IRCs – Why Smart Marketers are revisiting the coupon…
Tags: Advertising, Brand Preference, Brand Strategy, Consumer Behavior, Consumer Marketing, Convenience Store, Coupons, Discounts, Display, Fold Out Panels, Grocery Store, Impulse Buy, In Store Marketing, IRCs, Labels, Marketing Strategy, media, packaging, Panels, Point of Sale, POS Merchandise, product, Promotion, Purchase, Retail, Retail Marketing, shelf space, Shelves, Shopper Marketing, Word of Mouth
Sunny Delight Instant Redeemable Coupon
When you think about coupons, is an image of a little old lady pulling out her coupon wallet at the checkout the first thing that comes to mind? Toss that image out of your head, because coupons are coming back in a big way for every demographic. No matter what target audience your product’s sweet spot is - coupons are smart and effective ways to beat out the competition. Basically, the coupons of today can be so much more than your grandmother’s clipped coupons.
In this post, we will tackle IRCs or Instant Redeemable Coupons. They are a customized labeling system that automatically allows you to place promotional panels on virtually any package or container. They come in different sizes and can have as many foldout panels as your product needs. So whats the big deal? Don’t most people ignore those anyway? The statistics might surprise you. Coupons are ranked as the second most influential factor in swaying consumer decisions to a certain brand, right behind word of mouth advertising. That’s crazy to think that people would trust and allow a promotional label to influence their decisions almost as much as their friends. IRCs can be the deciding factor if used effectively and have many advantages over other promotional forms of advertising.
When people go to a store, most consumers have mentally mapped out the products that they need or want to purchase. IRCs can pull in both the customer who had a clear brand in mind and the customer who did not have a brand preference. Marketing studies have shown that 27 percent of all planned purchases and 67 percent of unplanned purchases change brands when presented with a deal. If you are competing with other brands who may have a clever ad campaign, smart updated displays and tons of planned media advertising – you can make most of that effort null and void by offering a simple in store promotion.
IRCs also have the best redemption rate of all coupons or promotional pieces for retail. You can advertise your promotions on other forms of traditional media, but IRCs go to the source and put the coupon in their hands at the store. They do not have time to debate over their purchase when the deal is physically placed right in front of them. Like I have said before, point of sale is where the customer makes their purchase decision – if you are not allowed to put up a display or have limited shelf space, how can you best sway your customer’s decision? IRCs the ultimate call to action piece that takes out all the effort for the consumer.
To sum it up, in one little label, you can assure the customer of the value in your product, increase brand loyalty, cross promote other products in your product family, drive impulse purchases, encourage larger purchases in a short period of time (i.e. buy one, get one free) all without changing your package design or display material. Its a low cost high ROI marketing tool that gives you that desired ”in” with customers while allowing you to enhance both the visibility and message of your brand. If you can take anything away from this article - slap an IRC on your product, sit back and relax. Let the coupon do all the leg work for you.
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The Fine Print» Blog Archive » Bottle Neckers: Promotion on the Product said:
Sep 30, 11 at 2:38 pm[...] Sunlight offers an instant redeemable coupon through their necker. As we have discussed before, IRCs are an excellent call to action because the consumer does not have to take any effort towards [...]