Extending the End Cap
Effective P-O-P has always relied on the cooperation and competence of retailers. Ever watched a stock boy try to assemble an end-aisle display? It’s not pretty. The Internet is the greatest point-of-purchase medium ever invented. On the Internet, you control how your promotion looks and where it’s placed. Every Web site is an end-aisle display because, no matter where your prospect is, one click puts him in your client’s online store.
Beyond.com is a software superstore offering more than 48,000 titles including a large selection of Star Wars merchandise. Fans in search of a Force-fix have been trolling the Web for years, and numerous newcomers joined their ranks recently as the release date for the series’ latest installment approached. That’s a lot of potential customers.
When Beyond.com created a Star Wars Center on its site, we helped them promote the strategy with an offer to win a Star Wars Trilogy arcade game and other prizes worth more than $20,000 dollars. Beyond.com and i-traffic tapped their alliances with AOL, Yahoo, and Excite to create advertising banners and buttons. When consumers clicked on one of the banners, they were taken to a page at Beyond.com where they could register to win the sweepstakes.
Once a prospect registers, one of two things happen. He either browses around Beyond.com and buys something, or leaves. That brings up another remarkable thing about the Internet: You can track behavior. You can tell almost immediately who left without buying anything. So you can determine the exact ROI of your online promotion.
I-traffic and Beyond.com apply a practice we call Extended Conversion, which uses targeted e-mail to create sales opportunities after a prospect has left the store. It’s direct marketing with free stamps.
All prospects who registered for the sweepstakes later received an e-mail with the heading “Secret Star Wars Sale at Beyond.com,” which directed them to a Web page with a special offer. Extended Conversion claims another happy customer.
