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McCurry Associates Marketing Idea Exchange Archives
Volume 38 - March 27, 2003
Editor's Note: Normally there are three or four ideas in
the McCurry Marketing Idea Exchange - we are varying from that format this issue
as the success from Dan's Camera City is a huge idea but worth you considering
how you can adapt this idea for your use.
Mike Woodland, Dan's Camera City, Allentown, PA (www.danscamera.com)
Last Sunday was beautiful spring weather
and the start of the war. Despite all this we still got over 1,200 people to
attend our Digital Camera Expo Day at the Bethlehem, Pennsylvania Holiday Inn.
WHY THE CUSTOMERS CAME
- We promoted "Come Learn about digital
photography" - See products, demonstrations and samples.
- Ask lots of questions - Free
- Win door prizes - Have fun
- Enjoy special one day only pricing
WHAT CUSTOMERS SAW WHEN THEY GOT THERE
- Six vendor tables (Canon, Fuji, Konica, Minolta, Nikon,
Olympus) with a minimum of three people staffing each table. If the company
couldn't provide the staff then we loaned them one of our people.
- Numerous tables by Dan's Camera City with things like:
- Ink jet printers
- Paper and ink for printers
- LCD projector giving "tour" of Dan's
website, including uploading pictures hosted by our "Digi-Julie"
spokes model from our website
- Accessories like memory, memory cases, tripods,
bags, chargers, batteries, books, etc. (some of which was on consignment
as we didn't know how successful this event would be.)
- The local cable provider had a table promoting their
"Mega Modem" for broadband - they set up a "green
screen" and took digital pictures of customers then printed them out so
the customer was on the set of game show Jeopardy talking with Alex Trebek -
customers loved that.
- Three of our in store kiosks were set up so customers
could see demonstrations and order "real photographs" from their
digital media
- Photo Finale (software company) came and did live
"classroom" demonstrations on how to use their software, including
how to access our website and order real photographic prints from their
digital media.
- Raffles and door prizes - with help from vendors and on
our own, we gave away free digital cameras plus certificates for reductions
on future purchases of merchandise and services. Just announcing what the
prize was allowed us to educate the customer on the services we offer. As
part of the entry form we asked for email address so we can add them to our
email list.
- Signage promoting our future digital educational
sessions, including our bus trip to the Nikon School and our all day Olympus
school we are hosting.
- Sample "real photographs" made from digital
media so customers can see the difference between what they can do "at
home" and what we can do.
- Samples of Dan's wide format prints so customers could
see how to fully utilize more of the services we offer that they didn't know
we offered.
HOW WE PROMOTED IT -
Due to the educational component we felt we would attract an older crowd so we
skewed our targeted demographics that way. We used following media to get the
word out:
- Easy listening radio
- Newspaper
- Our internal email list (6,000 active addresses)
- In store signage
- Photofinishing and bag stuffers
- Dan's Camera City Website
- Our salespeople talked it up with anyone interested in
digital who didn't buy - either on the phone or in person
WHAT HAPPENED
- We sold lots of cameras and lots of accessories
- Our only "special pricing" was for
accessories. Hardware (cameras, printers, etc.) were sold at regular store
prices, which are very competitive to begin with. Accessories were sold for
20% off store prices, with a maximum discount of $20.
- Approximately 25% of the people who registered for the
door prize had never been to our store before, thus we think we generated a
lot of new customers. With our web email newsletter presence we believe we
will keep many of these people as customers even if they never set foot in
our physical store.
- We know the manufacturer's people would help us sell
cameras, but they aren't good at getting the customer everything they need
to use the camera successfully. To purchase the camera the customer had to
come to the Dan's accessory table where our people further educated them on
what they needed to go with their camera. It was easy to educate the
customer as they were there to learn, plus the incentive to buy the
accessories now with the 20% discount helped close any reluctant buyers.
SUGGESTIONS
We will probably repeat this - it was very successful from
both market building and sales made on site. Next time we will allow more space
in the cash register area as that was too crammed, especially in the first hour.
We didn't have time to implement some ideas we had -
having our wide format printer there making prints, having classes on "how
to choose a digital camera", more displays of items such as our photo
restoration and custom framing services...
Editor's note: If you'd like to be emailed some pictures
of Dan's Camera City's event send an email to editor@mccurryassoc.com
and we'll email you some lower resolution pictures. As a rule we don't send
attachments or pictures with our weekly email. We're happy to send them on
request.
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Julie and Mic as they are
talking to a customer who just bought an Olympus 300. They found MANY
customers didn’t know we made prints from digital cameras, not to
mention realized the quality difference in what we do vs. at home
printing. Click on photo to see larger image.
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Entry box shows the table we
set-up to allow customers to enter the random drawing. On the entry form
was a spot for their email address – about 75% did fill it in and now
are on our email list. You can see wide format samples in the background
on the wall. Click on photo to see larger image.
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| Olympus table was taken at the
end of the day – we didn’t have time to take pix when we were getting
slammed. Click on photo to see larger image. |
Photo-finale shows the demo
being done about their software. We had a 20 minute class every 35 minutes
– all were at least 20 people in attendance. This aspect of the show
received the most positive comments from customers. Click on photo to
see larger image. |
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