Cash Register Receipts

[Anonymous]

Does anyone out there have any experience with the use of cash register receipts for advertising? I have a guy here offering the back of a local supermarket's register receipts, 75,000 receipts for $350 (about 1/2 cents per impression).

I plan to offer 25% off my WD&F service to new customers? Any opinions?

[Monarch]

I have a friend who sells the same kind of adverstising. He is starving to death.

Look at your own practices, do you read your receipts?

Probably not, so how how effective could it be?

One local out fit has seperate printer, when receipt prints, you get coupons out of the other machine. That is a bit more effective.

JMHO

[CharlieS]

I tried it. Put a coupon on the back for a free bag. I think I had one that was redeemed. Declined the offer to re-up.

Charlie

[Kitty]

As a consumer, I receive the 1.00 off your next grocery bill simialiar to what you are speaking of. If I could simply put them in the same place all the same time and bring them back to the store to use prior to the expiration date WHOOO HOOO they be useful to me. But alas I do not live in perfect world and can't seem to get the practice down. Therefore, I am guessing there are thousands of people just like me out there, so I am guessing that the practice of this type of advertising is not the best way to spend yur advertising bucks...


Tell us what your goal is and who your target market and lets see what options we can help you come up with.

Kitty

[TotoMongo]

Jim, I think only you will be able to determine how succesful you will be with these coupons. I have used them and was happy with the outcome. Early on I decided that a more important goal than getting a lot of customers was to retain the customers the coupon "hooked" for the duration. The reason it was my goal was two-fold:

1. Keeping a customer satified and happy is of primary concern as it keeps the revenue coming. To me, its the second call that is of utmost importance - it means that you probably did it right the first time.

2. My experience with coupons is that the meatier the coupon the shorter my relationship was with the customer. In other words, many people just used my service because the coupon savings were very good. That became very old, very quickly.

Its important to include as many benefits to the customer as you can - I know, doing that on a 3"x3" coupon is hard. I included some of the following: CCs accepted (people really like this), hours of op ("open late"), my website addy, and a 20% off dry cleaning special, etc. Include what your minimum is in fine print.

My worst run? As I only charge 0.80/lb I didnt have much room to wiggle. I offered a 25% coupon in an upscale neighborhood relatively far from me. Got 30 or so customers (I offer service only) of which I think one is still with me.

My best run: 10% off, 20% dry clean kicker, and a $10 comforter sale. The same number of coupons got me fewer calls. But the qualtity was much better - I kept between 6-8 customers.

Is this the best way to analyze my sucess? Maybe not. But I am learning. And thats what is most important.

Remember, customers dont care about your business' features. They care about the benefit to them. If you have 75#rs, let them know!

Toto

[fluffy]

I tried the register tapes and hated it. My problem was that the one of the grocery stores didn't even run my tape consistently...long story short I ended up taking the advertising company to court. I lost. They said they were only responsible for delivering the tape to the grocery store - idiot judge agreed with them. I spent about $750 on the deal and got about twenty responses - would say at least half were existing customers.

If you do it, I would suggest a set dollar amount discount instead of a % off.