Launching a new product? Email works

Here's a great example of Schwan's Foodservice maximizing click-thoughs by augmenting eExtra Points newsletter promotions with a solo-email and an impactful landing page.

Help your customers be more successful

Some foodservice marketers have abdicated their responsibility to build brands by giving funds to distributors and expecting them to market products on their behalf.

Not Nestle FoodServices - just look at the quality of this Entertain the Senses Promotion. It zeros in with helpful ways operators can enhance the patron experience and gives them the tools through Foodservice Rewards to redeem for featured items like scented oils/candles, water features/fountains, games like Sceneit^®, flat screen TV's and more. That's how to add value - by helping your customers be more successful - and build brand as a result.

Kraft-ing launch promotions

Kraft's entry into the program features a clever message to DSR's (above) and this announcement to operators in today's ExtraPoints newsletter.

For more details, visit www.kraftfoodservice.com/rewards

eMail Non-Delivery Rates at 19.6%

The latest Return Path study on Email Blocking and Filtering shows that twenty percent of permission-based email did not get delivered as intended during the first half of 2006. Don't forget to support your promotions with BI's Print-On-Demand mailers, which can be very cost-effective when used with targeted audiences.

Can you change as fast as the market does?

There are many benefits to knowing who your customers are - including the ability to rapidly respond to changing market conditions. In just three weeks from the date Manhattan banned trans-fats, Bunge launched this conversion promotion to its customers of products containing trans-fats.

Communicated via the ExtraPoints newsletter and postcards versioned for buyers and non-buyers, this promotion allowed Bunge to offer street customers a compelling trial offer without the cost of an in-person sales call. (And it will just take a "click of a mouse" to replicate when other states follow suit.)

Ever wonder if operators read email?

We have a family restaurant that features fresh fried foods such as squash and chicken tenders. We were using Sysco Fry-On and the oil was failing after 3-4 days. The distributor tried everything from giving us a filter machine (we already had our own) to stainless steel screens for catching crumbs.

I saw your offer for offer for extra bonus points and decided to give Bunge a try. It's great! It lasts longer (at least 7 days) and the end product is consistantly better. Ruth Bowers, Owner, City Café, Mount Holly, NC

N.B. How else would your brand have reached this operator? City Cafe is a typical family restaurant that no one representing the manufacturer calls on and the MA did everything in his power to keep a private label sale rather than sell a better performing product...

New York Times makes it official: Reward Code Programs are Popular

When the New York Times covers the popularity of reward code programs, they've finally gone mainstream.

With over 20 million reward codes redeemed (that's one every 30 seconds) we've known their value since the first Foodservice code was redeemed for a Schwan's Chalupa in September of 2002.

Here's how Distributorships and their DSR's are learning about it via their program newsletter.

Wake Up To Rewards

Consistently successful promotions integrate multiple media channels:

1) Banners on the website. Here are all the placement options available to you, contact your Coalition Manager to reserve one (hosting is free when you are running a concurrent points promotion).

2) Links to an explanatory landing page. Landing pages are not expensive to create when you supply the graphic elements and copy. Contact your Coalition Manager for a quote so you can feature multiple products, drive website registrations, invite operators to join a panel, view and submit recipes & more.

3) Send e-mail reminders to your key audience segments. Here are excellent examples from Bunge and Schwan's.

4) Complement your efforts with print-on-demand mail. Not everyone can afford to send a 20 page magazine to their customer base, but everyone can afford to send a print-on-demand postcard, bi-fold or flyer to their best customer segments.

Remember, with Foodservice Rewards you can target by buyer/non-buyer, ownership type and sub-segment, making it worth investing, for example, $1-2 each to reach 500 non-buying self-op hospitals.

You know the drill: Contact your Coalition Manager (a.k.a. the "easy button" for a quote and turnkey promotion set up).

Use the newsletter to drive sampling

Basic American Foods recently tested a sample offer in the ExtraPoints™ newsletter.

Hans Kohte, Senior Marketing Manager, kindly agreed to share the results:

We have received about 265 emails baf.com website and 36 inbound 800 Calls from email blast sent to Foodservice Rewards operators offering 150 bonus points for requesting a sample of Golden Grill Russet Hashbrowns and/or Nature's Own Potato Pearls Mashed Potatoes.

We will be sending them full-size samples along with a special letter that gives them the bonus code they must submit to earn their 150 bonus points. Then we'll follow-up with telesales calls to get feedback AND try to gain an initial order.

Obviously we are very happy with the amount of requests generated from the newsletter. I do not recall generating as many trial leads within 48 hours ever.

If you are interested in executing a similar strategy, we're happy to help coordinate it through a business partnership with IMT's Food Sample Express.


7/18/06 updated with permission.

Lee Guss, Nestle Foodservices' Marketing Manager responds:

"I agree! Our Carnation Malt free sample offer has been fantastic. We expect over 1000 sample requests before the end of the month!"

DSR Newsletter - are you in it?

• New brands joining the program
• Nestle mega-millions DSR winner:

Thank you all, this is one of the greatest events that has ever happened to me !!!! This is so wow, exciting, overwhelming, just.... Thank You Nestle for helping me believe in being able to "Win".

Mahalo,
Lily Barawis
lbarawis@vipfoodservice.com

• Schwan's new product launch, P&G's 100% override
• New flat screen TV promotion and more in this week's Distributor Newsletter

The DSR version of the ExtraPoints newsletter is currently being sent to over 400 DSR's and is enjoying an average 33% open rate.

Are Distributor Sales Reps Becoming Obsolete?

Of course not, but provocative headlines like this one are generating super readership of the DSR newsletter.

Are DSR's ignoring your spiffs?

Rather than giving DSR's a 'couple bucks and hoping they focus on selling your product, try Schwan's strategy when launching their new Microwave-To-Rise Pizza.

By awarding sales reps points in their own Foodservice Rewards accounts they deliver product information, reduce the expense and hassle of issuing checks, start the "collecting points" habit and create future communication opportunities via e-mail and mail.

Welcome Hellmann's, Knorr & Wish-Bone

Here's an excellent example of a welcome e-mail announcing three new brands' participation in Foodservice Rewards. To date, over 8,000 operators have claimed their reward codes.

Tired of order-takers? Motivate DSR's to sell

Examples of the DSR incentive program in action: DSR's can now earn a 100% override on P&G products and the same newsletter features a Schwan's points or rebate promotion and Nestle's million point sweepstakes for DSR's.

Welcome to the DSR Incentive Program

When a Distributorship Program Manager enrolls in the DSR incentive, we automatically send this eMail.

A hard copy is also part of the welcome kit containing a CD with logos & banners for their website, a program presentation and more. Please suggest other inclusions. For example, would you like to insert a brochure, bonus code, t-shirt, (or something else) in the DPM's or DSR's welcome kit?

The year's off to a great start

Today we surpassed last year's Q1 promotion total. We currently have 8 Sponsors (57%) running 15 promotions (12 set up this quarter 3 carrying over from last quarter). See a typical e-newsletter and its promotions.

We need your recipies for upcoming newsletters

Sponsors, please send us your recipes to be featured in the Valentine's and St. Patrick's Day issues of the newsletter. Also, free brochures available for use as rebate check envelope stuffers, case inserts, trade show handouts, etc.

Chinese New Year Promotion

See Schwan's clever Chinese New Year promotion in this week's Foodservice Rewards newsletter. With over 60,000 operator visits per month (the average operator visits www.foodservicerewards.com 1.5 times per week) driving traffic to a micro-site is a terrific tool to educate customers about your brands.

We're about to kick off a 3-version enrollment campaign to attract additional mom 'n pop operators. It includes direct mail and e-mail offers to a list purchased from R&I.

UniPro Fall Conference - WOW

Overwhelming response from distributors at the UniPro Fall Conference, Oct. 15-18!

98 meetings thanks to UniPro pre-show communications and a dozen over 20 distributorships have already registered for the DSR incentive component.

1,500 1,974 hospitals participating

1/2 2/3rds through the campaign to enroll additional acute care hospitals with a focus on cash operations and greater than 500 beds, we're achieving a 2.5% 3.9% response rate to direct mail and a 30% open rate to e-mail solicitations like this one - bringing the results of this campaign to over 150 new enrollees, and total hospitals enrolled to over 1,500 1,974 (which is 25% 34% of all hospitals in the USA). Telemarketing to the non-responders begins next week.

Welcome Bonus

Here's the newly designed welcome e-mail operators receive when they join Foodservice Rewards. We're having great success with the refer-a-friend feature (it's a tight-knit community, after all.)

Now, get operator data faster by participating in the welcome bonus version of the e-mail. Collect comprehensive operator information before a customer submits their first reward code from your product by offering a welcome bonus. It endears you to a prospect and also populates your direct mail and e-mail databases for independent marketing efforts. Remember, you can offer this bonus on a segment-by-segment because "all customers are not created equal."