Fresh & Easy Buzz Redux: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Says 45,000 Consumers Sign-Up For its E-Mail Alert Program; We Suggested Such A Program 11 Months Ago

Promotional Merchandising: Online Marketing & Promotions

In this piece [Aldi USA, the Fastest-Growing Small-Format Grocer in the U.S. Promotes Everything But the Kitchen Sink (and Maybe That's Next) In its Weekly Store Ads] way back on May 4, 2008 Fresh & Easy Buzz said Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market was missing the promotional merchandising boat by not having an e-mail alert program similar to what small-format, hard-discount chain Aldi USA has had for a considerable amount of time -- and uses well. (Numerous other grocery chains, including Safeway Stores, Inc. also use e-mail alerts, particularly to distribute their weekly advertising circulars directly each week to consumers' e-mail boxes.

Below (in italics) is a paragraph from our May 4, 2008 story:

"Additionally, although we searched for it, we can't seem to find a function on the Fresh & Easy website in which a customer or potential customer can put in their email address and receive the online advertising circular in their email box like one can with Aldi. Adding this function is cheap to do, and Fresh & Easy is missing the boat by not having such a simple yet powerful tool on its website. [If there is such a feature, and we missed it, it means it's hard to find because we searched all over the site for it.]"

[Related reading: September 26, 2008: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Experiments With A $1-Off Online Discount Coupon; But its Paper Coupons Offer More Than Twice the Value.]

On December 22, 2008, Fresh & Easy Buzz was the first publication to report that Tesco's Fresh & Easy had launched just such an e-mail alert system or program. [ Read the piece here: Marketing: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Launches E-Mail Promo Alert Program; Something Fresh & Easy Buzz First Suggested it Do Many Months Ago.]

We believe we were the first to report on the development since (1) we can find no reports from other publications before our December 22 piece (there is one the very next day though), and (2) Tesco's Fresh & Easy sent out a press release on the e-mail alert program a few weeks after we reported on it, and then numerous other publications ran stories on the development.

As a follow up, in this piece [Breaking Buzz: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Distributes its First Promotional E-Mail Alert Today; Has the Grocer Been Reading Fresh & Easy Buzz This Week?] on January 30, 2009, we reported that Fresh & Easy had distributed it's first e-mail alert since creating the program in December, 2008.

A Tesco Fresh & Easy e-mail alert announcement

Last week (on March 10) Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market distributed a press release announcing it has signed-up 45,000 consumers to its e-mail alert program since it was launched in December, 2008.

Below we reprint the March 10, 2009 press release (in italics):

Fresh & Easy Email Program Attracts More Than 45,000 Customers in Less Than Three Months
Customers sign up as 'friends of fresh&easy' to receive news and exclusive promotions

EL SEGUNDO, Calif., March 10 /PRNewswire/ -- In December, Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market launched "friends of fresh&easy," an email program aimed at keeping customers informed with the company's latest news as well as exclusive offers and special deals. More than 45,000 customers have registered to receive emails since the program launched less than 3 months ago.

The "friends of fresh&easy" program was launched as a response to customer feedback. The company started an online survey last year to better understand how visitors were using the Fresh & Easy website (www.freshandeasy.com). One of the key takeaways from the survey was people are interested in receiving correspondence from the company via email. Starting in April, Fresh & Easy will further promote the campaign in stores through signage and handouts to encourage even more customers to sign up.

"More than 5,000 customers are currently signing up as 'friends of fresh&easy' each week," said Simon Uwins, Fresh & Easy's chief marketing officer. "This program is designed to give our customers news about Fresh & Easy as well as offer special promotions and exclusive offers. 'Friends of fresh&easy' has been well received by customers and is proving to be an exciting new promotional tool for us."

The most recent "friends of fresh&easy" email alerted customers to Fresh & Easy's Shop for Schools fundraising program, which is helping local schools raise money for what they need most. The email also included current product deals and an exclusive coupon.

In terms of our story 11 months ago suggesting why Tesco's Fresh & Easy was missing the boat by not having such an e-mail alert program and suggesting in the piece that it implement one, and the fact the grocery chain has now done so, we will just say...interesting.

It's also interesting that Fresh & Easy mentions that its last e-mail alert was about its "Shop for Schools" program. What it doesn't mention is, based on our tracking system, the "Shop for Schools" alert is only the second e-mail alert the grocery chain has sent to consumers' in-boxes since beginning the program in December, 2008. That sort of "alertness" isn't going to keep those 45,000 consumers who signed -up for the program very "alert" to what's happening at Fresh & Easy. [You can view Fresh & Easy's latest (and second since December, 2008) e-mail alert, which it sent on February 25, 2009, here.]

We were the first publication we can find that reported on Tesco Fresh & Easy's "Shop for Schools" program. We did so in this December 17, 2008 piece: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Launches 'Shop for Schools' Fund-Raising Program to Aid Schools Near its Stores. [Related reading: January 23, 2009: Fresh & Charitable: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Extends Deadline For Schools to Register For School Fundraiser Program. February 9, 2009: Grocers & Community: 769 Schools in Southern California, Nevada and Arizona to Participate in Tesco Fresh & Easy's 'Shop For Schools' Program.]

As we suggested in our piece way back in May, 2008 -- that Fresh & Easy is missing the boat by not using an e-mail alert system to directly distribute it advertising flyer to the inboxes of consumers who sign-up -- the grocer continues to miss that boat since it hasn't been doing that despite the fact it says it's signed-up 45,000 consumers and the e-mail alert program is now three months old.

As we reported on March 11, 2009 in this story [Fresh & Easy Buzz Redux: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Changes its Promotional Advertising Flyer to 'Weekly;' Something We've Been Suggesting For About A Year], Tesco's Fresh & Easy has now changed its promotional merchandising-marketing policy and is offering a weekly advertising flyer.

This change to the weekly ad flyer format now offers Fresh & Easy the opportunity to distribute the digital version of its weekly advertising flyer to the 45,000 (and growing) consumers in its e-mail alert data base every week. The time to do so is now. Doing so right away is a "no-brainer." It's a logical tie-in. Good marketing and promotions is all about good integration, including media integration.

We really don't know if signing-up 45,000 consumers in a little over three months is an achievement or not. After all, there are about 30 million people in the three markets Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood market has its 116 stores in: Southern California, Metro Las Vegas, Nevada and the Phoenix, Arizona Metropolitan region. Viewing it that way, 45,000 consumers out of that population base isn't a huge number.

On the other hand, that's a mere population statistic. And the fact that thus far Fresh & Easy has only promoted the e-mail alert program via its Web site (and on MyPoints.com, as we've reported), as well as getting publicity via articles like those in Fresh & Easy Buzz and other publications that have written about the program, 45,000 consumers signing -up in the three month period sounds fairly good, from that perspective.

The grocery chain says in the March 11 press release that beginning in April is plans to promote the e-mail alert program using signage and other communications materials in its stores. It should then be interesting to see how many more consumers sign-up for the alerts once that in-store communications program starts. We would suspect it should add considerably to the current (and growing) 45,000.

But while the sign-ups are essential, getting consumers to read the alerts and not delete them is key. That's one reason why the weekly advertising flyer should be distributed via the e-mail alert program each week. Aldi, for example, distributes its weekly ad flyer every Sunday to its list of consumer e-mail addresses. Others, such as Safeway Stores, Kroger and Raley's (to name just three) do it on Monday nights or Tuesdays, when there weekly advertising circulars come out.

Grocery shoppers shop weekly ads. Knowing the weekly Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market advertising flyer will arrive in the e-mail inbox each week will be something consumers see as a service from Fresh & Easy, just as it is from the many other grocers that distribute their weekly advertising circulars via e-mail. Shoppers compare these weekly ads right on line. Any grocery chain not offering the e-mail distribution option for the weekly ad flyer is at its own self-inflicted competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis- those food retailers that do so.

But in the final analysis it's good to know that it appears those consumers surveyed by Tesco's Fresh & Easy were on the same cognitive wave link that Fresh & Easy Buzz was on 11 months ago when we wrote that the grocery chain was missing the boat by not having such an e-mail alert system, and suggested they create and implement one. They have now done so.

Of course, the proof is in the use of such a system. Since December (there's only been two e-mail alerts that we and our trackers have collected), the grade for Tesco's Fresh & Easy with its e-mail alert program has been one of failing, if not non-use, in our analysis.

It appears Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is now preparing to better use the e-mail alert system. We will watch closely with interest.

Breaking Buzz: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Distributes its First Promotional E-Mail Alert Today; Has the Grocer Been Reading Fresh & Easy Buzz This Week?

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market sent out its first e-mail promotional alert today to consumers who've signed up for the program, which Fresh & Easy Buzz was the first publication to report on in this December 22, 2008 piece [Marketing: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Launches E-Mail Promo Alert Program; Something Fresh & Easy Buzz First Suggested it Do Many Months Ago].

Fresh & Easy's first e-mail alert dated today, January 30, 2009, is a version of its current promotional flyer promoting food and beverage items for this Sunday's Super Bowl. We wrote about the paper, direct-mailed version of that flyer on Tuesday (January 27, 2009) in this piece [Tesco Fresh & Easy's 'New' Advertising Flyer: Minimalism Without Thought or Design Does Not A Retail Advertising Communications Piece Make].

The Fresh & Easy e-mail alert of its Super Bowl promotional flyer, well-timed just two days before the Super Bowl, contains some good prices on game-day food and beverage items, including the grocer's $5.99 mixed-meat grill pack, 24-packs of Coke and Diet Coke for $5.99 each, and an 18-pack of Tourino Beer for $6.99, along with a few other sale-priced beverage, snack and related items, and a few versions of its new 98-Cent Produce packs. Below is the e-mail alert:

From: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market
Date sent: 01/30/2009 08:01:26 am
Subject: Check out our big savings for the big game.

Click here to view the promotional flyer contained in today's Fresh & Easy e-mail alert.

Did Tesco's Fresh & Easy read our January 27 piece?

The e-mail alert promotional flyer distributed to cyber-mailboxes today also contains an online version one of Fresh & Easy's discount store coupons. But it's not one of the grocery chain's normal $5 off (purchases of $20 or more) or $6 off (purchases of $30 or more) store coupons. Instead the coupon offered in the e-mail alert flyer today is one good for $10 off total purchases of $50 or more at Fresh & Easy markets. [View today's $10 off online coupon here.]

In addition, the $10 off coupon in today's e-mail alert flyer is good only for three days -- today, Saturday and Sunday, unlike the normally one, two and even three week shelf life the Fresh & Easy discount store coupons normally have.

In our story on Tuesday, January 27, we suggested two things Tesco's Fresh & Easy should experiment with regarding its store coupons. The first one is that instead of using just the $5 off purchases of $20 or more and the $6 off purchases of $30 or more deep-discount coupons, we suggested the retailer should offer store coupons that encourage higher shopper purchasing limits and offer lower percentage discounts. We specifically suggested Fresh & Easy should offer coupons good for $10 off purchases of $50 or more and coupons good for $25 off purchases of $100 or more. [The story linked above explains why we suggest doing this.] It appears the grocery chain is trying one of our suggested versions -- the $10 off purchases of $50 or more -- in the e-mail alert flyer/coupon distributed today.

Additionally, in that Tuesday piece, we suggested Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market also should play around more with the expiration dates of these coupons. We specifically suggested it take a page from the Sacramento, California-based Raley's supermarket chain and at times offer the $10 off and $25 off coupons with only a three day shelf life -- Friday, Saturday and Sunday -- just like the $10 off coupon it has in its e-mail alert flyer today.

E-mail alert deja vu

In this story we wrote and published way back in May, 2008, Fresh & Easy Buzz suggested Tesco's Fresh & Easy was missing out on a very powerful marketing and promotional tool by not having an e-mail alert type promotional system, like numerous other food and grocery chains have started offering in recent times.

Below (in italics) is a paragraph from our May 4, 2008 piece on the topic:

"Additionally, although we searched for it, we can't seem to find a function on the Fresh & Easy website in which a customer or potential customer can put in their email address and receive the online advertising circular in their email box like one can with Aldi. Adding this function is cheap to do, and Fresh & Easy is missing the boat by not having such a simple yet powerful tool on its website. [If there is such a feature, and we missed it, it means it's hard to find because we searched all over the site for it.]"[Read our complete May 4, 2008 story on the topic here.]

In December, 2008, as we reported here, Tesco's Fresh & Easy started asking consumers via its Web site to sign-up for just such an e-mail alert program, which they said would be coming soon. Today's promotional e-mail is the first alert the grocery chain has distributed that we are aware of.

Digital marketing and promo 2.0

Today's Super Bowl themed promotional e-mail alert flyer from Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market demonstrates the marketing power of such systems, just as we argued is the case in that May 4, 2008 story.

Unlike nearly all of its competitors, who run weekly advertising circulars, Fresh & Easy's paper and online ad flyer is good for three weeks at a time. This means that unlike its major competitors, Fresh & Easy can't offer as well-timed theme promotions in its flyers as they can.

For example, Safeway, Ralphs, Bashas, Fry's Albertsons and all the others major supermarket chains in Southern California, Nevada and Arizona used a Super Bowl theme in their weekly ads which broke two or three days ago, beginning either on Tuesday or Wednesday depending on the specific chain's ad schedule. Fresh & Easy had to use a Super Bowl theme more than two weeks ago when its ad flyer came out. Events like the Super Bowl don't become top-of- mind with consumers until the week leading up to the event, and don't really become top-of- mind in any real way until a couple days prior to the event, when all the media hype about Super Bowl Sunday is in full bloom.

Therefore, as a result of its good-for-three-weeks nature, the Fresh & Easy ad flyer is a stale media product compared to the weekly ad circulars its competitors use. But now, with the e-mail alert program, Fresh & Easy can turn that stale ad flyer in to a fresh baked and delivered version, at least from an online standpoint. If it wants to do the same with the paper version then it obviously needs to mail it out, timed to arrive in consumers' mailboxes today, which is regularly does with supplemental flyers to its once-every-three-week-distributed regular ad flyer. We suspect, but have yet to check and verify, that Fresh & Easy is sent out a paper version of the flyer to arrive at homes today.

But the online flyer is dirt cheap to distribute. And it can be re-distributed again for near-zero cost. For example, the promotional flyer e-mail alert sent today can be sent a second time on Saturday afternoon as a reminder to stock up for Super Bowl Sunday. And unlike with paper flyers -- which at this point in time do reach more consumers but likely won't a year or two from now when Fresh & Easy bulds-up a bigger e-mail alert data base -- the second e-mail alert doesn't cost any additional money (accept to pay an employee to click "send") to e-mail tomorrow, if the grocer chooses to do so. That's the power of digital/Internet-based marketing. And as Fresh & Easy gets more consumers to sign up for the e-mail alerts, that power will continue to multiple.

Marketing: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Launches E-Mail Promo Alert Program; Something Fresh & Easy Buzz First Suggested it Do Many Months Ago

Beginning early this year, and in a few pieces since, Fresh & Easy Buzz has written about what in our analysis is a simple marketing opportunity Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood has missed since it opened its first first small-format, convenience-oriented combination fresh foods and grocery markets in November, 2007.

That missed marketing opportunity is the lack of the use of a simple e-mail address-based alert function on its Fresh & Easy Web site in which the retailer can alert customers and potential customers to its regulars advertising circulars, coupons, company news and related promotions and information, a function many food and grocery retailers, including the fast-growing small-format Aldi discount grocery chain, offer.

For example, below is a paragraph about the missed opportunity from a piece we published on May 4, 2008:

"Additionally, although we searched for it, we can't seem to find a function on the Fresh & Easy website in which a customer or potential customer can put in their email address and receive the online advertising circular in their email box like one can with Aldi. Adding this function is cheap to do, and Fresh & Easy is missing the boat by not having such a simple yet powerful tool on its website. [If there is such a feature, and we missed it, it means it's hard to find because we searched all over the site for it.]" Read our complete May 4, 2008 story on the topic here.

The reason, as it says in the paragraph, we searched all over the Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Web site but couldn't find such a function is because one didn't exit -- until this month that is.

Tesco's Fresh & Easy, perhaps by mere coincidence to our suggestions, has this month launched just such an e-mail-based alert function on its company Web site, which you can find here.

Here's what Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market says in promoting the new e-mail function (graphic at top of the piece) and what we suggested could also become a valuable marketing and promotional database over time:

Are you a friend of fresh & easy?

'We've made it easy for you to get the scoop on our latest news , budget prices and special offers. Sign up below and we'll make sure you know what's happening around your store! Plus by signing up now, you'll receive an exclusive coupon for $6 off when you spend $30 or more at fresh & easy by December 24, 2008'.

Below is the response people get once they sign up for Fresh & Easy's e-mail alert program:

Below the text is a link where consumers can click and download Fresh & Easy's current $6 off total store purchases of $30 or more online coupon. [By the way, we would change the header in Fresh & Easy's adveretising text printed above in italics to: "Become a 'friend of Fresh & Easy.' It's much more inviting than asking the question in the header: "Are you a friend of Fresh & Easy?" which sounds a bit exclusionary. What if I'm not a "friend" but might want to be, for example, as in have never been in a Fresh & Easy store but might want to become a customer. It's a simple distinction -- but we think an important one.]

We don't get the "exclusive" aspect as it relates to Fresh & Easy's use of that term in the ad copy, since the $6 off coupon is the one Fresh & Easy gives out to everybody. "Exclusive" has a specific meaning after all and certainly doesn't apply to the coupon. But minus using the term "exclusive" we think it's a good idea to offer it -- if the grocer is going to offer the coupon at all -- as part of an incentive to get customers and potential customers to sign up for the e-mail based alerts.

Food and grocery retailers like Aldi, Safeway Stores, Inc., Kroger, Whole Foods Market and many others -- including many in Southern California, Nevada and Arizona where the Fresh & Easy markets are located -- have been using e-mail alerts for a long time. It's a simple, cheap and effective way to communicate with consumers.

It's also a natural, 21rst century way to get a retailer's weekly grocery ad into the hands of shoppers in an inexpensive and alternative (in addition to paper) way. Imagine the money retailer's could save if they can eventually eliminate paper advertising circulars, for example.

Having an e-mail alert function is something Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market should have been doing long ago. But it has to date been behind the marketing curve on this and so many other areas, particularly relating to the use of the Internet, which it should be a leader in rather than a follower. For example, imagine if the started the e-mail alert program in January of this year -- the grocer would have a nice data base built by now.

Additionally, since Fresh & Easy's customer base appears from our research to thus far be overwhelmingly comprised of younger people (about age 18-35), a group that uses the Internet and personal communication devices as second nature, the retailer should use the Internet and the various forms of electronic communication available to it like...well, second nature, in our analysis and opinion.

At its sign up site, Fresh & Easy indicates it also will eventually sent text message updates as well as e-mail alerts. Using text messaging alerts to personal electronic communication devices -- mobile phones, Blackberry's, iphones -- is something we've been suggesting in Fresh & Easy Buzz offers great potential for marketers in the food, grocery and consumer packaged goods industries.

For example, we see a day very soon when consumer packaged good manufacturers can send coupons directly to a shopper while she is in the aisle at a grocery store. For example, say a shopper is in the household cleaning products aisle. She could press a button on her mobile phone or other device and get a list of coupons for laundry detergent -- Tide, Cheer, even the store private label brand. No worry about printing any coupons out. The stores would be hooked up to companies offering the service. There could be a simple way to transmit the coupon data from the customers' hand-held devices to the stores' point-of-sale systems as the shopper has her purchases checked out, the coupon values being deducted from her order.

This is just one example of what we believe are a myriad of marketing uses, and convenient options for consumers, of digital technology and its application to food and grocery marketing and shopping.

Promoting e-mail alerts on the MyPoints.com system

Tesco's Fresh & Easy also is promoting its e-mail alert program via the MyPoints.com reward program (promotion graphic from MyPoints.com pictured above), Fresh & Easy Buzz has learned. Consumers with a MyPoints account recently received an e-mail alert, as they do from other companies using the system, announcing the Fresh & Easy program. Below is the text of that Mypoints.com alert as it was sent to users:

Get Your Points!
"Now that you've read the BonusMail, visit Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market™ online. Receive 5 Points. It then offer a link to the Fresh & Easy Web site."

In addition to MyPoints.com users getting five MyPoints bonus points (Mypoints' are similar to credit card points or airline miles in concept and use), which Fresh & Easy pays MyPoints.com for providing its users as part of the advertising arrangement, Fresh & Easy is offering the MyPoints.com users that sign up for the e-mail alerts on its freshandeasy.com Web site a coupon for a free Fresh & Easy reusable canvas shopping bag, which they can redeem in-store if they spend more than $10 at a Fresh & Easy market.

Since Fresh & Easy sells these bags for 99-cents in-store, we don't see it as much of a deal, and thus doubt if there will be much action in regard to consumers going to crazy over getting a 99-cent canvas bag for free in return for spending $10 at the store. Fresh & Easy should also have offered its $6 off coupon to the MyPoints.com users, along with the bag offer. Why not?

But using MyPoints.com as an additional avenue to promote the e-mail alert campaign is a good idea, in our analysis and opinion. Doing so taps into an established base of Internet savvy consumers who regularly use online-based marketing tools and programs offered by companies. It's smart for Fresh & Easy to piggyback on this base, we believe, even if the canvas bag incentive is rather on lean-incentive side. The main incentive to MyPoints.com users, in all promotions, are the five free MyPoint.

We are wondering why though Fresh & Easy hasn't e-mailed its current online promotional flyer to e-mail addresses, at least ours and those of a few readers we know, since we -- and they -- have already signed up for the e-mail alerts? In fact, you receive nothing via e-mail from Fresh & Easy after you sign -up -- not even a simple inbox message alerting you to the fact that something will be coming in a week or two, like the message we mentioned earlier in this piece that you get on the company's Web site after putting in your name and e-mail address.

It's simple to create a simple "bounce back" reply via e-mail like this. It's a good idea to do because not only does it provide instant feedback via e-mail to the person who just signed up -- something that's a good sign of things to come -- it also allows Fresh & Easy to get its first message (why not include a link to the $6-off coupon in a simple two or three sentence "bounce back" response if it need be limited to such) to its new e-mail alert participants right way.

God (and the Devil too it is said) is in the details. Add Internet savvy consumers to that list. Those consumers used to using the Internet regularly, like the target consumer base Fresh & Easy is (or should be) after with its new e-mail alert program, are used to and like instant response -- that's why they not only use computers but portable electronic communication devices as well.

Therefore, not getting any response from Fresh & Easy via e-mail after signing-up for the e-mail alerts program tends to short circuit the "alert" aspect of the program. It also makes users wonder if their e-mail sign-up went through, since they are used to getting immediate responses (instant feedback) from nearly all similar Web site sign ups. The grocery chain should fix that and add an immediate e-mail response "bounce back" posthaste, in our analysis. Follow through is key to everything a food and grocery retailer does. And details matter always, especially in marketing programs.