Unfortunately, free rebate certificate 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 (we offer six categories plus a Combo), 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 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: (for this article I’m referring to Gas and Grocery but we have six categories available – Gas, Grocery, Dining, Pharmacy, Pet and Retail

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 ONLY do this online.
(Your customer must have access to a computer)

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. Receipts must be entered by the end of the month and mailed before the 15th of following month – see “Terms and Conditions” on actual certificates. 

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 $20 VISA gift card or make a “Direct Deposit” on their Visa card which the customer may use anywhere. ( or Option B – 24 hour turn around after approval of physical receipts)

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 $20 in free gas once a month for five months.  If they get a certificate for $500 in free gas, they can get a gift card for $20 worth of gas once a month for 25 months ($20 per month x 25 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.

The following is a “Industry Specific” slideshow presentation on HOW the actual system works.
This presentation is for the “Home Security” industry.
http://incentivesgroceryandgas.com/slideshow/security/starrebates

Only the Best,

Michael Goulet – TL
Direct Strategies, Inc.
“The Incentive Pros!”
http://incentivesgroceryandgas.com
http://www.incentivebasedpromotions.com/    (Star Rebates)

April 19, 2010

Dear Mr. Pouls:

We have a successful furniture business in Waite Park, Minnesota. We researched Star Rebates and contacted some companies that have done business with you. We learned that Star Rebates has a stellar reputation and that you have had no problems.

The Star Rebates program is simple and is set up to help the customers avoid mistakes, such as sending in the wrong receipts. Our customers are receiving their rebates via gift cards and direct credit to their Visa cards. We have had several customers comment on how much they like the program, and we have even had previous certificate holders return to make additional purchases!

We definitely are pleased with the promotional value of this program, and our customers have expressed their appreciation to us. We will continue to take advantage of this program – it has been a great resource!

Star Rebates is doing a fantastic job in providing our customers with very efficient and timely service. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions regarding this program. Thank you Star Rebates!

Sincerely,
Phil Loch and Dale Dirkes

Here is and industry specific presentation just created for the Home Security Business. Will have more presentations soon covering multiple industries.

Check how our Rebate Certificate can be used in your business.

http://incentivesgroceryandgas.com/slideshow/security/starrebates

Our Introduction Presentation

Rebate certificates are THE BEST incentives EVER for business owners to get new customers or referrals and to make more sales. I’ve had store owners of major brands in all industries tell me that. And here is a brand new testimonial about how fast they pay out. (Note: this may not be typical but remember, consumers are guaranteed to get their Visa Card within 30 days of having their receipts approved.)

“Thank you for the 2 gas/grocery certificates worth $1000 ($500 each). I registered my $500 fuel and $500 food certificates on January 27, 2010.

For just pennies on the dollar, you can give your customers one of these free travel offers for just making a purchase, renewing their membership, referring a friend, or joining or your mailing list. How about enticing your customers to make a larger purchase by giving them not just one, but twenty of the most popular vacation destinations, which have been jammed-packed in our Lifetime Travel Book. An incredible $15,000 in value!

Or if you prefer, we’ll customize a travel offer just for you!

LifeTime Travel Book:

The LifeTime Travel Book is truly an amazing product. It is made up of 20 of the most popular travel offers. These travel offers never expire so the customer can take a trip every year for the rest of their life and never have to worry about the trips not being valid or the fees going up.

To redeem, the customer simply goes to www.LifeTimeTravelBook.com. Once on the site, they click the button called “Click Here To Register Now.” They will then enter their serial number and click “Continue.” From here, all they have to do is choose the travel offer they are interested in and then proceed to redeem that offer.

Please note that the Travel Incentive Program is built on upgrades. So in some instances, a customer may only pay taxes or boarding fees or some registration fees which is far cheaper then getting the whole trip and paying for it. But the company makes its money by booking each reservation over the phone and trying to then upgrade the customer from a two night stay to a four night stay or from an inside cruise cabin to a cabin with a view, from coach airfare to business class or from a standard vacation from one that includes car rentals, excursions, etc.

To learn about our travel partner please visit www.ClaimYourFunPlanetVacations.com and click on the testimonial button. There you will find 20 or so testimonials regarding the company and their travel program.

Travel has been around forever but there has never been a LifeTime Travel Book. The travel company, is really a travel agency that redeems the products in the LifeTime Travel book. An amazing statistic is that only 3% of the travel offers are redeemed exactly as offered. The other 97% choose some form of an upgrade – and that is how a travel company makes its money.

In the very near future our LifeTime Travel Book will be offered as a Fundraising opportunity for Non-Profits.

Only the Best,

Michael Goulet – Team Leader
Direct Strategies, Inc. – “The Incentive Pros!”
http://incentivesgroceryandgas.com
michaelg@freegrocerycenters.com

• The site is full of information that will help any prospective or current client understand WHAT we do, HOW we do it, and WHY we can continue on the long road
• Pay close attention to the ADVERTISE link (numerous options to our clients) – how about a list option that is growing at close to 50,000 new members per month you could have access to (refined to Zip Code for local impact)
• We are opening dozens of Manufacturer FORUMS over the next 30 days.  We will be connecting the manufacturer with their buyers.  Social Networking is HOT right now and will be for some time to come.  Manufacturers will be able to display audio/video, do surveys, polling, offer specials and coupons all within their own private label forum.  The manufacturer will assign a moderator for the forum.  All users in the forum will be able to communicate with each other as well.  For example if it was the Weight Watchers forum the users could exchange recipes.  And Weight Watchers might be introducing a new meal and offer it FREE for taking a survey or deep discounts.
• We have a FREE discount prescription card coming shortly that will be FREE to every end user that entitles them to up to 60% off prescriptions.  $500 in Rewards Cash that will get them Entertainment coupons that offer 2 for 1 restaurant discounts, and the ability to purchase $25 OFF coupons in restaurants across the USA for ONLY $5.  And the list goes on and on…
• The new Pharmacy/RX certificate is right around the corner.  Stay close!
• If you’re facilitating, sitting on the fence thinking about what you could do improve your business etc…what are you waiting for exactly…
• We have the solution “Incentives That Work“!

You, the retailer, buy a large number of certificates for free gas and groceries at a greatly discounted rate (pennies on the dollar). ( View our Presentation Certificate Program PowerPoint)
You then offer these certificates as an incentive for customers to buy your merchandise.  Historically, these types of incentives have worked well, and the gas and grocery incentives are very popular due to the rising cost of both fuel and food in these tough economic times.  The traditional use of these free gas and grocery vouchers is to offer a customer one of these certificates if they buy a certain dollar amount of merchandise from you.  Although that works quite well, there is so much more you can use these gas and grocery certificates for.  This article will give you a list of ideas.

Use gas and grocery incentive certificates to:

·    in exchange for scheduling in-home sales demonstrations
·    get a customer lead to come in and hear your sales pitch
·    get new customers to sign up for new services
·    to get customers to extend the length of their service agreements
·    get dormant customers to order new or repeat services
·    encourage customers to make big purchases
·    as customer loyalty rewards for repeat business
·    reward customers who refer new customers to you.
·    to get more traffic for seasonal businesses (like landscaping) during off-months
·    to encourage customer spending during economic downturns
·    to attract big crowds for grand opening events
·    to create free advertising through a local media buzz
·    to win out over competitors who normally could undersell you
·    as the prize for employee sales competitions
·    to encourage employees to hit sales goals
·    as employee attendance or safety rewards
·    use a few certificates cards for your company’s vehicle fleet – everyone likes free gas, even you!

For Non-Profit Organizations:

·    to encourage higher donations during fund raising
·    as prizes for raffles or other contests
·    to generate attendance and sell more seats at seminars

As you can see, there are tons of ways to use gas and grocery incentive certificates.  A little creative thinking will take you a long way.  As a general rule of thumb, the trick is to find out what the key is to making a sale, then offer the gas and grocery incentive certificates to get customers to do just that.

Let me give you an example.  In automotive sales, for example, if you can get the customer behind the wheel for a test drive, the chances that they’ll buy the vehicle rises dramatically.  Knowing this, a car dealership in New York ordered 700 gas certificates, and offered them to customers during a weekend event in exchange for just coming in and taking a car for a test drive.  By 5:00 AM the morning of the event, they had people lined up outside the door.  By the end of the first day, they had to place an emergency phone call to order more gas certificates just to make it through the weekend.  The sales campaign worked so well, that dealership now orders 5,000 gas certificates per month on a regular basis.

If you try a gas or grocery incentive-based sales campaign, tinker with different approached and conditions for customers to get the incentive certificates.  Experiment and find the approach that works best for your particular business.

Michael Goulet – Team Leader
Direct Strategies, Inc.
“The Incentive Pros!”
http://incentivesgroceryandgas.com
w-612-377-5262
Fax-480-304-9095
michaelg@freegrocerycenters.com

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

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

Marketing minds have come up with a incentive program.  Our program allows you to purchase grocery certificates at pennies on the dollar to offer to your customers.  Grocery certificates are something that will get everyone’s attention since 100 % of people eat and most drive.  By giving grocery certificates to your customers, you are boosting your business while retaining your sales.  How does this work?  Well, when marketing minds work in synch, we can find a unique way to help you.  When your company buys these certificates from us, you hand them out to customers. Once they have spent a set amount of money with your company, they can be redeemed for groceries or gas at any location.
It’s a gas or grocery certificate that entitles their customer to participate in an EXCLUSIVE, INVITATION ONLY rebate program.

The ways you can use this incentive program is limitless (2 minute presentation) – you can do this as a Grand Opening incentive, customer loyalty award, new customer reward, or any other way you can imagine. Some businesses use them to schedule in-home demonstrations.  The success has been phenomenal for these businesses.  “One large Northwest furniture outlet with 24 locations used over 3,000 gas certificates for a three month promotion. To qualify for a $500 certificate customers had to purchase at least $999 worth of furniture. You do the math… the company brought in over 3 Million dollars during that promotion. And since then they have purchased 1,000 grocery certificates for a new promotion.”

Let us explain how this program works.  Your company purchases the certificate for a greatly reduced price.  You give your customer the certificate when they spend a certain amount of money with your company, and you are only spending pennies on the dollar to offer this deal.  Companies who tested this method of incentives for customers with one hundred certificates are now ordering them every week because of such a huge increase in business.  See an increase of up to 30% in sales!  This will be invigorating to your employees as they see the increase in traffic.

Please visit my site and watch our Presentation, review our FAQ for additional details http://incentivesgroceryandgas.com

Now that you have found the secret to increased sales and customer incentives, hurry and contact us so we can help get your business going!

Michael Goulet
Free Fuel Nationwide Representative
michaelg@freegrocerycenters.com
612-235-6372

Gas and grocery are the main theme through out article. We offer a total of 8 certificate categories in which the same principals apply.(we offer Eight Certificate options)

Rebate Certificates reward consumers for being loyal customers of their favorite grocery store, gas station, retail/department store, pharmacy, spa, movie theater, restaurant or sporting event. That’s eight different categories which, in exchange for submitting their monthly receipts, customers get $100, $300, or $500 in Visa cards as a “thank you” for being a loyal customer!

Grocery and Gas certificates are something that will get everyone’s attention since 100 % of people eat.  By giving grocery or gas certificates to your customers, you are boosting your business while retaining your sales.  How does this work? It’s a gas or grocery certificate that entitles their customer to participate in an EXCLUSIVE, INVITATION ONLY rebate program.

When marketing minds work in sync, we can find a unique way to help you.  When your company buys these certificates from us, you hand them out to customers. You can do this as a Grand Opening incentive, customer loyalty award, new customer reward, or any other way you can imagine. Some businesses use them to schedule in-home demonstrations. The success has been phenomenal for these businesses.

The ideas for using these certificates don’t stop here. By using these certificates, you will have very loyal customers AND increased profit margins.  You can use it as a lure to extend the length of service agreements, increase the traffic to your location, generate a local media buzz, gain market information on your customer base, and offer promotions that are impressive compared with your competition.

Your company purchases the certificate for a greatly reduced price. You give your customer the certificate when they spend a certain amount of money with your company, and you are only spending pennies on the dollar to offer this deal.  Companies who tested this method of incentives for customers with one hundred certificates are now ordering them every week because of such a huge increase in business. With one car dealer, the results were so amazing for a free gas offer he had to order emergency certificates to make it through the weekend.  Can you imagine this kind of traffic to your business and how this will excite your employees?  Please contact us for more information on pricing.

So contact us to provide your customers with a great product from you and an incentive to go with it.  Let’s keep the economy rolling!

Please visit my site and review our FAQ for additional details.

Michael Goulet – Team Leader
Direct Strategies, Inc. – “The Incentive Pros!”
http://incentivesgroceryandgas.com
http://incentivebasedpromotions.com/ (Product Site)
http://fundraisingandincentives.com/ (Non-Profit Certificates)
http://fundraisingandtravel.com/ (Non-Profit TravelBook)
w-612-377-5262
Fax-480-304-9095
michaelg@freegrocerycenters.com