Paid Media Activation – the Retailer Perspective
Liquid Barcodes loyalty marketing technology makes it possible to connect paid media advertising to stores. There are multiple ways to activate paid media advertising and you may have two rationales for doing it: 1) drive traffic to store and 2) measure the channel you are advertising in. There will always be two key data points from Liquid Barcodes in these campaigns: 1) the interaction point with the media channel (an issued coupon) and 2) the interaction point with the store (a redeemed coupon in the point of sale). If the content that is issued is a game, there will be several data points as some consumers play the game, some win the rewards – and then finally some redeem the reward in-store.
The number of issued coupons give lots of guidance as to how well the media channel is working and the redemption statistics show how well the campaign has converted. Typically redemption stats can also give useful learning on how successfully you reached the right audience with your advertising in this channel, especially if you run the same campaign across different media channels.
Supplier brand campaign example – OOH activation – Arla:
Paid Media Activation – Out of Home Flow – Consumer Perspective
The consumer flow can be divided into three parts:
In a typical consumer journey:
1) Consumers text “X” to a short number and gets the coupon via SMS
2) The SMS includes a link to a unique coupon which opens in the browser and includes information about what product it is, which stores it can be redeemed in and when the coupon expires
3) It is redeemed by a scan of the unique code in your till system. Since Liquid Barcodes is integrated with the point-of-sale (ePOS/cash) system, it automatically rebates the product.
How Consumers Get Our Content
An alternative way to distribute content from our advertising campaign is using a landing page. Liquid Barcodes can create and host your landing pages, or they can created and and hosted by any page that integrates with our coupon API in order to trigger us to issue an SMS or e-mail coupon to a specific consumer.
If you want to issue content into an existing app (e.g. with use of beacons installed on the OOH screens) this is also possible, and requires the same coupon API integration, plus an app API integration.
What method works best is different in each market. What will work best in your country is often simply what consumers find easy and what has become the norm.
A) code-word + SMS
B) landing page + SMS
C) landing page + e-mail
D) beacon + APP.
Although D) may be the most fun for marketers, retailers should be focused on volume and response rates – choosing the solutions with lowest barrier to participate for consumers and thus maximum business impact (traffic to store). A key question to ask before considering D is do we have a large enough app distribution to make any business impact?
What the content is:
In most cases, the simpler the content is the better. Typically we recommend a single-use coupon with a deep discount or a free product (sampling). All content from us is unique (a unique coupon, a unique survey link, a unique game link) and we can control that each consumer only gets one coupon/survey/game.
To engage with consumers the content should be engaging – for example a digital scratch card (as this works just as well via SMS like in-app). This way you can have multiple prizes where some prizes can be aspirational and the main motivation for many to participate, while also limited to one prize and thus offers your customers a low probability to win. Other prizes can be coupons that are designed to drive traffic to store such as free products.
You can add surveys to your coupons. Either you ask for feedback to get the coupon (reward for completing survey) or you use survey as follow-up to a coupon redemption to get consumer feedback on a new product that you just picked up in-store. This Bonaqua case does both.
You can also use performance games like memory, tap it! or falling objects to drive consumer engagement around your product and brand. If you perform at a certain level you get a reward. The games can be set up in a way that you can play for prizes once a day.
How to redeem discount/reward vouchers in-store
With POS integration, the unique coupon / reward is scanned at the point of sale and automatically this rebates or tenders the product. No manual processes is required by the store employees.
PAID MEDIA ACTIVATION – HOW TO GET OUR CONTENT
With OOH advertising, TV and print the most commonly used ways to get our content is by using a code-word for texting or leading consumers to a landing page with a short and simple URL. Other channels allow other methods to get our content. For example a banner ad on a desktop or mobile website can allow the consumer to type in their mobile number or e-mail address to get our content. This will require integration between this banner and our Coupon API (typically done by a digital agency). Similarly the banner ad can lead to a landing page, which is integrated with our Coupon API. Refer to our developer´s page for API guides and API documentation.
With Facebook advertising for example there is no need to ask for the e-mail ID in order to trigger our Coupon API to issue a e-mail coupon. Just keep in mind that you need to handle consent correctly according to the regulations in your market.
Paid Media Activation – Media and Media Agency Solutions
In cases where your customer is not a retailer that is already using Liquid Barcodes loyalty marketing technology or a supplier brand which is working together with a retailer already using our technology, there are still easy ways to work with us in Liquid Barcodes.
We can offer simple redemption methods which do not require any IT investments by the retailer. The only difference from the above example flow would be the third part of the flow – how to redeem discount/reward vouchers in-store.
How to redeem discount/reward vouchers in-store
The easiest way to do a in-store redemption process is by using our manual process. The redemption happens entirely on the consumer’s mobile phone, either in the app or in a browser. This means that the marketing loop is closed on the consumer level, but not on a transaction or store level. Other options include rolling out a web validation tool or a merchant app, but for single campaigns this is seldom appropriate.
There is also an option if the retailer is able to produce a batch of unique codes themselves that are redeemable in their POS system. These 3rd party codes can be imported into our system and our distribution mechanics can be used.
The codes will be scanned at the point of sale, however we will not know when and where they are used unless the retailer’s till supplier can make an API available for real-time redemption statistics.
More Inspiration
Supplier brand campaign example – OOH activation – Fanta:
Supplier brand campaign example – OOH activation – Pepsico:
