Gas and grocery promotions ( also Merchandise and Pharmacy available April 1, 2009)—offering certificates for free gas or groceries to encourage customers to make purchases—has the potential to drastically improve your business, sales, and profits. Note that we only said “potential”. Like any other sales campaign, if you don’t do free gas and grocery promotions just right, you’ll only get mediocre results—or possibly no results at all. This article will give you some hints and tips on how to get the most out of free gas and grocery promotions.

ADVERTISE, ADVERTISE, ADVERTISE

First and most importantly, you HAVE to advertise a free gas and grocery promotion as much as possible. The purpose of free gas and grocery promotions is to get customers into your store who wouldn’t normally come, and to make purchases they wouldn’t otherwise make. If you DON’T advertise the free gas and grocery promotion adequately, what you’ll get instead are people who come to your store planning to make a purchase anyway, and consider the free gas or grocery certificates a pleasant, but unexpected, surprise bonus.

There are many ways to advertise. Blast emails are probably the cheapest. A direct mail campaign to a targeted audience is also effective. Finally, spend the money to place an advertisement where it will reach a large general audience, like an ad in the local newspaper or a commercial during the local news. The goal is to make as many people as possible aware of your free gas and grocery promotion.

BIG DEAL

You also have to make the deal sufficiently sensationalistic to turn heads. If, for example, you only offer a certificate for $50 worth of free gas if a customer makes a $1000 purchase, that’s not going to encourage very many people to come into your store. In general, the closer the values of the purchase and the free gas and grocery certificate are, the more people will respond. That same $50 free gas certificate, if offered in exchange for a $100 purchase, will generate more interest. A $500 free grocery certificate in exchange for a $1000 purchase will have the same effect. The ultimate is to offer a certificate equal to the amount of the purchase—for example, a $300 free gas certificate for a $300 purchase—because customers will see that as “free money”, and consider themselves fools not to take you up on the offer.

MEDIA MATTERS

If your free gas and grocery is sufficiently sensationalistic (such as in the last example mentioned above), it might generate enough interest to be newsworthy. Contact your local newspaper and television news program, and let them know about your sale. There’s always the chance they’ll have a slow news day, and decide to run an article or news report on your free gas or grocery promotion. This is essentially fantastic, free advertising. Even if your local media declines to do a spot on your promotion, you haven’t really lost anything—it takes almost no time or money to have made a phone call or mailed a letter.

FOLLOWUP AND FEEBBACK

Finally, make it as easy as possible for customers to collect on their free gas and grocery certificates. Your free gas and grocery campaign can backfire if the first round of certificate holders grumble to their friends that your promotion wasn’t all it was cracked up to be—or even a scam. That’s the kind of free advertising you DON’T want.

Instead, explain the redemption process to your customers in detail. Provide them with written instructions. Finally, purchase your free gas and grocery certificates from a redemption company that makes it simple and easy for certificate holders to get their free gas or groceries, with a minimum of conditions, restrictions, deadlines, or hoops for the customer to jump through.

Michael Goulet
Free Fuel Nationwide Team Leader
http://incentivesgroceryandgas.com
w-612-377-5262
Fax-480-304-9095
michaelg@freegrocerycenters.com

Believe it or not, free gas and grocery certificates are one of the most successful incentives in the marketing world. Such incentives can increase sales up to 30%, making it one of the highest rates of return on investment. For some, however, this may seem completely illogical. If a customer buys $500 worth of my merchandise, and in exchange I give them a certificate for $500 worth of free gas, how could I possibly make a profit?

The simple answer is that a $500 free gas certificate does not cost you, the retailer, $500. Instead, you buy the certificates in bulk at a greatly discounted rate, just pennies to the dollar (and the more you buy at once, the lower the cost per certificate). Therefore, the comparatively small cost of the certificate justifies itself by encouraging a customer to make a large purchase they might not otherwise have made.

Okay, that makes sense, you might say. But doesn’t that mean that someone, somewhere, is losing money. The answer to that question is yes… and no. It’s complicated. The goal of this article is to explain that complicated system to you, so that you understand how everyone involved benefits from free gas and grocery incentives.

Free gas and grocery incentives are underwritten by fuel and food companies as part of a strategy to generate guaranteed repeat sales, regular customers, and brand loyalty. They see the free gas or groceries not as a giveaway, but as an investment in creating a loyal customer from whom they will make much more that $500 over the course of their lifetime.

You see, in order to use the certificate for free gas or groceries, the customer has to select one grocery store or gas station where they can redeem their free goods. And they don’t get, for example, $500 worth of free gas all at once—they get it gradually over several months. Rather, they purchase gas and groceries as usual, and at the end of each month they mail their receipts for the gas or groceries along with a redemption coupon to the redemption company. If they spent at least $100 dollars on gas or groceries that month at the store they previously selected, then the redemption company send them a gift certificate for $25 at the store they selected. This continued every month until the customer has redeemed the full value of their free gas or grocery certificate value.

So, although a gas company may be giving away, for example, $500 worth of free gas, they are guaranteed at least $2000 worth of sales from that customer, for a net return of $1500. Furthermore, they have this customer’s loyalty for a period of months or even years. For example, for a customer to redeem the full value of a $500 free gas card, they’d have to fill up at the same gas station for 20 months ($500 divided by $25 per month = 20 months). Besides, once the free gas certificate runs out, the customer will probably still shop at the same gas station or grocery store anyway—stuff like that becomes habit forming after several months.

So the grocery and gas companies get guaranteed sales, the redemption companies that sell the certificates get paid for their services, retailers like you make more sales, and the customer gets free stuff. It’s a win-win situation all around. Or, more specifically, a win-win-win-win situation.

Michael Goulet
Free Fuel Nationwide Team Leader
http://incentivesgroceryandgas.com
w-612-235-6372
Fax-480-304-9095
michaelg@freegrocerycenters.com

HOW FREE GAS AND GROCERY PROMOTIONS WORK

The vast majority of consumers hold to the traditional folk wisdom that if a deal looks too good to be true, it probably is. If they don’t discount it immediately as some sort of scam, they are at least deeply suspicious, wary of requirements, conditions, and loopholes. That want to know “what’s the catch?”

Unfortunately, free gas and grocery promotions fall into this “too good to be true” category. If you tell a potential customer that, for example, if they buy a car you’ll give them a certificate for $500 worth of free gas, they are instantly suspicious and on their guard. Many will ask you what the catch is. Consequently, if you use free gas and grocery promotions, you have to know them backwards and forwards. You need to be able to explain to a customer, on a moment’s notice, exactly how the gas and grocery certificates work so thoroughly that they have no doubts left that the offer is indeed legitimate. To help you in that, this article will explain in detail just exactly how free gas and grocery promotions work.

First, you (the store owner) purchase a number of these free gas and/or grocery certificates from a redemption company. You buy them at a greatly discounted rate, paying “pennies on the dollar”. You then use these certificates as an incentive to get customers to buy your product or service.

The best analogy that you can use to explain the process to your customer are the mail-in rebates for items at electronics stores like Best Buy. The customer pays full price for the item, mails in the rebate receipt, and within a few weeks the company mail back a check for the rebate amount.

To use free gas and grocery promotions, the customer must:

1. Choose a gas station (for gas certificates) or grocery store (for grocery certificates) that they want to use their certificate with. They can choose any store they want, but then must always use the same store for the entire certificate redemption period.

2. Activate the free gas or grocery certificate, and state which store they plan to use it at. They can do this either online or through the mail.

3. The redemption company provides the customer a redemption coupon that is printable from the registration site (much like a mail-in rebate form) with the customer’s name, activation number, and month & year the coupon needs to be sent in on.

4. On the first day of the next month, the customer begins saving receipts of their gas and/or grocery purchases.

5. At the end of the month, the customer mails in the redemption coupon for that month and their receipts to the redemption company.

6. If their receipts show they have spent at LEAST $100 on gas or groceries that month at the store they previously selected, the redemption company will mail the customer a $25 VISA gift card which the customer may use anywhere.

7. They continue this process until the certificate amount is used up. For example, if they received a certificate for $100 in free gas, they can get $25 in free gas once a month for four months. If they get a certificate for $500 in free gas, they can get a gift card for $25 worth of gas once a month for 20 months ($25 per month x 20 months = $500.00).

That’s how it works. The customer does have a few hoops to jump through, and a deadline each month, but nothing unreasonable. If you explain this clearly enough to them, hopefully they’ll become convinced that your free gas or grocery promotion is legitimate. That builds customer trust—something worth its weight in gold in a competitive marketplace.

Michael Goulet
Free Fuel Nationwide Team Leader
http://incentivesgroceryandgas.com
w-612-235-6372
Fax-480-304-9095
michaelg@freegrocerycenters.com

HOW TO SHOP FOR FREE GAS AND GROCERY CERTIFICATES

Given how successful free gas and grocery promotions have become as the world has fallen on economic hard times, you might be thinking on doing one of these promotions for your own business. You may quickly discover, however, that there are lots of redemption companies out there who will sell you the free gas and grocery redemption certificates and handle the processing for you. How do you know which company to buy from? What should you be looking for in these companies? How does one know how to shop for free gas and grocery certificates? This article will guide you through what to look for in a company, and what services might be worth paying a premium for.

Don’t be driven by the lowest price alone. There are many other important service factors to consider before choosing a supplier for your free gas and grocery certificates. The two main areas to examine are how easy it is for the customer to redeem the certificates, and how flexible the company is in working with you.

First and foremost, carefully examine the company’s process for customers to redeem their free gas and grocery certificates. Find the company that offers the simplest and easiest method for certificate redemption, with the fewest hoops the customer has to jump through. It is important to do the best you can to make sure your customers do indeed get the free stuff that motivated them to make a large purchase of your merchandise in the first place. Why? Because if they have difficultly collecting their free gas and groceries—and especially if they aren’t able to collect the full amount of their certificate—they’ll feel cheated, scammed, and complain about you to their friends. The last thing you want your company to have is a reputation for failing to deliver on promises and cheating customers.

Some redemption company’s certificates can only be used at certain stores, which may irritate some customers. Other certificates expire in unreasonable amounts of time. Some enforce strict deadlines that if the customer fails to meet, the certificate is forfeit. These are just some of the many terms, conditions, restrictions, and red tape some companies use in an attempt to prevent the customer from collecting the full amount. The customer, naturally, we be frustrated with the redemption company, but take their anger out on you for offering them a bum card.

When shopping for a redemption company to buy certificates from, look for one that has a relatively simple and easy process for collecting the free goods. Look for a company that lets the customer use the certificate at whatever store they want, issues cards that don’t expire, either reasonable or no activation deadlines, and comb the rules carefully and make sure there are no loopholes though which a customer’s certificate may be forfeited altogether.

As for your end, look for a company that’s flexible in working with you. You probably won’t find a redemption company that will give you one free trial certificate, or let you purchase only five or ten. Redemption companies make their profits by selling free gas and grocery cards in bulk. Some companies, however, offer amounts of certificates as low as 25, which provides you with an inexpensive way to do a “trial run” to see if this type of promotion works for your company. Look for redemption companies that offer cheaper per-certificate prices if you buy larger quantities.

Look for redemption companies that offer a wide variety of certificate amounts. The most common are amounts of $50, $100, $150, $250, $300, $450, and $500. Another benefit to look for is a company that will let you mix and match the card amounts in your bulk purchase. Finally, another great bonus to look for is a redemption company that will let you put your company logo on the free gas and grocery certificates. This simple thing can help you turn each certificate into a free advertisement reminding the customer that your company provided them with all that free stuff.

Michael Goulet
Free Fuel Nationwide Team Leader
http://incentivesgroceryandgas.com
w-612-235-6372
Fax-480-304-9095
michaelg@freegrocerycenters.com