Whenever I talk of loyalty marketing, I almost first hear the public is overwhelmed by the major loyalty programs! If so, why does nearly everyone else do it? Can they not count? For example, I went to a small car parts shop today and was told of their loyalty program. The same happened when I went to a homeware shop. The homeware shop was in a big shopping centre. You might think they do not need a loyalty program as the major loyalty program brings customers in the centre, but they were keen to sign me up too. They even offered a $10 discount to sign up on my first buy.

Loyalty marketing works. That is why retailers use it.

The most successful technique in loyalty marketing is *Birthday Marketing*.

It is so simple to do with our loyalty program. Put in the customer's birthday when entering them into the loyalty program. Although it is much better to use their actual birthday if they do not tell you, make it an anniversary date with their joining date. You can always correct it later if they point it out. Do not worry if it's the wrong date. It will work almost as well anyway. Once done, they enrol on your customer's birthday program. This will allow them to receive special offers and discounts on your products and services on their birthday.

Several years ago, when we did a calculation, we saw about 25% success with our clients in our clients. Here are some figures from  Experian which show a higher figure.

) People buy on birthdays

) Birthdays are all year round

To do Birthday marketing, you must send a simple 'Happy Birthday' message. It will be appreciated and read. Almost everybody reads these emails. To start, here is a simple email to send, which I am sure you can improve to your needs with little effort.

Happy Birthday Email

Happy birthday, <name of customer>

Thank you for being with us. We want to make your birthday as memorable as possible. To celebrate, we're are <something>.

We appreciate everything you do for us and hope you have a wonderful day and year!

Wishing you all the best,

The friendly crew at <your shop>

Set up here.

A few people queried me about my recent post. Well here  are some facts from the Roy Morgan research released yesterday on the End of Financial Year (EOFY) for the Australian Retailers Association.

This is the most significant marketing season in the Australian Retail calendar, except for Christmas. For example, Mother's day sales generate about $750 million, while EOFY sales are $8.8 billion, eleven times more.

If the End of the financial year (EOFY) sales do work, why not make one too?

Consider this

1) Those tax refunds are soon coming, and many will want to buy.

2) Many accountants will tell their clients to buy; otherwise, they will pay tax on the money. Why not benefit from the approaching tax time?

3) People are being targeted to buy by advertisers. They are pumped up now to buy, and they will.

4) Many will buy now as they want to take advantage of the government's Instant Asset Write-off.

Customer-focused thinking, attractive display windows, some signs, and lifestyle merchandising are four good ways to boost your End-of-year sales.

What can be sold, just about anything? People now want old and new stock. 

Do something or be left behind.

The countdown to the end of the financial year (EOFY) is on. Now is the time to prepare for your EOFY sale. Ok, there's nothing at all original about this idea. You can look at any large retailer. These people have heaps of experience in this matter. They do it, and if it works for them, why not you?

EOFY is an extraordinary method to move goods. Many people are looking to buy now before the financial year closes to claim in this financial year.

Consider what an EOFY sale can offer your business.

So make a marketing plan for the next few weeks. It really does not need much organising. It would be best to think of some publicising, which often does not need to be more than a few decent signs. Now look around your shop for some loss leaders to fuel the sale. If you do not know where to begin, do this; it will give a few ideas to consider in seconds.

Go to register reports > stock titled "Old Stock on hand by Date last received"

This will gives you a listing of your stock based on when you received it. Unfortunately, this stock is rarely doing much good, and it costs you to hold it.

Here are a few thoughts for you to prepare for your EOFY deal.

1) What about making some of this into a bundle by putting some of these with something that does sell.

2) Make a bargain bin.

3) Collect some business products together

Now put them out and put a sign marking them in your shop.

Let me know how it goes. I doubt you will be sorry if you try, but I am sure you will be sorry if you do not try it!

Ok, so I’m going to be straight to the point with our EOFY offer from POS Solutions. We have excess stock that we too would much prefer to sell than count. If you need some technology, why not stock up while we are keen to move it.

Make and sell hamper packs.

A basket chock-full of goodies is a popular method of moving stock that does not sell well. It is versatile. They can be made to be appropriate for almost every occasion. In our family shop, when I was a kid, we used them a lot to sell. So I am quite experienced in them.

Remember a hamper is a good sale in the shop.

Here are some tips.

) Research hampers that sell near you. Check out the price points, see what they are composed of, see what they look like and how they are put together.

) Now you need a theme.

Consider an individual searching for a hamper in your shop. For example, Mother's Day has recently been. That would have been your theme. What would they want to find in a Mother's Day hamper from your shop? Get imaginative! Check out last year's selling reports for the same time as last year. We have a very good report top-selling report you can use.

) Look through the shop for items you want to move that are not selling well. Select a few that are appropriate. Now you need some articles that do sell. These help move stock that does not sell. Your selling reports can help you here. If there is a community festival, often your suppliers will help with stock to move. They usually have the same problem, too, the desire to move inventory that is moving slow.

You need to select a large item as a visual focal point for your hamper. Now you will need to arrange the smaller things around this big one. Most hampers look like a triangle. The most desirable items have to be seen.

) Value

You need to set a budget. What will your customer spend?

When making your hamper, make sure that if a customer adds up the total items in the hamper pack, it is less than the total price. This is where the slow-moving stock report can help.

) Research indicates that customers want simple rather than complex and if it starts to get too complicated that many people tend not to choose, so giving you a no sale rather than a purchase.

Now with this in mind, consider if you make a hamper or pack name.

In stock pricing, you will find this under hamper packs. See the green arrow.

Naming your hamper or pack is a good idea (see red square) as long as you make the name understandable and straightforward. Say you are in office stationery why make a name like "The flying carpet pack". Besides this name telling your customer nothing and so confusing them with something meaningless, it makes it complicated.

Make it simple with something they can identify with, eg "Secondary Student Plan", "Home Office Plan" or "Kindergarten Pack."

Another idea that works very well is to make a "Starter Pack", "Small Pack", "Medium Pack" and a "Large Economy Pack". 

Hamper packs are a great way to upsell. 

They can be used for anything, lotto, pet foods, magazines, services, etc.

The best and most used selling method in retail - cross-selling. Cross-selling is when someone comes to buy a product, and you sell them that product and something else. The something else is the cross-sell. Often the profit on it is more than the initial product. Strategically, this is a fundamental method in modern retail, and it needs to be done well.

What you need to do, is place a product in a consumer's mind looking for another item to make it work. The more things you can place, the better, but do not go overboard. So what you need is to find out what products that sell well with the items the consumer seeks, which is easy to do with your Point of Sale software.

Let us start.

Go here to the Sales reports "Category Companion Sales by Period."

It will then give you this screen that lets you select your categories.

Now go through your top-selling categories. Check to see what items sell well with these categories. Then make sure that these items are noticeable to the buyers of the categories. This, you will find, is a great way to pick up more sales.

By incorporating this into your management processes, you increase your total sales.

​​Why not add accessibility to your Google Map Listing?

Doing a net search, I found over a million Australians use wheelchairs. About 1.5 million Australians use prams and strollers. Many people have trouble walking (I could not get estimates, but that includes people with walking sticks, etc.).

) Have you ever wondered why there are so many more people with prams and wheelchairs in shopping centres?

) Do you wonder why?

) Do you see why it is important to them?

Ballpark there are at least 3 million Australians now that have accessibility problems, over 15% of shoppers.

Many people now check accessibility in Google business listings when searching for businesses like yours.

Okay, there is a simple fix: tell them that you have wheelchair access in Google. Go to your Google My Business listing and update these options in Attributes.

​

Save and when these people search for you, they will see that you have accessibility for them.

If you want to know more, watch this video here.

Physical stores anticipate making a significant rebound this year for Easter now that COVID is over. Overall, the industry is looking at about an 8% expansion. I expect more as restaurants will be down compared to 2019, so gifts should be up on 2019 figures.

 Based on Google Trends, we can see that public interest is growing. So the interest is there.

Since it is so late, people are looking for convenience. You want to make it quick and straightforward for your customers to find their gifts. Best to make a showcase with your Easter products with signage to lead them to the display.

If you have not done it yet, it is quick and easy to do this with your retail POS system.

Go to Register reports.

Now pick "Top N Stock Sales for a Given Period."

In the form, put in a few days before April 4, 2021, and a few days after. That will give you a list of what sold last year.

Now put in the year before COVID-19 hit, a few days before April 21, 2019, and a few days after. That will give you a list of what sold that year.

This year it will be a mix of these two dates. 

Now, these are the items that worked for you then. They will should work for you again this year.

Easter is an excellent shopping day in retail. Although it has only a short holiday season, sales can be impressive.

I talked to a liquor retailer about their "Click and Collect" service vs. in-store sales. I was stunned when told that customers using their shop online in their basket with Click and Collect spent 38% more than when they were in the store. When I questioned it, as surely the customers would spend less because there are no impulse sales with Click and Collect. They informed me that they were tracking the information through the shop rewards card. People using Click and Collect purchased more than those that came into the shop. Clearly, they are using their customer CRM in their system.

See the importance of customer information here! Any rewards program you have should collect names so you can track these details too.

Click and Collect is attractive to the Australian consumer. 

1) Cost. With Click and Collect, they can get free delivery without paying inflated prices for so-called free delivery.

2) Speed, Click and Collect. They can often pick it up hours as opposed to days for delivery.

3) Convenience. They can drive-in on the way home or at lunch breaks.

4) It is easier for the Australian consumer to carry.

Some pluses for the retailers

1) An employee picks an order eight times faster than a customer.

2) The retailer does not need a checkout.

3) No theft. Customers can't steal if they aren't coming into the shop.

4) The retailer can select items that expire sooner.

Currently, about 10% of Australian retail sales are Click and Collect.

If you have a website, I suggest you introduce this service.

Our system was the first in our market space to offer such a service so why not use it?

Prepare for mother's day as it's coming. This is the third-largest retail event following Christmas and the back-to-school season. So it's worthwhile preparing.

Based on previous years, the retail industry is looking at an increase in overall sales this year with an average spend of about $80.  

For Mother's Day (25%), a considerable percentage of shoppers state that convenience is crucial when picking out a Mother's Day gift. They do not know what you buy, and they want to do it quickly. So make it easy for your shoppers to find their gifts. Consider creating a display such as this that features your Mother's Day merchandise with signage to lead shoppers to this exhibit. You want to make it easy for your customers to grab and go.

If you are unsure of what will work in your shop on Mother's Day or to get some ideas.

Go to Register reports.

Now pick "Top N Stock Sales for a Given Period."

 In the form, put in the week before May 9, 2021, and check it out. That will give you what worked last year.

Now put in the year before COVID-19 hit on May 12, 2019, and see that report. 

This year will be a mix of these two dates. As people expect restaurants and special outings to be down compared to 2019, so flowers and gifts should be up on 2019 figures. 

Now, these are the items that worked for you then. They will probably work for you again this year.

Mother's Day is an excellent shopping day in retail. Although it is a limited-time shopping festival with a short season, it can considerably impact your shop if correctly done.

Ever wonder why many majors hit you first with the dearer item when you come into the shop?

Why in a car yard are the dearest cars in front not the best selling cars?

This is the "anchoring effect." You should consider this for your shop. When hit with a lot of new stuff, it works as people tend to grab the information they get first as the basis for making decisions.

Here is an example of how it works.

Imagine you have three items on sale.

1) $30 item

2) $40 item

3) $50 item

If you see the $30 item first, your immediate thought is that the $40 and $50 things are dearer.

But, if you see the $50 item first, your immediate thought is that the other items are cheaper.

Studies have shown that having the $50 item on display first makes people more likely to buy it, as the $30 and $40 items seem reasonable. Interestingly, sales of $40 increased dramatically. It is claimed that it is worth having the $50 just because of this, even if it does not sell. 

It is something worth thinking about.

Here is a video of how it works in practice and what you should do about it.

This is where you have to be very careful looking at your sales reports.

If your shop needs it, you will find SMS marketing extremely useful. The software is available free in your point of sale software.

Where it's ideal is if you have items that you need to move quickly, like last-minute deals. For example, let's say you sell sandwiches. The sandwiches need to be sold soon or dumped. Another example would be gifts for special occasions when the day is ending.

So what is required is to have a list of phone numbers to send out a last-minute offer. Say after lunch: "All sandwiches are $3 today." Besides sandwiches, you may pick up sales in related sales. If you think about it, the sandwiches here cost you nothing now.

The plus here is that these messages get delivered almost immediately. They also have incredibly high open rates. Another advantage: it is hard for your competitors to match your prices as they do not know about your offer.

The main disadvantage is the cost. If you are sending 100 SMSs, that cost is about $6. In our sandwich example, you need at least two sales to justify the SMS marketing.

If you intend to use this form of marketing, you need to keep the following in mind.

) Keep your messages short. SMS is rarely used for long messages.

) Be ruthless in your VIP marketing to prune your SMS marketing list. Unlike emails, you are paying for each SMS sent.

) Do not use emojis. Many people do not understand them.

) Make sure you put your name on it. We had one client that sent off some SMS without an address. It became clear that the receivers had no idea where to go for the special. Also, you are required to put your details.

Make sure to add an opt-out option, such as a "Reply 'STOP' to opt-out" at the end of the SMS. As I stated, it is very much in your interest to prune out your SMS marketing list. Also, some people do not like these sorts of commercial SMS, and you should respect their views.

) Sometimes, like late at night, you should not send SMS.

) Cost depends on how many SMSs you are willing to buy in advance

Other than that, you will find that SMS campaigns are great for engaging more people to buy in your shop if it's a good fit.

​Nothing has over the years proven to be a more successful marketing campaign for a retail shop than *Birthday Marketing*.

It is so simple to do with our loyalty program. Just put in their birthday when entering a VIP customer. Although it is much better to use their actual birthday if they do not tell you, make it an anniversary date with their joining date. You can always correct it later if they point it out.

Birthday offers typically have about 25% success with our clients. Here are some figures from Experian

) People buy on birthdays

) Birthdays are all year round

To do Birthday marketing, all you need to do is send a simple 'Happy Birthday' message. It will be appreciated and read. Almost everybody reads these emails. Now add some offer - a coupon or free item to encourage them to return to your business.

I'm sure you have seen a Google map like this one when looking for something.​

What it shows on the map are the nearby places for what you are searching for and the top three search choices. Looking at this map, I can see a business selling lotto that is not on this map. It costs them as many people use this to find the place they want to shop.

Why not check if you are on the list?

Now put in a few of your major products and see if you are listed?

If not, then it is costing you too.

What you need to do is

ADD YOUR BUSINESS TO GOOGLE MAPS!

It is free, so why not do it?

Here is the important point on google maps, *David can beat Goliath* as one of the main factors used by Google Maps is location. If you are closest, the odds are good; you will appear and appear first.

Here are some of my tips before your start.

) Give google what they ask, do not be a smartarse like trying to stuff into your name marketing keywords. If Google does not like you, they will put you on the bottom.

) Do not capitalise on your name! Use John Smith not JOHN SMITH

) Do not add trade names use your company name!

) Avoid special characters ^#%&*( unless they are part of your business name.

Now are some step-by-step instructions.

Let me know if you have a problem as I am happy to help; I have a Google Ads Search Certification.

Google Maps Is So Important For Your Business

COVID has boosted the comic and related industry. I was stunned as readers here will know last year with the figures. Yet, current statistics show that the market appears to be still growing. According to the latest benchmarked figures in the US (no one giving me Australian statistics, probably because of my comment last year on their distribution system), comics are up 46% over the previous two years.

DC comics are up 33%. They started on a lower base. Still, they have Batman, and the latest movie is now out almost everyone will check it out.

Marvel Comics 25%, still the best sellers they have now 9 in the top 10 sellers.

Interestingly, I have noticed that comics as the price is around the ball-park, the price is not that important.

Manga unbelievable is 143% up.

The novels are doing well too. They are up 36%.

Anything now with the Superhero market will do well now as people want escapism, and you do not get more escapism than Ghost Rider, Batman, Spider-Man,  Wolverine and Star Wars.

The big problem is that all these types of products are all protected by Copywrite so it is strictly controlled by the majors.

Premium chocolates are a growing industry. Here is a summary report free from Jan 2022 from TechSci Research. They are claiming a growing market for the next few years of about 7.5%. This is plausible, as I have been saying for years. It's been growing at that rate for years, with no sign of slowing down.

So I was pleased that VANA started pushing premium chocolates into their retail shops. I have no idea how good the company they are pushing is, but it does have a 5-star rating online, and their entry-level order is reasonable. They look small which may be a plus as small producers will be something unique but a negative for marketing. Large brands may pay small margins but they do move product.

Since it is in the market space of our software, here are insights, I have seen from some of our clients that are marketing premium chocolates now.

Here is the first one. The biggest issue in this market is that premium chocolates are very seasonal, unlike the regular chocolate market. If you are not in it, you probably don't realise how seasonal-driven it is. The longest season is Christmas, which will give you about six weeks. Easter is also good, but that only gives you about two weeks. Easter can be a pain to plan for as it moves every year. That means most of the year it is a little more than breakeven. Though I will say that Valentine's Day was good but that is only one day.

To be successful here, you need to create some retail theatre. You'll want to change your window displays frequently and keep your range current.

It is not a "set up and forget" type of business, but then again, nothing is "set up and forget."

My first piece of advice would be to go around your local shopping area and check out what others are doing here.

Many retailers use CRM; our clients have a great one for free.

Although I have not seen any of our clients report any significant customer churn. I have checked our CRM, I can find little sign there yet the figures now coming out from other suppliers of CRM are saying that companies have noticed that "customers are leaving at extraordinary rates." We all expected this as the COVID crisis was a prolonged crisis. This was long enough to change the public's habits. With the reopening, people are now coming out. As the old patterns are just memories, we are now looking at something new. We are trying new shops, restaurants, doing new things, etc.

Meeting the danger

This customer relationship emergency needs to be met with a return to nuts and bolts. We need to review our customer relationship. The problem is not that people's needs have changed, but they are now exploring.

I would also suggest you look into your CRM system.

There is a "Great Reassessment" across society.

One big plus of DTI format receipts is that I briefly discussed a few days ago is its ability to email receipts. This is part of its flexibility.

Email receipts have a phenomenal readership.

* Open rates are about 75%.

* People look at email receipts more, about 14.8 seconds, which is 185% higher than what they spend on an average email.

More figures are available here. I am sure if you look at them you will be impressed.

There are many other big pluses. About 70% of people will give you their email address to get a receipt. You have a great excuse to harvest email addresses.

If you are sending them out, it would be best to include: 

* Thank you note

It has to be brief. A one-liner, for example, say, "Thank you for your purchase and your support of local business," 

Social Media

Your address in Facebook for them to checkout with a note, "Check us out on Facebook." 

Promotional content

Consider adding about 30% extra for promotional content for your business. They have brought from you, why not see if they will buy more.

Follow up

What has proven successful is sending these people a follow-up a few days later with a thank you message with a promotion.

Try it.

It is all free; what is stopping you?

What is commonly done is to measure a customer's spending in a loyalty program in a retail shop. Then compare these figures to the average customer.

I am sceptical.

The spend is not profit.

Yet many so-called retail experts quote this as a critical measure of how successful the loyalty program is as they rarely get profit figures. So this is the best they can do.

The other issue is that one supposes that members of your loyalty programs are already spending more in your shop. So, in most cases, they are spending more with you already. The extra problem here is that they do it to gain more rewards in their purchases, so you are often discounting your products to people who are buying them anyway.

If you are running a loyalty/VIP program in your shop, here are some KPIs; I recommend looking into them.

In my experience, even vague figures are better than none.

Budget

A professional marketer will budget a loyalty program's cost at 1% of sales. Sometimes they will take it to 2%, but it is too much to do anything higher without the suppliers' help. If you are doing a million turnover in your shop, you are looking at about $10,000 cost maximum. 

You need to know whether you are getting $10,000 back in profit.

Membership

Examine your membership. How big is it? Is it growing or declining? Where are the members coming from? Existing customers or new customers? If it's existing customers, then your program is dubious.

To determine this, you need names.

Are you just giving a discount to existing customers?

Email list

The email addresses are said to be worth 2%. If you are not collecting these email addresses, your loyalty program is down 2%. In today's market, you must communicate with your customers. You have to find a way to get your customers to come back. This is the key to profitability.

Usage

How many are using it, and at what frequency?

Member spending vs. non-member spending

The primary purpose of a loyalty program is to get you more customers and get them to spend more. Is it? So do not just check the sales totals but also the basket size, profitability, etc.

Pre-membership vs post-membership spending

What do you need to know that it is working?

The figures can be gotten here.

​Use your data, not the seat of your pants.

In your POS software

Go to Sales-Register > Dissection Companion Sales by Period.

Besides telling you sales totals for a department, it can tell you so much more.

Try looking for is an abnormally high number of products for other stuff that sells well with that department. It is beneficial as it can help you select a product to display near a department prominently. This is a well-known method of increasing incremental sales that all majors use.

What you do is take an item that sells well with that department and place it in that department's area. There is nothing wrong with a good seller having a few spots in the shop. 

As you can see here (green arrow), there are quite a few extra sales that could be made by moving some other companies' chocolates close to Darrel Lea Chocolates. Darrel Lea may not like it but ....

Another great use is more long-term. If grouped by department, you can get a feel of where you should position the display for the department. As you can see here by the green arrow, the books should be close to the stationery.

You may be able to pick up a few extra sales if people looking at your book can see your stationery too. 

Why not try it now?

Look at a few departments and see if you can get a few ideas. It will only take a few minutes tops.

Agency business is when you handle a product as an agent. There are many such products, for example, lotto, post office, newspapers, etc.

A typical SMB retailer would have been an agent for many different products in the past.

Today, critics would complain that this agency's work has low margins, which is often true. Plus, if the agency has a winning product, they will often tend to lower commissions and increase handling costs.

But, I would argue that the key to a modern retail store is to get the people in the door. One point is that a good agency often can bring in people. This is no small matter. Today, a typical major is happy to pay $30 in advertising costs to attract a prospective customer. If it works and they get them in your shop, how much is that worth to you to get a potential paying customer in your shop. How much in advertising do you or people in businesses like yours pay to get them in the door? As an agent, you pay nothing, and if they buy, you will make a slight profit, plus have a chance at extra sales.

Of course, the big question here is will they buy more? Yes, some products, like mobile rechargers, generally do tend to bring in good customers. Many, however, do not.

I recommend if you handle these products by checking your companion reports in your POS software.

This will tell you what sells with a product.

Go to Register reports.

Go to reports > Sales register > Stock Sales companion sales by period 

In options, put in, say, last financial year and put in the product. 

Now out pops up a report which will give you a listing of all the items that were sold with this item. It is worth examining this list. By rearranging your stock arrangements, you may get more sales. 

Then at the end, there will be a total profit. Now the question is, how much of that profit would you have made anyway, with or without that profit. That is something you have to decide. 

An analyst like me, as a first-level approximation in the absence of any other information, would probably say

1. Some would have brought the extras anyway.
2. Some would never have come. This is partly due to the large advertising campaigns many agencies pay.

So I would say 50% of this profit would be lost plus the profit on the agency work.

If you can do a better estimate, let me know. Big Data can help but you will need to ask us to help you there as few can do it in-house.

You now have a start on how useful that agency is to your business.