Showing posts with label online promotions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label online promotions. Show all posts
Friday, April 1, 2011
A Natural & Organic Kind of Thing: Finding Love at Whole Foods Market
Whole Foods Market is famous for offering nearly everything under the sun that's natural and organic, from fresh foods and grocery products to beer, wine and clothing made from organic cotton, all with a focus on customer service.
But despite being a foremost expert in hooking up shoppers with all things natural and organic, Whole Foods Market hasn't in the 30-years it's been around been able to figure out how to offer one of the most natural and organic aspects of life - love - in its 304 stores in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom ... until today.
That's right, today the Austin, Texas-based natural-organic grocery chain is announcing in the must-view video at top that love - a natural and organic process that's a bit harder to explain than organic farming, for example - is now available at Whole Foods Market. And like all things at Whole Foods, finding love is a team effort, even on April Fool's Day.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
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.
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.
Friday, January 30, 2009
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.
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.
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