A very good morning to you all. As I write this, England are enjoying the euphoria of not being knocked out of the World Cup at the group stages. It's an odd mentality isn't it? We don't so much celebrate winning as we celebrate not losing. Still, it's nice to see so many people in a good mood, so let's see if we can keep it up.
This week I want to talk to you about voucher codes. Now there are a number of sites out there that will offer you discounts on restaurants, high street retail stores, attractions and all sorts of things. All you need to do is know where to find them, print them out and WHAM - money saved.
Shelly (that's my wife for all you new readers out there, and as much as I'd like her to read this blog, she rarely does) asked me what the point was in these vouchers. Why would anyone want to just give discounts to anyone who asks? It's fairly obvious though - these vouchers are an enticement. As a shopper you may well be saving 20-30%, but without the voucher you may well not have shopped there at all, so everybody wins - especially the retailer who has created a new customer.
Indeed, these people are buying your business, and the fact is that the system is working. I don't even think about shopping without checking the voucher sites first these days. But is there more to the story? Of course there is.
Let's say you're exhibiting at your first ever trade show and you've decided to have some promotional gifts on your stand. If you printed some kind of voucher code on the merchandise, then you would have a way to measure just where your customers are coming from.
Think about it - when you ask customers how they heard of you (waddya mean you don't ask - you really should) then a lot of them will simply say they Googled you. They're not lying to you, it's just that the correct answer is not all that important to them and they won't have remembered.
How much more powerful is this though? "Hello, I was at your stand at the recent ABC Exhibition and I have a voucher here - the code is WVXYG - is the offer still valid?"
Fantastic! You see if you give out, lets say, 1000 gifts and you get 150 calls like this, then you know that your merchandise is giving you a 15% return which is pretty great. You've tested it, you've measured it, and given the success ratio, there's a strong chance that you will repeat it, perhaps with even greater numbers next time.
Remember - a gift, in and of itself, really won't do that much for your business. Applied correctly, it could be a serious turning point for you.
Have a great week in business.
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