In this blog, I often highlight business marketing ideas from large firms that smaller companies could learn from and even adopt. And then there’s this. Recently the Wall Street Journal wrote about a big business marketing idea that I do not recommend. Not if you’re a small business interested in credible marketing that leads to authentic customer relationships. CNBC (cable TV) and WSJ ran a piece on Jan. 16th called “Making Big-Time Promotions Available, Affordable” ($$). CaffeineNow, (from ePrize), a company that uses online sweepstakes offerings to help businesses drive consumers to their web sites. ePrize’s clients are mainly mega consumer companies, Procter & Gamble, General Motors and Disney. (Thanks to Pelican-Minnow for this cool image. Pelican-Minnow offers lures for suspicious Italian fish. Now that’s good marketing! Telling a great story.)
But CaffeineNow.com is for small companies who cannot afford the high costs/time/legal know-how of a sweepstakes with prizes like plasma TVs, kitchen makeovers or $10,000 shopping sprees at Amazon. As a small biz,…
you pay only $1.00 per click using CaffeineNow to build a sweepstakes promotion. And the prizes are dolled out in so-called “pools”. (That means that many businesses in the U.S. can be offering the exact same sweepstakes prize. There’s no guarantee that one of your customers/prospects will win the prize.)
Okay, and consumers can opt out of your using their info for marketing. But, as WSJ reasons, at least you know who is visiting your site. Humm….CaffeineNow talks about “nurturing profitable one-to-one customer relationships” based on the info you gain—like name and email, maybe their city. What?? This is a marketing gimmick straight out of the last century.
Luring (okay, driving) prospects to your web site using a sweepstakes is about as temporary as it gets. It’s the polar opposite of using authentic, two-way customer conversations. Maybe CaffeineNow online promotions are a good idea if you’re selling to consumers and can afford to pay for lots of leads.
My suggestions are to make an investment of time and get to know your customers. Better than you know them today. Survey them. Ask your customers:
- Why do they like doing business with you?
- Would they recommend your company or products/services to others?
- If they would recommend you to others, what could you offer them to make it easy to do so?
Then listen and learn. It could be the best investment of marketing time/dollars (ever) in a long time. So, tell me what you think. Are online promotions a good way to develop customer relationships?
What are you trying to say with this? Is Caffeine a good thing or not in your opinion?
Louis,
I would really like to understand how Caffeine builds one-to-one customer relationships. I do not see how the program can be beneficial to companies selling BtoB. Do you have success cases you can share?
Cynthia Trevino
I have to disagree, promotions have worked for years – coupons, games, sweepstakes, etc. This is just the contemporary version of that same concept on the web. If you read their site statistics are presented from Jupiter and others about how they are effective. The pay per use model is just like Google, the difference is you actually get something, a real lead of someone interested in your business. I think it is low-risk, smart and engaging..