Missed Opportunity
I was listening to the radio the other day when a commercial for a local business came on. They were making it very easy to do something very small that could help many. I listened some more and learned that if I bring in gently used shoes they would donate them to people in Haiti. What a great idea!!! I was already thinking about all the shoes I could donate. I also started thinking about how I’d love to replace those shoes with a couple of newer styles. I was excited about the idea of donating to a good cause...and the idea of shopping. What really struck me was when the advertisement was over. They had my attention, they had me turn up the commercial to listen, they already had me envisioning spending money in their store. The end of the commercial would have been the perfect opportunity to offer a small coupon for any person bringing in a donation. Nothing big, 5% off or $5.00 off would have been perfect. It would have confirmed in my head that I need to donate the old shoes and SHOP in their store for the new shoes.
I understand that their motive was not to make a profit but I think they really missed the boat on this one. Donating shoes is a great idea, not only are they helping others they are also increasing foot traffic and visibility of their business. What they didn’t do was ask for business from the consumers coming in. Every person coming in will be donating shoes that may need to be replaced with newer pairs. I donated my shoes and shopped for a few minutes but ended up not spending a dime. I later shopped online for similar styles and made a purchase that way. If I would have had any kind of coupon/promotion when I walked in to donate my shoes I would have purchased in their store instead of somewhere else.
I don’t mean to sound greedy, but in tough economic times you should never miss the opportunity to gain a customer.
This post is filed under The Life of a Mom-preneur and has the following keyword tags: e-commerce, work-at-home, business, marketing.
1 Comment
ronanob says:
I think the point is that you would get to the shop with shoes in hand and then once their they can try to convert the sale. Everyone gets that shoe shops try to sell shoes. In my opinion by stating the obvious that they can buy shoes their would diminish the ads response as it looks like using the Hati Disaster to obviously make sales.
An off license near me does this is empty wine bottles and makes a killing from getting people to drop in their old wine bottles which earns them discounts off new wines.
