Today Show MSNBC Features Loyalty

If your business does not have Loyal Patron or Bowling Rewards, then find a company to get your business into the 21st century, the evidence is so overwhelming, it should be the easiest business decision you will ever make.  We have independent reports to help you shop as we feel the closer you investigate the better we look.   You need a firm with outstanding marketing expertise as well as IT solutions and knows how to fit the two together.  Small business and general retail is decades behind the game and just waiting for someone to show them how to utilize these tools in a very powerful way.

Industry Alert – Papa Johns

Here is something you rarely see from retailers yet it’s a huge revenue generator.  Papa Johns ended up giving away 3 million pizzas when the U.S. called HEADS.  The promotion has made Papa John’s millions of dollars in sponsorships, added business, new sales and much more so it’s good to see at least one pizza franchise wearing a marketing hat.  The other 3 major chains which are in order

1. Pizza Hut
2. Dominoes
3. Little Caesars

Don’t even have a rewards program in place even though Papa Johns at number 4 launched Papa Rewards and is reaping huge profits with just a mediocre program design at best!  You do see some highlights of this with Taco Bell offering special Taco deals when certain teams score X number of runs and a few others.  But restaurants, bowling centers, golf courses, and most of general retail fail to take advantage of these promotions and yet it’s very easy to launch with our solutions.  We even have custom templates set up to launch these ideas and track their ROI. Here are just a few of many ideas to lift revenue and engagement.  Let’s use a restaurant and bowling center located in Denver, Colorado as an example.

In the U.S. we not only have a huge IT gap inside of offline retail, we also have a huge marketing and innovation problem.  Hard to say why this is the case but more than likely it’s from executives who have risen to positions where they don’t belong.  I can’t tell you how many V.P.’s of Marketing I run into who are in way over their head or simply desire to protect their salary and wait until they are promoted to another position where their inadequacies can be covered inside a bureaucratic layer where nothing can get done.  This is all good news for you, and it’s why the opportunity to represent loyalty solutions has never been better.  Here are a few ideas, you can come up with 2700 more in a few minutes.

1. Sign up for $10.00 per year to the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Rockies Community Rewards Contest
2. If the Nuggets score more than 100 points in a game, get 100% cash back rewards on your next visit (as long as it’s before the next game)
3. Choose any Denver Nuggets player and whatever they score, we will add that in value to any gift card load or purchase.  For example, if player X scores 22 points.  You will receive a 22% BONUS on any gift card load or purchase.  Purchase a $100 gift card and receive $22.00 bonus!
4. Choose the coin toss for tonight’s game and win a free pizza with any purchase before the next game.   Bring in any guest and we will double the fundraising percentage for your school, church or local group.
5. In other words, there should be sports promotions and contests going on EVERY DAY a restaurant, bowling center, or golf course is open.  I have been to 3000 bowling centers and thousands of more different restaurants and golf courses, yet very rarely see anything like this taking place.








February 25, 2012 | Filed Under Piglet Press Pass | Leave a Comment 

Discounting Math Breakdown

Here is a good review and math breakdown for you to analyze.  Remember when reading this that less than 1 out of 250 restaurants offer cash back rewards with instant redemption.

Warning:  The math below may make you very angry as well as very excited.  Both emotions will probably occur so get ready with a pencil and paper and let me know how your figures look.

Jims Pizza Typical Customer

1. Steve normally visits Jims Pizza 5 times per year, spends about $20.00 per visit or $100.00 per year at Jims.
2. B. Jims offers a coupon which gives Steve 20% off his purchase.  Steve waits for these coupons since he knows Jims sends them through Val-Pac.  Jim spends $200 per month in coupon distribution so it’s hard to say (exactly) what Jims actual costs are per customer for coupon distribution, (the average cost is $3.00 – $5.00 per month per customer since 50-75 people each month come in with the coupon).
3. Jim receives a gross profit from Steve of $80.00 ($100.00 – 20% coupon savings) Using a 30% food cost, Jim spends $30.00 in food costs to serve Steve, so Jims profit on Steve has been reduced to $50.00.  If the average coupon distribution cost per customer applies, Jim spends another $20.00 – $50.00 per year on Steve just to get him to come in and use his coupon.  More than likely, Jim is probably not making any money on Steve even though he serves him 5 times per year.  Now you see why many small business owners are going bankrupt and why they say they can’t afford to give rewards, but they have the math backwards.
4. Jim changes his strategy to a nice amount of 20% cash back rewards.  Here is the breakdown
   1. Jim receives $100.00 from Steve with 20% cash back rewards.  Using 30% food cost on the redemption of $20.00 in rewards, Jims costs have been reduced to $37.00 for the year ( 30% of $20.00 in rewards for food + $30.00 in cost for the original $100.00 spent for the year.)  Remember, 92% of traditional advertising simply reminds existing customers to return.
   2. There are no coupon distribution costs or discounting costs.  In order to get Steve to come back a little more often, Jim offered Steve DOUBLE CASH BACK REWARDS or a whopping 40% reward if he came back within 72 hours of his previous visit. It worked, Steve came back THREE MORE TIMES IN A YEAR in order to earn his double cash back rewards.  This incentive is easily tracked since we can see on our reconciliation report the three extra visits with the increased rewards.
   3. Steve increases his spending (since the more he spends on this 40% visit, the more rewards he earns for later visits)  Instead of spending $20.00 as he usually does, he increases his spending to $30.00.
   4. These three extra visits (at double cash back) cause gross spending of $90.00 with 40% in rewards or an additional $36.00 in rewards issued.  Food costs on $90.00 for three visits is $30.00 and food costs on $36.00 in rewards redemptions is $12.00.  Total cost for these extra 3 visits is $42.00 for $90.00 received or a gross profit of $48.00.

SUMMARY OF PROFIT COMPARISON

1. Using a 20% discount coupon, Jim is making somewhere between 0 and $30.00 per year on Steve.  If Jim were to have a Groupon offer or a deeper discount, he would definitely be losing money on Steve every year.  This is why most business owners knee jerk with the cost of rewards, they have the math backwards.
2. With 20% rewards being issued instead and a DOUBLE REWARDS INCENTIVE of 40% to increase frequency.  Jims is now making $63.00 on the first $100.00 + $48.00 on the extra three visits per year for a gross margin of $111.00.
3. With just 1000 customers similar to Steve, Jims has now increased their gross profit by well over $100,000 per year.  The figures used on Steve are actually conservative and can be increased much more with an effective cause marketing strategy, additional promotions, contests, sponsorships and much more.
4. In addition, Jim now has a working and active database of several thousand customers which has an equity value of over $38.00 per name (and you can see why.)  Instead of renting his advertising at extremely high prices, he now owns his own database.  Just as with home ownership, this is real equity in the business if it’s ever sold later on.
5. Jim has increased his tax deductions on Steve since all rewards redeemed are expensed as advertising.  We will not even count the tax savings in increased revenue, but it can be substantial.
6. There are many other advantages Jims is now enjoying which we will not go over here but they are numerous!

February 22, 2012 | Filed Under Piglet Press Pass | Leave a Comment 

The poison of discounting


Discounting Highlights:

1. 100% loss of money business agrees to accept in return for goods or services
2. Additional expenses in letting customers know they are willing to lose money and lower prices.
3. Customers are trained to look for lower prices and learn that full price is really not worth the value.
4. No tax deductions for lowering prices, business agrees to take all losses of lower pricing upon themselves.
5. Customer service issues due to lost coupons or others receiving better prices, forgetting of offers, etc.
6. Very difficult to track, no database building, ongoing expenses, other accounting problems and/or costs.

Cash Back Rewards Highlights

1. Business owner puts full price in their register but delivers the same feeling of a discount so no value or hard profits are lost.  As a matter of fact, value is increased which we will illustrate later.
2. No additional expense in letting customers know about a lower price, there is no lower price, no distribution costs, no advertising expense or anything similar to the cost of discounting.
3. Customers are not trained to look for lower prices, they receive cash back rewards to save or use on their next visit.  Instead of feeling like the product has been cheapened, customers now feel they are being valued and appreciated.  Savings are convenient, automated, simple and effective.  Quite the turn around.
4. When the reward is redeemed, a full tax deduction is realized as an advertising expense.  In addition, the reward is not a real money loss as a discount, it’s money that can only be spent on product which has a 50% – 70% profit margin.  Frequency is often increased even when the rewards are not redeemed.
5. No customer service issues, everyone receives the same offers, value, and outstanding customer service since the program is tied to a complete loyalty solution.
6. Easy to track, completely integrated database building is supplied for relevant communication and thank you notes.  No ongoing expenses to deliver messages, complete real time reporting, accounting and much more.

Conclusion: Mr. Business owner can you imagine in your wildest dreams that most of us have AGREED to lose money, anger our customers, paid high distribution costs, failed to build our database and ignored our customers’ requests for no legitimate reason?  We have literally been seduced by traditional media and brainwashed to believe their lie in order to fund their advertising and communication empire?  Is it any wonder we are finally seeing traditional media go bankrupt?

Sound amazing?   Now we know why so many small businesses have failed, but they don’t need to.  Technology has allowed us to realize better solutions but we must put them into place.  We can now deliver real value and relevance to our customers and listen to their requests and the results will be outstanding.

Sound like rocket science?


February 22, 2012 | Filed Under Piglet Press Pass | Leave a Comment 

Bowling and Golf Marketing

Notice the sponsorship benefits working with a local Country Club or Golf Course or an equipment supplier such as Nike.  These are very easy to set up, there is really no account set up necessary (by the course or Nike), just a few minutes to set up a business synergy strategy with a local restaurant.  As reported earlier from Napa, CA at Bowl Expo from an Apple executive, 10s of millions of dollars are looking to be directed towards bowling and golf in ways just like you see here.  Remember, executives are not looking for ‘traditional branding’ they are looking to tap the emotions with the new metric ROE (Return on Engagement.)  This requires high level expertise and a powerful loyalty solution to accomplish and track.  This is how you combine the need and power of sports marketing into general retail and beyond.  We have many other ideas which sponsors are looking to implement we will share with you during training.



 

February 22, 2012 | Filed Under Piglet Press Pass | Leave a Comment 

Rewards Wheel of Fortune

Wheels are a great way to enhance memberships and increase purchases at full price! As soon as a customer joins the business, they win a free spin right away and value is loaded on their card. Just one spin is worth joining a business (for $10.00 or $20.00 per year) but allowing members to earn free spins based on spending, selected purchases, promotional nights and more will get customers engaged and happy to pay full price just for a chance to win! Combine these wheel promotions with a complete loyalty suite for tracking and businesses have something quick and easy that’s guaranteed to lift revenue, build their database and protect price points

Wheels can be set up for restaurants, bars, theatres, golf courses, just about any business model. Read some of the ideas below to drive spending to certain brands or just plain spending in the first place. A simple announcement to spend $10.00 in the lounge, $20.00 in the restaurant, purchase a Pepsi or Captain Morgan will cause all kinds of increase purchases at full price just to get a chance to win.



February 18, 2012 | Filed Under Piglet Press Pass | Leave a Comment 

6000 Stores Terrible Marketing








Another huge firm making millions of dollars in mistakes. Coupons, mailed certificates, discounts, exclusions, poor gift card strategies, and this just names a few. We see this every day from the biggest firms in the world, they have no clue how to structure a loyalty program. We have solutions, expertise, and capabilities that very few firms in the world know how to employ effectively and will show you how to represent them. Here you go

Crabtree & Evelyn launches loyalty scheme

Wednesday February 15, 2012

Through a partnership with marketing solutions firm 89 Degrees, the US-based bath, body and homecare retailer Crabtree & Evelyn has launched a new loyalty rewards programme called ‘Platinum Rewards’ to offer its customers both money back and perks for their loyalty to the brand.

The new programme replaces the earlier ‘Crabtree & Evelyn Platinum Membership Programme’ and the ‘Crabtree & Evelyn Preferred Customer Programme’, which were terminated on 31st December 2011. Following its official launch in December 2011, the Platinum Rewards programme provides loyal Crabtree & Evelyn customers with a range of special savings and exclusive offers, such as:

• Instant free membership, both in-store and online;
• A US$5 reward certificate for quarterly purchases of US$25 – US$44.99;
• A US$10 reward certificate for quarterly purchases of US$45 or more;
• A 15% discount to use during each member’s birthday month;
• Free subscription to Crabtree & Evelyn’s ‘Email Exclusives’ newsletter;
• Access to various members-only events, discounts and promotions.

Customers can sign up for the new programme via the company’s web site, or at participating company-operated stores (but not at other licensed stores or boutiques). Membership is free of charge, and only members who sign up in-store receive a plastic loyalty card (but not those who sign up online). No purchase is necessary to sign up, but a valid email address is required to sign up for and retain membership, and the programme is available only to US residents. sschroed1 This article is copyright 2012 TheWiseMarketer.com).

By joining the programme, members are automatically subscribed to Crabtree & Evelyn’s ‘Email Exclusives’ and will receive promotional emails on a regular basis, although they can opt out at any time after signing up. A personalised ‘Birthday Bonus’ email offer is also sent during each member’s birth month (if they have provided their date of birth during sign-up).

The member’s quarterly purchase total for earning rewards certificates is calculated based on their final merchandise prices after discounts, offers, promotions and coupons are applied. Charges for gift wrap, packaging, taxes, shipping and handling do not count toward quarterly purchases.

When members redeem their Reward Certificates, savings apply only to Crabtree & Evelyn branded products, and exclude gift cards, gift wrap, shipping and handling, taxes, sale items, apparel and accessories. Program rewards, discounts and other benefits are valid only at participating Crabtree & Evelyn stores, and through the company’s own website. Rewards and discounts can’t be combined with other offers, unless the other offer specifically states otherwise.

89 Degrees was appointed by Crabtree & Evelyn to launch and maintain the Platinum Rewards programme, and to use advanced analytics to help drive better results for the retailer’s data-intensive marketing strategy. The company was involved in both the creation of the programme’s structure, and helped to define the benefits and business processed needed to support Platinum Rewards, including the provision of database marketing, member communications, and providing programme benefits via email.

Crabtree & Evelyn has specialised in producing botanical formulations for over 35 years, creating luxury bath, body, and home care products. The company has retail outlets in 40 countries, with over 6,000 locations and 500 concept stores worldwide.

For additional information:
· Visit Crabtree & Evelyn at http://www.crabtree-evelyn.com
· Visit 89 Degrees at http://www.89degrees.com

 



February 16, 2012 | Filed Under Piglet Press Pass | Leave a Comment 

Industry Alert – Customer Loyalty Updates – Papa Johns

MESSAGE FROM THE EDITOR Read the phrase below (inside the Papa Press Release) and weep, Papa Johns is the ONLY national pizza chain with a system wide rewards program and it’s making them millions of dollars and it’s not that well designed. They even have Pepsi as a sponsor and my wife thinks someone at Papa Johns is reading my ideas and copying them! Maybe so, but other national chains are sitting by losing millions. We can do so much better. We have started conversations with Little Caesars in Michigan which is actually the third biggest pizza chain ahead of Papa John’s but behind Pizza Hut and Dominos. Little Caesars uses VeriFone credit card machines and currently has a punch card rewards program in place, so you can see just how wide open the market is and what’s at stake. This is big boy stuff and they normally pay millions of dollars to people who come up with these concepts let alone have the solutions in place to make them a reality. We could do so much more than what you read about below for any national chain. We can synergize and combine media, we can even use Siri on the Iphone 4s to remind users where rewards might be used, we can synergize sponsorships from major brands like Pepsi (below) or even banks such as BofA. We can do this with a local twist and drive local business, local fundraising, small business benefits and big time promotions for individual locations and put them on equal footing with the largest brands in the world. The time to move is now. Papa John’s to Give Free Pizza to Papa Rewards Members If Fans Correctly “Call” Super Bowl XLVI Coin Toss Papa John’s, the Official Pizza Sponsor of the NFL, has unveiled its Super Bowl XLVI Coin Toss Experience, which includes a free large one-topping pizza and 2-liter Pepsi MAX for the millions of fans enrolled in Papa John’s Papa Rewards program—if America correctly “calls” the Super Bowl coin toss. No matter which team wins the Super Bowl, Papa John’s fans have skin in the game. “Papa” John Schnatter, who started Papa John’s in 1984 out of the back of his father’s tavern in Jeffersonville, Ind., has recruited Super Bowl champions Peyton Manning and Jerome “The Bus” Bettis to help spread the word and “coach” America on the coin toss vote. Bringing this powerful threesome together is the crescendo of Papa John’s NFL season long marketing strategy that has surprised and delighted millions of Papa John’s customers. Papa John’s, the only national pizza chain with a system-wide rewards program, will continue this blitz the next two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl XLVI coin toss. America will make its “heads” or “tails” call for the Super Bowl XLVI coin toss by voting at www.papajohns.com today through Feb. 1. Schnatter will announce the result of America’s vote Feb. 2 on the NFL Network in Indianapolis and via social media and at www.papajohns.com If America’s call is correct, everyone enrolled in Papa Rewards as of 6 p.m. ET Super Bowl Sunday will receive an email the following day with instructions on how to claim their pizza and Pepsi MAX prize. Source: Papa John’s International, Inc. ABOUT AMERICARDGOLD AmeriCardGold Stored Value Networks, LLC is a gift and loyalty card vendor that processes millions of transactions annually across the US, Canada and the UK. AmeriCardGold is the industry leader in private label loyalty solutions and an innovation leader in cause marketing, coalition marketing, and other stored value applications and strategies inside the loyalty industry.

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Bowling Rewards 1933 Welington Drive Langhorne PA 19047 800-978-1338

February 3, 2012 | Filed Under Piglet Press Pass | Leave a Comment