Last Mile Marketing and Advertising-Case: PenDrive for Malls
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Customization to individuals is where the marketing and advertising is heading to. This also is an extension to my earlier article on real time advertising using cell phones. The companies are willing to track down to last mile. Communication is being developed for most likely prospects. With series of activities happening online, how does a mall or shopping hypermarkets with offline and online shopping model join this? How do they drive the customer to them again and again? How do they create custom communication targeted to specific client to ensure loyalty and customer delight? I am sure there are multiple ways. Heres one…….
I have seen couple of malls who give loyalty cards. These cards are small cards that can be clubbed into the car key chain. Its often used for acquiring loyalty points during transaction. The card does not play any role other than at point of transaction.
How about these malls offering an intelligent micro USB memory pen drive instead of card? This idea can have positive impact for first mover!
Let me get to the point….Metrics, and ROI has taken a very prominent stage in advertising and marketing. Its this reason that we are seeing a tremendous growth in online advertising and marketing.
Lets take a scenario. A mall gives out micro USB memory device instead of magnetic cards. A small portion of the memory is locked and this portion is used for a software application. This application pushes the brand of Mall each time one plugs the drive into the computer for his personal use (Storing important data). The brand stays for 2-3 seconds and then fades away, for the user to access rest of the memory.
The application enables special discounts while shopping online. This means if you plug in the USB drive while accessing the shopping site of the mall, then the USB drive communicates to the site and the pages that show up are exclusive discounts, and promotions.
The application monitors your shopping pattern and each time you plug in, it communicates to the website and pulls out relevant shopping pages based on your browsing behavior on this site.
What if you are not browsing the desired shopping site? If the drive is hooked in, and if the computer is connected to internet, then the drive would continue to communicate with the desired site and update its record on latest offerings. This means that every time you plug in your pen drive on to your computer, it would show up promotional brand and also a quick glimpse of new offerings and discounts. This can potentially drive the user to desired site through impulsion. Impulse visits drive potential sales.
When you go shopping in the same mall, the discount or loyalty points can be offered by plugging the pendrive to the reader at transaction point. The pendrive can have additional feature of Bluetooth. This pendrive can be paired with readers at transaction point. If the pen drive has a blue tooth and is paired to computer of the owner, then the application could still communicate to the site (if the computer is connected to internet).
Key advantages:
USER:
1.Gets a utility tool (memory) with
value adds that drives the user to
keep it.
2. Gets exclusive offers
3. Does quick and effective
shopping as the application pulls
out pages where the user does
shopping more often.
4. Updates discounts
MALL:
1.Tracks shopping behavior.
2.Track “spend power” and
preferred shopping areas.
3.Customize offers to a single person
or small group of persons based on
their likings- Last mile marketing
and advertising- Even run a preferred
language last mile advertising.
4.Reach customer even when he/she is
not the site.
5.Gets Reports and also track important
clients.
Post Submitted by Amit Srivastava
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On a different note,
So far what I have seen is… these super markets and malls are very responsible for pollution. e.g. the poly bags culture… every time you buy a thing… whether it is needed or not… why don’t these take initiatives like “re-use a poly bag and get some discount… or something like such…” because you can’t totally stop the use of poly bags, but surely can re-use and keep on the cycle…
IKEA is trying to do this with a specific kiosk and mobile phone.
Everybody has a mobile phone now and you always have your mobile phone with you…..the USB device is a good idea to advertise and track the customers….but it’s also easy to lose.
“This kiosk spotted at an IKEA store in Seattle, allows you to sync your mobile phone through text messages or by scanning barcodes, giving access to coupons and information on their weekly specials. And when you leave the store you’ll still get regular updates as to what’s new or what’s on sale.”
http://www.ohgizmo.com/2008/02/06/ikea-mobile-kiosks-showing-up-in-stores-probably-some-assembly-required/