue targets. For more information, download our media kit or request a proposal from us.
Getting Products in Supermarkets
June 13, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
For many food companies getting your products onto supermarket shelves can mean significant sales and revenue. But the barriers to entry are usually high, with companies having to go through the hoops to make it happen, then you’ve got the slot fees that supermarkets demand. It can be a tough and costly task.
Food companies eager to get listed with supermarkets are regularly asked “what is your marketing plan to drive sales once it’s on the shelves”. This is ok for large food companies, but for small to medium sized food companies who solely concentrate on producing a quality product, a marketing plan is something that challenges them.
This is where Gourmet Ads can help. We’ll develop a digital media plan which can be presented to supermarkets to support your product. Your campaign would run on our vast network of food websites and would involve creative indicating that your product is now available in a particular supermarket or grocery store. We can also geo target your ads so they appear at nearby supermarkets.
Things we can do to create brand awareness quickly are advertising techniques such as;
- Over the Page
- Site sponsorships
- Road blocking
- Interstitial ads
- Expanding ad units
Finally, supermarkets won’t just want to see activity that will get short term sales. They’ll want to see a path to long term sales. Remember if the product doesn’t perform after the initial launch the supermarket won’t hesitate dropping your product and replacing it with a competitors products. You have to have a plan to keep your products on the shelves and generating sales.
If you’d like Gourmet Ads to develop a digital marketing plan for your product to help get it listed in a supermarket, then Request a Proposal from our team. For more information, download our media kit.
Advertising Groceries Online
December 10, 2008 by Benjamin Christie · 1 Comment
One of the most dreaded household tasks by many people is shopping for groceries. Crying children, tempting store displays and long lines can make shopping in supermarkets a disastrous experience. This is precisely why many traditional grocery stores are expanding their bricks and mortar businesses to online allowing consumers buy groceries online and have them delivered.
Many online grocery stores such as Coles Online in Australia and Netgrocer in the United States have seen tremendous success already for some time. Both allow consumers to log-in and buy groceries online with a few mouse clicks, allowing them to spend more of their precious time with their families.
Even though most people hate grocery shopping, trying something new can be just as intimidating and you may find that a good way to encourage people to use your online grocery store maybe to offer incentives. These could be via free shipping; special discounts or coupon offers to entice them to try your services. Chances are that once they have tried buying groceries online they will never want to shop in supermarkets again.
So if you’re one of these online grocery stores how are you gaining new customers and driving sales? Are you advertising online? Do you have campaigns driving people to your site? Are you advertising where people are reading recipes?
If you’re ready to increase sales and revenues, then request a media kit and then we’ll develop a digital media plan to promote your grocery store online.
