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5.13.1
Planning a Promotion
Care should be taken to think through all of the factors related to developing an effective promotion.
Below are the factors related to developing an effective promotion and marketing campaign. Review
all of these before attempting to setup a promotion in the GXP machine. Once you have a well
thought out plan, proceed to setting up the discounts using the Discount Type Settings menu and then
setup the promotion using the Promotion Settings menu.
Identify the Goal Of the Promotion
: Identify the overall objective of your promotion. It may take
multiple promotions to obtain your goals. Common goals of a promotion are: to obtain new
customers, maintain existing customers, promote new products and services to existing customers,
get existing customers to utilize your wash during the slower periods (“load balancing”), and to cross
promote for another nearby business so they do the same for you.
Advertising your promotion:
There are a variety of advertising methods that can be used to get
the word out about your promotion. You should always consider using the Welcome Prompt
and Receipt Printer to let existing customers know about your promotion. The Welcome
prompt, text and voice, should let the user know about anything you are promoting at your site.
The receipt printer can be setup to include a message that advertises your promotion as well.
You can also use some of the advertising methods shown below.
·
Letters to local fundraisers like the school band.
·
Radio & newspaper
·
Mass Mailers
·
Co-Marketing with another local business
·
Direct Marketing to local charities – schools, fundraisers…
·
Word of mouth – secret code that no one knows about but be sure to tell everyone. Human nature
is to take advantage of a good thing before it is gone.
Naming the Promotion:
Give the promotion a name that you can easily recognize and distinguish.
Common examples are: Early Bird Special, Night Owl Special, Coupon Promotion, Mailer
Promotion. These names will show up on the Promotion Report and are helpful in distinguishing one
from the other if multiple promotions are running simultaneously.
Duration of Promotion
: Identify how long do you plan to run the promotion, start and end dates and
times.
Type of Discount(s) to Use With the Promotion
: A variety of
discount types
can be used with the
GXP. Codes, Tokens, and Coupons are all discount types that can be used in a promotion. To identify
the discount type best suited for your promotion, you must first determine the most economical and
effective way to get the discount into the hands of the target customer. Another consideration is the
advertising method you plan to use. The method for advertising the promotion is sometimes
determined by the discount type media that you believe will be most effective. For example, if you
want to bring new customers in to your site from nearby zip codes, a mass mailer service like Value
Pack can be used to target specific zip codes. If mass mailers are the advertisement of choice then
you will want to use Code Entry as the discount type. The advertisement coupon you have developed
would identify the discount code the user would enter, the amount of discount they will receive for
the wash package(s) you are promoting, and it would tell them where you are located. In this example
it is neither practical nor economical to use tokens or bill acceptor coupons to promote your product.
Following is a list of discounts that can be used with the GXP machine.
