2013 Teacher Appreciation Week Discounts and Freebies

Posted on May 6, 2013 by Angela Modzelewski

To celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week (which is May 6-10), we thought we’d take a look at what businesses are doing to show teachers a little love. Most of the Teacher Appreciation campaigns we’ve seen this year, fall into one of three categories- discounts, freebies, and cause marketing partnerships.

Discounts-
Some stores and restaurants only offer a teacher discount once a year, either for the whole week, or just on Teacher Appreciation Day, which falls on May 7^th this year. Other companies, like Jo-Ann’s, generously offer teacher discounts year-round, and sweeten the pot for Teacher Appreciation Week with an even deeper discount than usual. Teacher Appreciation Month is also a terrific time to launch a brand new every day teacher discount, like The Hook Up Bar and Restaurant in Biloxi, MS is doing this month. Take a look at who is offering discounts this month.

Jo-Ann Fabric and Crafts Stores: Save 20% with a Teacher Rewards card through May 11 for Teacher Appreciation Week.
The Hook Up Bar and Restaurant: As a small token of appreciation for their hard work and dedication, The Hook Up’s new teacher discount is coming in May.
Fun Spot: Celebrate Teacher Appreciation week with $5 deals for 5 days in May.
Dressbarn: In addition to a 20% discount off their entire purchase, on Teacher Appreciation Day, Tuesday, May 7, teachers will be pampered with personal attention and fashion tips as they shop.
New York and Company: All teachers are eligible for a 30% discount in stores through May 8 when they show valid ID. Continue reading →

Exploring Twitter Keyword Targeting to Advertise Student Discounts

Posted on April 25, 2013 by Angela Modzelewski

Last week Twitter announced the launch of Keyword Targeting for Promoted Tweets. If you currently advertise on Twitter using Promoted Tweets or Promoted Accounts, you already know that you can target your paid content by targeting by interest categories like stage of life, education, etc. or by targeting specific users’ followers.

So to create a campaign to inform college students about a new student discount using Twitter’s previously existing tools, you could use a combination of interest categories and users whose followers are likely to be college students. Your targeting might look something like this:

Odds are good that using these techniques you’d reach an audience that was mostly college students.

With Twitter’s new keyword targeting you can insert your branded tweets into the conversation that Twitter users are currently having about student discounts by displaying ads to people who have included your keywords in their recent tweets, or tweets users engaged with through retweeting, favorites, or replies.

Continue reading →

Using Facebook Partner Categories to Create Targeted Ad Campaigns

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Angela Modzelewski

If there’s one thing you can count on in the magical world of social media advertising, it’s change. As soon as you’ve zeroed in on a platform, type of ad, and budget that’s working for you, you can bet that an algorithm is going to change, a platform will push updates, or the social media network of your choice will introduce fancy new options that make your head spin. Case in point- last week Facebook launched partner categories for Facebook ads, and this week Twitter introduced keyword targeting for promoted tweets (but that’s another blog post…coming soon).

The beauty of Facebook’s new ad option is that it offers marketers one more way to create more targeted marketing campaigns. How does it work? I’m glad you asked.

Using offline data from Acxiom, Epsilon, and Datalogix, Facebook has created 500 partner categories based on demographics and spending to segment its one billion+ users and allow more narrowly targeted advertising. As an example, let’s pretend your company is launching a new, exclusive military discount for veterans and military families during Military Appreciation Month in May. This discount is deeper than anything you’ve offered before, and you want to spread the news to the military community using Facebook ads. Let’s also say you’re using SheerID to verify that only eligible veterans, active duty military, and military dependents can redeem your discount, which means you’re not worried about your discount going viral. You can use your ad spend to reach your target audience, not broadcast the discount to people who aren’t eligible to use it and drive up your cost if you’re paying per impression.

So you log into the Facebook’s power editor to create your ads, create the content, and you use Datalogix demographics to target 3,123,300 families in the United States with veterans in the household.

If your goal is to create even more buzz and brand awareness around your military-friendly business, you can also add 7,012,200 Facebook users who donate to veteran’s causes to your audience using Epsilon’s Lifestyles and interests data.

Continue reading →

Three Ways to Battle Showrooming

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Marci Hansen

I love it when a new phenomenon comes around that give marketers something to worry about and to debate. I’m sure you have heard of showrooming. Even if you haven’t heard the term, you’ve probably done it.

Showrooming is when you are standing in Target, considering buying an Ipad and kelly gets a discount you pull out your smart phone and look up the pricing of the same product on Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart. Chances are, you’ll find it for a little cheaper, which then leaves you to decide if you head to the Target check-out with just the red velvet cookies, the $9 polka-dot push-up bra, and three plastic chairs for your patio, or if you add the Ipad to your not-as-random-as-it-seems collection of purchases. As you can imagine, Target, and other big retailers, are spending a lot of money, energy, and brain power to come up with ways to push your decision in their favor.

The battles around showrooming are in full swing. Amazon has offered permanent price-matching, so has Target. So at least they have neutralized each other. There are also apps that recognize when you are in a store like Best Buy and they can immediately offer you a coupon if you buy today. From a non-tech point of view, exclusive product like Target’s designer appliances, bikes, and bedding also battle that option of looking at competitors and leaving with only a $.99 bag of popcorn.

It makes sense that big retailers would first focus on themselves, their products, and their competitors, those are concrete concepts that are easily spit-balled in conference rooms. But I gotta say, what about me? Isn’t it all about me? I am the customer after all. If you want me to pledge my loyalty and devote all my dollars to you, then I need to be wooed. I need to know that you see me as individual and that you care about my point of view. Here are three things that big retailers should be doing to increase loyalty.

Continue reading →

Top 5 ways to celebrate teacher appreciation month

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Angela Modzelewski

Think back to your own school days. Do you remember your favorite teacher and the impact they had on you? My favorite teacher was Mrs. Daniels. She taught first grade at Fort Worth Christian elementary school. She gave me my first lesson in brand marketing when we performed blind taste tests of Jiffy, Peter Pan, and generic peanut butter. She also introduced me to Ramona Quimby. Chances are she did more than I’ll ever know. 91% of teachers buy supplies for their own classrooms, and more than half of teachers have paid for students to go on field trips when they students couldn’t afford them. Teachers deserve our thanks and appreciation every day, but it’s especially important for us as former students, parents, and socially responsible companies to show them a little love for what they do day in and day out.

Maybe your company can’t afford to donate millions education, like Best Buy, Staples, Apple or Dell, but there are ways any company can help out teachers, regardless of how big or small they are.

Host a donation drive for school supplies. It’s estimated that teachers spend $1.3 billion out of their own pockets on supplies for their classrooms each year. Hosting a school supply drive or book drive can be as easy as setting out a collection bin for the month of May and encouraging your customers to drop off pencils, pens, crayons, and other school supplies. At the end of the month, drop them off to a grateful teacher or principal at a local school.
Donate to DonorsChoose.org. Working with this charity organization to support teachers and schools couldn’t be simpler. We partnered with them ourselves at our booth at InTix in January by making a donation for each business card we collected from trade show attendees. Teachers post projects that need funding, and you simply log on, select the project that you want to support, and make your donation. You can give any amount, and funding an entire project can cost as little as $200.
Offer a teacher discount. Teachers truly appreciate teacher discounts, and they are loyal to the companies offer them. This list of teacher discounts regularly makes the rounds among teachers on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. If you’re interested in offering teacher discounts for the month of May (or any time of year), we can help. Getting your teacher verification platform in place is fast and painless.
Continue reading →

Big Data- what is it and how is it used?

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Angela Modzelewski

Here’s the thing about Big Data. Thinking about it kind of makes my head hurt. Trying to wrap my brain around Big Data is like trying to visualize the scale of the universe or imagining how many millions of bacteria are living in my kitchen sponge.

I’ve read that the amount of information on the internet doubles every three years and that every single day we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data. I had to do a Google search to find out how big a quintillion is. Apparently, if you made a carpet of pennies, quintillion pennies would cover the surface of the Earth. Twice. The mind boggles.

Luckily, what’s interesting about Big Data isn’t the actual data itself. It’s what we can do with it when we use apps, API’s and software to crunch those numbers and facts, chew all of the flavor out of them, and then spit out something interesting and useful. For example, our API bumps elbows with Big Data everyday as it compares consumers’ provided information against our authoritative data sources and returns a yes or a no to SheerID’s clients to tell them whether or not their customer qualifies for an exclusive offer. Because retailers can verify that only qualified customers can redeem protected offers, they can offer their customers deeper discounts and better deals. So the next time you use Shindigz military discount or buy the academic version of Norton’s anti-virus software for your computer, you should actually thank Big Data for the extra cash lining your pocket. It blows your mind, doesn’t it?

Continue reading →

We Want YOU… to offer a military discount

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Angela Modzelewski

It all started with just one question. “Wouldn’t it be cool if every business gave military discounts or special offers?” That one question spawned a series of other questions like, “Well, why don’t retailers offer military discounts?” and “What would make it easier for small businesses to create special offers for members of the Armed Forces?” We try to stay solution-focused around here, so we came up with an answer.

We’re giving away our active duty verification solution for free. Yep, free. What does having a free verification solution enable retailers to do (other than offer an everyday discount like Fathead’s)?

Offer discounts to active duty military during Memorial Day weekend or for the week of Veteran’s day.
Give active military coupon codes for free shipping to APO addresses.
Create a special sweepstakes or contest especially for active duty military.
Include printable coupons for free popcorn or soda on a custom thank you page when verified military purchase tickets online to your events.

Continue reading →

Students’ Video Message to Retailers

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Angela Modzelewski

Be honest. How long has it been since you’ve actually been in college? 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? Yeah, us too. Being a college student now is a lot different than it was a decade or two ago. So while it’s perfectly acceptable to reminisce about the good old days with your fraternity brother or college roommate, thinking back on your own college experiences isn’t going to help you market to the class of 2015.

That’s why we teamed up with Kevin Brett’s PR class at the University of Oregon to interview their fellow students and provide old fogies like us with some insights into the shopping behavior of college students. Without further ado, here is the final product.

Clearly, one of the most effective ways to reach college students is with a student discount that you can market far and wide. And to do that, you need a protected discount that only college students can redeem. See where we’re going with this? That’s right. We can help by verifying that only enrolled college students can use your discount. Go team!

The Best Super Bowl Ad of 2013

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Angela Modzelewski

While the Niners fans in the office today are licking their wounds and mumbling about bad calls, and the Ravens fans are crowing triumphantly, there’s one thing we can all bond over by the water cooler, no matter what our team allegiances may be… the Super Bowl XLVII ads. There were the good (Budweiser’s Clydesdale spot is always a favorite), the gross (oh GoDaddy…), and the funny (nice work, Tide). But our unanimous favorite is Jeep’s 2 minute commercial honoring our military troops.

Partnering up with the USO, Jeep has taken the ad campaign to the next level, elevating it beyond a memorable Super Bowl ad to a full on movement, Operation S.A.F.E. Return (OSR), aimed at actually helping returning service members and their families as they come back home. In addition to sponsoring a day of service this week at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, donating vehicles to USO centers, and donating $1 to every time the hashtag #joinOSR is used on Twitter, Jeep has made a commitment to honor our troops every day by offering $500 cash back to active duty military and retired veterans.

Jeep is one example of a brand that is going the extra mile to thank our Armed Forces for their service and sacrifices. One of our goals is to make it easy for every company in the US to offer a military discount or some other token of appreciation to military and their families. Give us a call today so we can help you give back to the military community.

6 Ways Not to Succeed at Email Marketing

Posted on January 24, 2013 by Angela Modzelewski

Last month we covered a bunch of tips that will transform your email marketing campaign into a thing of beauty like content planning, a killer subject line, and engaging body copy. So now let’s talk about a few few common pitfalls to avoid. This is like the What Not to Wear of email marketing, only we’re nicer than Stacy and Clinton, and we won’t make you stand in a 360 mirror while you work on your emails.

DON’T hit send on a Friday or Saturday. Think about when you’re sending your emails. The day of the week and time of day that you send your emails really does make a difference. In general, mid- week is the best time to send marketing emails- think Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. Test it for yourself, and see if those days also work best for you. Be mindful of bank holidays, when people might be out of the office or on vacation.
DON’T schedule your email to go out at 3AM. Unless you’re marketing to Japan, you’ll probably have the best odds of success if you send between 8AM and 1PM. Don’t send your masterpiece in the middle of the night unless you want it to get swept into the trash while someone drinks their morning coffee and cleans out the inbox to get ready for their day.
Continue reading →

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Category Archives: Marketing

2013 Teacher Appreciation Week Discounts and Freebies

Exploring Twitter Keyword Targeting to Advertise Student Discounts

Using Facebook Partner Categories to Create Targeted Ad Campaigns

Three Ways to Battle Showrooming

Top 5 ways to celebrate teacher appreciation month

Big Data- what is it and how is it used?

We Want YOU… to offer a military discount

Students’ Video Message to Retailers

The Best Super Bowl Ad of 2013

6 Ways Not to Succeed at Email Marketing

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