Case History: TreValli Discount Coupons

One of the most interesting projects I have been following lately, and one that has yielded surprising results, is the on.line Discount Coupons operation that I have been following for TreValli Cooperlat, the milk and dairy giant, between the end of December 2012 and February 2013. For the first time the company decided to use only and exclusively on.line tools for a nationwide marketing operation, obviously setting precise and binding directives, first of all: the budget. With the marketing team (Dr. Federico Camiciottoli, Dr. Andrea Alfieri, Dr. Stefano Mancini) I worked out a viral distribution strategy of vouchers in electronic format. But let's start with the goals, which are very different and ambitious:

1. Push the cooking cream product to the market, increasing shelf rotation (sales)
2. Offer an opportunity to introduce this excellent product to those who have always used the competition (branding)
3. Build a well-profiled database of potential buyers (prospect catcher)

THE STRATEGY FOR TREVALLI COOPERLAT

The idea is simple, to create a registration and incentive funnel through which people register, download vouchers and then have the opportunity to double them by inviting other people through social or email. We get right to work and first look for a name. Using one of my favorite tools, Market Samurai, we see that the term DISCOUNT VOUCHERS is the most searched word that has a bearing on the marketing operation. So you register BuoniScontoTrevalli.co.uk.

The next step, of course, is the creation of a landing page. Having installed WordPress, we go to use Instabuilder, a powerful plugin that allows us to:

• Quickly design a landing page, even in mobile format
• enter the form we want
• implement the incentive mechanism-already included in Instabuilder!
• share on social media without any problems

In addition, this plugin, besides being extremely flexible and adaptable to any WordPress theme, is easy to use. The options it offers are more than enough to cover every need and its panel is intuitive enough to be easily understood in 20 minutes.

In our case, the landing page does not have to be spectacular, but effective. It has to load quickly and have very clear calls to action. Anyone must be able to register and understand the incentive mechanism; we thought of moms and aunts, not digital natives. The graphics are almost spartan, but it has everything you need: LOGO of TreValli Cooperlat, photo of the product on offer, 4 lines of explanation, registrrane form well in view, all outline sub pages (privacy, rules, contact...).

Here's what was happening (the promotion ended on Feb. 28) when arriving at the page:

1. you register by filling out the form entirely (full name, e-mail, cell phone, zip code, city)
2. you download the vouchers and are offered the chance to double
3. you have a uniquely identifiable link available to you: share it to bring other people to the landing page and--magic: you can download another set of vouchersBy timing the entire process (something I recommend everyone always do) it takes 70 to 140 seconds to do everything. Statistics then will tell me that the average time spent on the site was 1 minute and 25 seconds. A very good time I would say for a 2-page site, especially, compared to the sharing data we found: over 65% of the subscribers shared the offer (the data is still visible on the home page today). The coupon site for Trevalli Cooperlat was ready in one day.
   

   A PROBLEM AND THE SOLUTION

   Rightly, TreValli Cooperlat managers raise a problem: "What if users start printing hundreds of copies of coupons?" Being an operation developed internally without direct involvement of the signs and without electronic verification at the checkout, the problem indeed could arise. Nothing tragic, after all, these are coupons that in order to be used, imply the purchase of the product (objective No. 1), but that could in any case create some uncomfortable situation.

   The solution comes to me by thinking about the psychological factor that a personalization can play. Let me explain. If you have an anonymous coupon, and you go to a store where you are not known, you might as well bring 100 and maybe no one notices... If, on the other hand, as a result of registration where you leave all your information, the coupons are offered to you with imprinted on them: first and last name...? Well then you think twice before photocopying and distributing the coupons, since the coupons are then sent to TreValli Cooperlat and the data are cross-referenced with the database of registered people. And so it was done. With a few changes to the code, it was possible to include, in addition to the various notes and warnings about the correct use of the voucher, the data of the holder. A simple and inexpensive way to safeguard everyone.

   LAUNCH AND RESULTS

   The startup was easier than expected because it was enough to trigger curiosity on social for people to start flocking to the landing page. The viral mechanism worked and for every visitor 3, 5, 15 more were coming! A self-powered exponential growth that led, at the end of the promotion, to the registration of as many as 8,616 people and more than 50,000 vouchers distributed, with a total cost incurred by the company of about 1 euro per contact.

   TREVALLI COOPERLAT COUPONS: CONCLUSIONS

   The real strength of these operations is not only in the success that can be achieved upon reaching short-term goals, but in the management of the capital that is being built up, which are the leads/prospects captured. With the appropriate followup operations, it is much easier at that point to retain and convert leads into subsequent marketing operations. With such a strong base of more than 8000 profiled consumers, it will be possible to do targeted and geo-localized e-mail marketing campaigns, sms campaigns and enrich one's database with surveys and inquiries. All three goals were achieved in 60 days of activity run entirely on autopilot (once the initial traffic was triggered, the site traveled on its own without any intervention), its implementation took only 4 days of work, and brought incredible results using a very small budget.