Tag: advertising

Leveraging Customer Touchpoints to Increase Sales

What is a Touchpoint?

A touchpoint is a point of contact between a customer and your product, service, or brand. Whether before, during, or after an actual sale has taken place, any interaction a customer has with your business is considered a touchpoint and potential for your business to increase their customer’s perception of your brand. Touchpoints span the whole value chain, but dealing specifically with the franchise industry and the major customer touchpoints franchises have to manage in relation to customers, there are five: direct mail marketing, in-store advertising, point-of-sale advertising, social media marketing, and mobile initiatives.

Direct Mail Marketing

Direct mail is one of the most heavily used forms of advertisement with multiple coupons for different brands hitting mail boxes every day. The direct marketing association pegs the response rate at “Letter-sized envelopes, for instance, had a response rate this year of 3.42 percent for a house list and 1.38 percent for a prospect list.” This shotgun approach has been a consistent marketer’s tool , but with the low response rate, and even lower conversion rate, marketer’s are seeking other channels and touchpoints to reach customers. Continue reading Leveraging Customer Touchpoints to Increase Sales

Supercharge Your Loyalty Program

Loyalty programs are nothing new, from simple punch cards to sliding magnetic stripe cards, most loyalty programs involve some kind of physical card you carry around all the time. Customer loyalty is a major component of any business especially when considering the fact that it costs 5 times more to acquire a new customer than it is to retain a current one.

Traditional Loyalty Program Benefits

For years, loyalty programs have been a proven way to increase repeat customers, increase customer spend, and ultimately increase sales. Businesses have seen consistent returns and continue to pursue some form of customer retention or loyalty initiative. Customers enrolled in loyalty programs become more engaged and build a stronger relationship with businesses that reward them for their loyalty, as they feel the business is giving back to them resulting in an increased perceived value from the customer. Traditional examples of loyalty program setups include “Buy 10, Get 1 FREE” and “Spend $50 and get $5 back.” These linear, standard, and non-dynamic rewards are a very simplistic and basic program. With today’s technology, businesses should look at rewards programs differently, and be more proactive vs. passive to leverage the power of their programs. Continue reading Supercharge Your Loyalty Program

The Modern Barcode: Integrating The Physical And Online Worlds

QR codes, or “Quick Response” codes as the abbreviation stands for, are becoming more prevalent in American life every day. They can be found on store windows, on the side of buses, at cash registers, and even in bathrooms. What are these things, and where are they all coming from is the question that runs through many of our minds. For the vast majority of Americans, QR codes, pioneered by technology leaders such as Adobe, are still new. But quick education and mass adoption seem to be under way.

QR Code Origins

QR codes were originally developed in Japan in 1994 by a Toyota subsidiary primarily used for tracking parts of manufacturers. Ever since then, southeast Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea have been quick to adopt QR codes into everyday life. These special barcodes scan very fast and have the ability to display text, compose an email, link to a URL, or take a specific action if scanned within a particular application. The majority of mobile phones in Japan and South Korea have built-in QR code readers which almost instantaneously decipher and generate the link or action designed to take place. Continue reading The Modern Barcode: Integrating The Physical And Online Worlds