How to build sales promotion content

Adam Miller
Director - Mosaic Marketing

Budgets are squeezed in these straightened times and with so many online resources at your finger tips, you may be tempted to build your own sales promotion content? Here's how Mosaic Marketing does it.

Build up a comprehensive black book of contacts in the leisure, lifestyle and promotions industry over several years - the longer the better. These relationships will be your lifeblood, some you might one day call friends. When timing is tight (when isn't it?), you want to be sure that they'll always take your call and trust that you're calling about something worthwhile.

Ideally you'll have a state of the art integrated relationship management system to keep track of all your correspondence not just for your benefit but your colleagues as well.

Once you've decided on a theme for your content, you'll need to do a feasibility study. (It's worth a little effort to achieve a high level of confidence in delivering your proposition before you get it signed off by the CEO. It saves red faces later). If it's a single partner you're after you'll hopefully have them in your black book. If not Google can sometimes give up the name or you could even try and connect on LinkedIn.

Most big companies operate a 'no names policy' so trying to get past a gate-keeper or receptionist can be a thankless task. It's here that a good black book is invaluable.

If you're going for something more unusual, or with a number of independent partners, the options are extensive. You could buy into an existing programme but that can mean paying a premium price for an inflexible generic solution. The alternative is to sign up partners yourself. So, how many do you think you will need? It's statistically proven that people travel less far for personal services (like hair cuts and beauty treatments) than general experiences like a family day out.

As a rule of thumb we would suggest that you need at least 300 venues to give good national coverage across the UK - plenty of chains claim good coverage with fewer.

If you haven't put together such campaigns before you'll need to go about sourcing a database of partners. You can buy them from list brokers, trawl public directories online (which won't normally reveal names) or approach an industry body (if there is one). Industry bodies can be invaluable but you can never second guess matters of policy which might preclude them from working with you.

However you get your data, it's worth bearing in mind that not everyone will say yes to your opportunity. (Yes, unbelievable we know!) Sign up rates vary but you should make allowance for as few as 1 in 10 saying yes.

For feasibility purposes a simple topline expression of interest can often suffice but we'd feel safer with a firm yes in writing; after all it's your neck on the line if they end up saying no. If you're actually building the promotion for real, then you absolutely MUST get every venue to sign a contract. If you can't produce a contract for every single location then you have no course for re-dress if something goes wrong.

The contract needs to be legally binding and enforceable. It should spell out the nature of the offer / prize being provided by the partner and document an example of the promotion's Terms and Conditions. ALL terms and conditions should comply with the prevailing Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) Code which governs our industry. This can be conducted by the IPM Legal Advice Service, PromoVeritas or a reputable promotional lawyer for a fee.

When you're approaching a prospective partner it is imperative that you command their attention - chances are it won't be the only opportunity in your prospect's in-tray. If they recognise your name (or your company) and worked with you before, their trust in you will move you up the pecking order.

The resource you devote to telesales depends on the scale and nature of your promotion. For dining promotions you may need to work restaurant hours to get hold of the right person. In our experience, it's always better to hit the recruitment as hard as possible from the outset to generate maximum momentum. Your confidence in the promotion will grow and so will the confidence of your team, which is highly infectious. Partners are going to be far more interested in joining a promotion where there is an air of demand and desirability, rather than utter desperation.

When you approach 80% of your target, you should plot a coverage map using robust geographical visualisation software. This will allow you to view your participating venues by category, by region or perhaps in relation to stores where your products are sold. Use measurement tools to quickly assess lighter areas and allow you to focus your final recruitment effort.

Your promotion will inevitably benefit from a supporting microsite. In many instances this will need to integrate with your parent site (and potentially your partners too), provide a mechanic for participating in the promotion and the all important venue locator.

Bear in mind that higher than anticipated traffic will influence server bandwidth, support and recovery procedures, backup capacity and may even breach the daily limit of your mapping service so have contingencies in place to avoid service interruption. Development of websites can form the critical path of your project so it's important to get your specifications clearly defined from the outset.

Before a campaign can go live you need to source and compile logos, artwork and copy from all venues - a time consuming exercise. You may even need to improvise generic artwork or draft copy yourself to ease the process and facilitate the smaller businesses.

If you plan on running this activity again or you need to measure campaign performance you will need to implement some means of redemption tracking from the start. Every partner or brand owner must sign off and approve all artwork that features their brand. Again, this should categorically be in writing as printed mistakes can be costly. You will need to develop a comprehensive briefing pack for every element of the customer journey: staff at partner venues, customer services and staff at the retail outlets carrying the promotion. Verify that the briefing packs have been received and staff have been briefed or all your hard work will be for nothing.

Once the campaign is live be prepared for customer service enquiries. The volume of calls will depend on the exposure of the promotional offer, whether you have a technical aspect to participating in the promotion and how well you built it in the first place.

If you've laid the foundations right you should receive very few calls about the content itself. More often than not you will have people struggling to use their computer to access a website or print a voucher.

Therefore ensure that your customer service function is technically proficient, polite and above all patient. Remember your responsibility is to ensure the best possible customer experience at all times.

If you handle a problem call well you not only diffuse a consumer's frustration but you can turn a potentially negative experience into a positive interaction with your brand.

So, if you don't want to wait a few years to develop an enviable database of partner relationships or risk your money working with an inferior supplier, get in touch with Mosaic Marketing, the award winning professionals. Of course every company is going to claim they're the best at what they do, but in summarising our award category, the IPM declared that 'for a service partner to be singled out in a nominated campaign means they are themselves amongst the best in the UK, if not the world.'

Feel safe in the knowledge that Mosaic will take on all the hassle, frustration and attention to detail required to make your promotion succeed, while you concentrate on the bigger picture.

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