Holiday Selling Tactic #493: Provide Lagniappe
November 26th, 2007
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If you’re in retail, ’tis the season for milking the moment for all it’s worth. This is retail make-it-or-break-it time.
Wondering if you’d like to contribute ideas here for holiday selling tactics that make the most of the last days of 2007, a time when people have saved money for purchases and are now ready to turn that money loose.
What spurred me to think about selling tactics for the holiday season was reading this word earlier in the day: "Lagniappe", which is defined at TheFreeDictionary.com as,
1. A small gift presented by a storeowner to a customer with the customer’s purchase.
2. An extra or unexpected gift or benefit.
this note is also included in their definition…
Regional Note: Lagniappe derives from New World Spanish la ñapa, "the gift," and ultimately from Quechua yapay, "to give more." The word came into the rich Creole dialect mixture of New Orleans and there acquired a French spelling. It is still used in the Gulf states, especially southern Louisiana, to denote a little bonus that a friendly shopkeeper might add to a purchase. By extension, it may mean "an extra or unexpected gift or benefit."
Giving a gift with purchase is an old-school selling tactic. But it works. People who know there’s a special something they’ll receive if they buy something are often seduced by this simple "value-add"! ![""]("http://www.startupnation.com/blog/uploads/10/images.jpg")
But beyond incentive, providing a little something extra also shows that you care about your customer. And it may just influence them down the road when they need to buy something again and weigh you against alternatives.
Even if you’re a service business, say, a consultant, you’ll be well-served to serve up a little extra love to your clients - show them you’re grateful for their 2007 patronage and that you look forward to working with them in ‘08.
Other than "Tactic #493: Provide Lagniappe", can you share holiday selling techniques that are sure to generate results?
December 4th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Create signage that will attract, not annoy customers. Here’s some low-cost, high-impact ways…
1. Since movement always attracts attention, any banner, sign set of a pole that might move with the wind or electrically-turned sign will stand out from the static messages around it.
2. A retailer could become known for catchy sayings, advice, or questions (that are answered in the next day or week’s sign message). Messages may or may not be directly related to the store’s products or services – but they should appeal to the store’s kind of clients. For example, a beauty salon may have hair-related sayings – or simple quotes on beauty – and wit.
3. For 24-hour involvement, consider videoing local notables (from mayor to sports columnist) and attention-getting people (cute kids, beautiful adults, etc.) using or discussing your product/service.
Creating a continuous feed video loop of the short vignettes and put the video in a TV monitor inside the store for viewing – and/or another on a stand in the window, facing out with the sound piped out from above peoples’ heads (where vandals cannot damage the site where the sound is sent outside. That way passersby can watch.
We are all voyeurs. We like to eavesdrop or see each other in action, especially in fun, odd, inspiring, humorous or other human situations. So-called “reality TV” has proved that.
4. Do a variation of the Burma-Shave signs of America’s past where people driving through long stretches of boring desert or other unchanging landscapes. The sequence of signs had progressive rhyming lines to pull people into the message.
A set of stores on a block could co-create a continuing set of signs, with messages about their stores in a continuing theme. Each side of the signs, set out perpendicular to their storefronts, could be read, sequence, by the passersby in their car or on foot, depending on the sign placement.
Adapt your selling to make prospects comfortable in these less-certain times What kinds of online and on-location marketing will attract more shoppers, spending and buzz in this New Normal world?
Consider consumers desire for comfort, security and personal recognition – and exactly how you will serve those largely unspoken needs:
1. “Time-Starved Culture”
Both bricks and mortar and ‘only online” stores could offer the opportunity for shoppers to fill out a shopping list online of their gift recipients’ names and mailing addresses . . .
2. “Need to be Known in a Relationship-Diminished World”
. . . Then enable the customer to write a personal message to each of her/his intended gift recipients . . .
3. “Worried About Money”
. . .then offer, upfront, a “special savings” if your customer spends at least a certain level of money on the gift list (thus encouraging great per-customer spending, with less labor and marketing costs for the retailer)
4. “Seeking Value”
. . or, rather than offer a “special savings”, cross-promote with another retailer who also reaches the same kind of customer and agree to give one of your gifts to their biggest spending customers (coming to your store to pick up the gift) in exchange for your cross-promoting partner to give a gift of the same value to your biggest spenders.
Thus the SmartPartnering retailers gain access to each others’ most lucrative kind of customer in a credible and cost-effective manner, while offering their customers an enticing reason to spend more.
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