Transcript:

All right, welcome everyone to this week’s version of facebook live. Today we’re going to talk about the hall of fame of some of the good campaigns and some of the bad campaigns. And today’s guest is a newcomer to the show. First Time, surprisingly, this is Luke. He runs our customer success team and has all the data inside that magical head of his to, to kind of talk about today. So we’re excited to be here. Um, to start things off. Luke, I’m wanting to discuss the care. What are the characteristics of a good campaign?

It’s a great question.  I’m really, when you’re looking at a good campaign, there’s three or four things that I, I would recommend and I do recommend all the clients I talked to. A number one is making sure you include your business name so that they know who the promotions coming from. A number two is some kind of promotion, some kind of offers so that there’s something to drive traffic, something to drive customers to want to come in. The third thing is a sense of urgency. Making sure that you have an expiration date. It’s not too far out there and get a lot of clients that want to put an expiration date to run a promotion for like three or four months. The challenge when you do a three or four month promotion is what I think when I see that and I get that on my phone as I look at it and I’m like, Oh yeah, this is awesome. Oh, I want really want to go in here. It’s good for two weeks. Cool. I’ll go, I’ll go next week or I’ll go in and two or three this weekend and then I forget about it. And so like I don’t, it doesn’t drive me in there. And so that’s why we want to make sure that we create that sense of urgency and put an expiration date. I usually recommend three to four days, you know, two to three days. I’m as late as a week in a could go longer and we’ll talk about a few things I’ll recommend with that. But I definitely recommend a shorter campaign. And then the fourth thing is, uh, with the promotion that you put in there, is when you get a text message, there’s a certain little preview, there’s a little bit of a um, or what shows up before you open the text message, including that promotion at the very beginning of the call of action so that the customer will see that and it will drive them into your store and get them excited to actually want to, um, open up that text message or want to find.

So yeah, so putting the call to action right at the beginning because you’re right, a technology these days, cell phones are very, very similar in the fact that you all get into that brief, that brief sentence, and you can see the first couple of words of that text message. So yeah, put that call to action right there. Um, that we also, when they’re scrolling through their phone, they can remember it and see it. It’s right there at the beginning. Um, and then the only thing I’d add to that is just a relevancy, um, when you’re already creating a campaign, sending out messages from, from your account, having relevancy, making sure that it’s just not nothing, you know, it’s relevant to consumers. Or else they are going to ignore it and continue to ignore your messages unless each time they see what’s relevant, what gets them excited has a promotion on it has something that’s important to them. So something such as it doesn’t always have to be promotion. Sometimes it could be, um, you know, we’re close today because the weather’s bad. Sometimes your customers want to know that when we see those types of messages all the time, I’m like, we mentioned promotions and, and that’s a whole other element. I mean there’s a lot of discussion about what goes into a good promotion, but yeah, give us some thoughts about promotions in what makes a good promotion and what really drives traffic into your store.

Um, well really with driving traffic in a good promotion is going to be a. based upon that relevancy that you talked about, something that’s going to get them excited about it, perceived the value, depending on what the promotion is, it you’re trying to create the most value that the customer is going to be the most excited, really depend on your type of business. If you’re a restaurant business, I was in restaurant management for many years, um, that could be something as simple as a, if you’re doing pizza as breadsticks, breadsticks, have a high perceived value, but low actual cost. The same thing when you’re dealing with drinks, soft drinks, sodas, things like that. Desserts, usually you’d have a higher profit margin with those things. If you’re in a shaved ice shack, even just an upsize, going from a medium size to large size, if you’re shaved dice or flavored soda, that’s a high perceived value that you’re going to be able to drive traffic a lot better. Um, with those frozen yogurt places, uh, doing flat rates for your cups or no way type of scenario, no way. Wednesday, I’ve seen that out a lot. Um, but really being able to give them a high perceived value, being able to do something that, um, is unique. I saw campaign, it was just last month actually, that campaign was national high five day a national high five day come in and we’ll give you $5 off your purchase, you know, $20 or more, whatever it might be, but it’s something unique that is different. And so it creates a little bit of buzz and people go around all day long like, oh yeah, hey, do you know what natural high fives say, Hey, give me a high five. And just something simple like that, you’re able to, um, really create some viral aspect to it that people start talking about it. Um, but definitely something that’s relevant, something that unique. Uh, the wording of your campaign is another thing that I find huge when you’re doing a buy one, get one free or buy one, get one 50 percent off. When you, when you mention it that way, a Bogo 50 or um, that it’s commonly you said, um, it, it creates a value behind it. But if you were to actually change the wording around and say, get a free entrée with purchase of another entrée or something like that, the very first beginning is like, oh, I can get a free entrée. And so people get more excited about it. So really looking at the wording that’s going to be huge thing to create that perceived value. Um, the, the final thing I would probably recommend is really doing a multiple day offer, can get a lot of clients that want to send out, you know, hey, we have a one day offer today only, which is great, which works great. And it creates that sense of urgency and it’s fantastic if you’re having a slower day or rainy day and you’re really trying to boost sales for one day. But when I look at different, uh, analytics for different campaigns, what I saw is that we can increase, you know, two or three percent redemption rate or even on some of them doubling the redemption rate if we’re doing it two or three day offer just because as myself, I’m driving down the road and I get a text. And then mentioned earlier, I think, oh, I can do it later on, or if I get a text and it’s like, oh shoot, well I already have plans tonight, I already have this, I’m doing so provides that opportunity for me to go the next day. But it’s short enough. It creates that sense of urgency to try and help drive me.

Yeah, I think you’re right. Regarding, I think immediately some people just can’t do it that day, but within two or three days, that sense of urgency still remains that I can make a mental plan that I need to go redeem this coupon. Um, yeah, like a lot of the things that you said, you mentioned making it creative. I think that’s a great thing to do. I’m making sure that it stands out above the rest so that you will remember it. Um, the expiration day, two or three days out, and then the word free, that’s a buzz. Generally speaking, we have, there’s a variety of companies that they use us and, and, and generally speaking, if you can get the word free in there, you’re going to increase your redemption rate when you send out a message. And so make sure to do that and get that perceived value up as high as you can. Um, yeah, that’s, that. Those are definitely a great things. Um, just wanna ask you, you know, We’ve seen a lot of messages go through any. Is there any mistakes that people are making too often or anything that we shouldn’t be doing that is happening just too often right now?

Unfortunately there are now we try and help coach clients through as they call in and we’ll assist them in the wording of the message and making sure it’s actually a relevant campaign. Whereas I worked with a lot of clients and I’ve actually told them, you know, I honestly think that you could do better if you were to change this and we have a whole account pro staff that’s, that’s designed and we’ve trained to help you optimize your message and optimize the redemption rate. Um, but, uh, we also have the ability for business owners to send out the promotions on their own or the campaigns on their own. And so in doing that, I’ve seen everything, uh, even with ones that we’ve assisted with, um, I mean we’re not perfect by any means, but uh, if there’s no promotion that’s attached to it, if they just send out kind of an informational thing, but that’s good in your, what you mentioned earlier, if you’re closed, if, if there’s weather and you’re not able to be open that day because I mean, I went yesterday to a store and it wasn’t till I got to the store that there was a sign on the door that said, hey, we’re close today. And so nothing’s more frustrating than you going all that distance to find out that they’re closed. Um, but when you’re sending out a promotion, it’s not relevant. Um, or taking a step backwards if, if you’re not sending out any kind of promotion but you’re just sending out a message that doesn’t have any kind of promotion or any information on behind it, those are things that aren’t as effective when the promotion doesn’t necessarily apply to me or it doesn’t have any perceived value. Now, every time you send out a campaign, you’re not going to always have something that will apply to everybody, but at the same time, you don’t want to send out repeated campaigns that don’t apply. Um, we have the ability within our system that you can actually segregate your database separate so that you’re only sending out to relative a contacts or ones that apply, that certain filters applied to it or that that would be relevant to. So we do have that ability to filter those out. But really making sure that it’s something that it applies to them. Um, it doesn’t require a lot on their part. Uh, there was a campaign a few months ago that was sent out by a client, uh, in December time, ugly sweater. I mean, that’s a huge popular thing, but when you require a customer to go and actually do a particular action, um, to be able to get a promotion, it’s really gonna be the perceived value that will drive that. A lot of clients don’t want to, or a lot of customers don’t want to do something to be able to receive the promotion age, want to show up and get it

Unless it’s super easy like a Hi-five, but anyone could do it. But yeah, if you’re requiring people to go home, change, get into an ugly sweater and come in, you’d better have a really good reward at the end of that. I mean, I know Chick-fil-A gets away with it with their dressed as a cow and then come and get a free entrée that’s really good value. And people are dressed as cows everywhere and that kind of vitality goes out there. But not every brand can demand that. And so be sensitive to what brand, what kind of brand you are and if it’s going to have an effect. Um, but yeah, it’s gotta be a good value if you can make people do something.

Exactly. It’s a perceived value, I mean, they’re getting a free sandwich when they do that on that particular day, whereas if you’re just offering something, you know, whether it’s 10 percent off, if you do this, um, it’s the perceived value that really makes a huge difference. And so as you look at that and as you send out these campaigns, make sure it’s a campaign that’s gonna that you would actually want to go into that business or your business in that it’s gonna drive you to want to go in. There is really the big question that I drive business owners to ask themself is, would this drive you to go into your store if you weren’t the owner?

I’ve seen obviously for a yogurt shop, a five percent off promotion, and I just had to laugh. I said knowing that final budget was five or so, not a car, great, but if it’s five percent off, something a small value that’s not going to drive the needle for me. And so make sure that that value’s there, but like make sure you’re also calculating your on ROI and not making it too aggressive. That find that perfect line in between what’s too aggressive and what’s going to drive the needle in and make sure that you’re getting that investment back from sending of that campaign. But one thing I know our audience would be really interested in is your, I know your team looks at studies, different case studies and to find out what’s working, what’s not. Is there any particular ones that come to mind that you would be beneficial for our audience?

Great question. I’m really, as I mentioned before, with the having these different elements that make this successful campaign, the sense of urgency, the incentive or the promotion, your business name so they know where to go. I’m limited to a two or three day promotion. If you want to go longer, you can, you can do longer. I mean, we’ll help you do whatever you’re looking at doing. Um, I would recommend sending out a follow-up campaign. We’ve seen a lot of success if we do like a two week promotion, maybe a week before it ends. Anyone that hasn’t redeemed it say don’t forget, or even a day before it ends. Don’t forget, uh, you know, a dollar or $3 off, whatever the promotion is, a expires tomorrow. Be sure to come in it

just to, to, to go off of that. Some, some industries, it’s hard to get away with that two or three day expiration because haircuts, for example, uh, I have to be in the right cycle to get my hair cut and so longer. Redemption might make a little bit more sense of the setting. That reminder somewhere between when I got it in at the end, creates that urgency again and still get the value out of it.

Oil changes, same type of thing. You’re not always going to go in at a certain time. So sending out that reminder message, huge success in that. I’m honestly, we’ve seen a huge success in sending out our automated drip campaigns, right? Right. Not necessarily right after we have a few clients that like to send them right afterwards, they see a huge success in meaning you leave the business, they sent out a promotion, hey, how was your race today? Or, hey, how is this event? How did you do? Um, we’d love to see about, come back this week and we’ll give you a $10 off when you $5 off, but even just a promotion just the week after. Um, we, we saw when I was looking through some different statistics, I was able to see the highest redemption rate actually happening seven days after the promotion went out. Not Promotional now, but seven days after they initially visited the store, they were able to drive customers back in.

All right? So if you’re going to do a bounce back promotion, they’ll probably mean make it at least seven days in that instance because that’s something coming. Is that what you’re saying?

Not necessarily make it seven days, but reach out to them within that seven. OK. Whether it’s the day after or just within that seven days, it’s a lot easier to drive a customer back into your store when they’ve already been there and they understand your product and what it is.

Especially if they had a good experience that time, they’ll remember that and they’ll be top of mind awareness is what we always talk about marketing and that will get them right back thinking that needs. It was awesome and we can get one. Let me go this week.

Absolutely. Even sending out some kind of referral campaign, trying to drive them in once they had the experience of your business, have them refer their friends and try and leave a review on social media, whatever it might be, but have them do that right after they’ve been into your business because they remember how it is and they remember the service. They remember how much fun had and you’re going to be able to drive them back in and, and get them to offer those different things a lot.

Yeah, because we do a lot of review campaigns where we’re getting people in to review one on different networks, Facebook, Google, et cetera. Um, yeah. That, that’s, that’s a campaign that you want to create that relevancy. You want to do it right after the visit and you just do it some random time and it’s not gonna be as effective. So yeah, we didn’t even get into those type of campaigns really today, but mainly the promotion side of it all. But uh, yeah, a lot of great campaigns out there and uh, it’s, it’s been great. Is there, is there any other things that you wanted to mention today before wrapping it up?

You know, honestly, I know we’ve talked about a lot of different things. Uh, really the most important thing is that you’re reaching out to your consumers. I mean there’s so many different businesses, whether you’re just collecting business cards because you have every intention to reaching out to them or you’re even utilize in our CityGro kiosks to be able to capture a information, but if you’re not reaching out to them, you can’t drive the customers back. So the most important thing I would say is reach out to your customers, communicate with them. And then outside of that, when you do send out campaigns, test it out, you’re not going to have the most successful campaign necessarily the first time you send one. So send one, try it out, see what kind of redemption rate you’d get a talk to our customer success team here. We’re happy to help you. And then send out another one, you know, a week or two weeks later, just see what works for your business and your demographics. And by all means, just reach out and communicate with your customers.

Yeah. Last thing to go off, what you just said is, is talk to our customer success team. They’re willing to help. We have people dedicated to world towards helping people, um, come up with different promotions, are not experts in the field sometimes. And so we want to be the expert for you. Feel free to give us a call and happy to help schedule anything, or even if you’re not a customer of ours, we just want some advice, feel free to call. Um, we’d love to talk and we love talking about campaigns. So thanks for joining us and we’ll see next week. Take care. Take care.