Even though it's a few days past the holidays, I'm still in a giving mood. Here's a free idea for anyone in the retail business that prints out receipts. (In other words, almost all of them.)
SendLabs co-owner Brett and I were at breakfast last year and talking email marketing ideas and concepts. We agreed that any business could use email marketing, but challenged ourselves with concepting how a diner like the one we were sitting in could effectively collect emails. We came up with this:
- On every receipt, have a few extra lines of text and a prompt to enter in your email address right below the signature line for the credit card. (For cash consumers, this would be on the regular receipt as well to get everyone.)
- Ask people to give their email address to immediately recieve an emailed coupon good toward their next visit. It could be $10 off or a BOGO offer, but it's got to be something to entice them to come back to that restaurant and not another. If you wanted to take it a step further, have them include a zip code for some further demographic info. For example, if your restaurant is in Boston, perhaps do a Cambridge night where those people with proof of a Cambridge address get a free appetizer.
- Then, follow up using the best practices myself and others preach every day. (Also, the staff has to know what's going on and be able to 'sell' it in a matter of a couple sentences. Often, those prompting consumers to sign up often sound like they're pleading for an email and don't give any good reasons why you should sign up.)
Why do I think this would work?
- If you're saying "I don't have a restaurant," it doesn't matter. Insert your business into above and slightly manipulate the details to make it work. Unless you're running a straight cash register, most major retailers and restaurants have some sort of database system built into their checkout registers. (More on this in a few lines.)
- People are already in the habit of signing their name, so asking them to include an email will take an additional five-seven seconds. You're getting them at the final point of contact before they walk out the door, possibly forever. Treat them well and you could have a consumer for life. Is that potential value worth not asking them?
- There's an immediate reward involved - the coupon - that could be deployed and received by the time they get back home or to work. If they have a smart phone, they might even get the coupon before they leave the parking lot.
- If the place of business is a reputable one and inspires some sort of trust and reward, why wouldn't they sign up? Identify obstacles and work around them.
As far as I know, this would take a software upgrade and some engineering to do with those fancy systems but I can't imagine it would be too massive of an upgrade. Basically, you need a system that prompts for an email inclusion upon closing out the receipt upon which it immediately sends out the pre-selected template to that email.
Come on now. Why isn't anyone doing this or pushing the envelope for doing this?
Josh Nason handles account management and support for SendLabs, a leading email marketing software and services provider.