Best Practices - Promotions, your best yet...

[Anthem]

What promotion has been most successful for you? 

I'm always looking for ways to appreciate our customers, have some fun with them, or simply send them a little something to brighten their day. With the launch of loyalty promotions last month I got to thinking about what my best promotion has been and how I could do them better. 

I use automated promotions - all do really well and maybe I'll toss that comparison out in a couple of weeks to see how folks approach them and ROI. Today, I'm interested in one-off promotions, things you've done with an expiration date. Maybe a happy hour, or a temporary sale. 

What has been your best promotion? How did it do, why did it work, how will you improve it next time? 

I'll pilfer through my old promotions and post something later today to get the conversation started along with list size, response rate, etc. Let me know what's helpful to you, as you approach promotions, and I'll try to include that also. 

[lawnbrook]

We run a small (tiny!) little winery/distillery in Western Australia.

In the warmer months we host Sundowners with live music which is a very casual affair. For the last 3 of these events we've run a promo where every G&T purchased get a raffle ticket to go into the draw for a bottle of our Gin. As the producer of the Gin, the spirit&mixer is our most profitable item, in addition, as the producer of the spirit the 'prize' costs us next to nothing..

Maybe its the Aussie culture - we love a punt and a drink, but this literally 10x our sales of Gin on the evenings..

[Anthem]

That's awesome, sounds like a great promotion Bruce!

Do you use any Square marketing tools to help promote the event or other efforts you do to attract new business and customers? 

[mksavage]

That's such a great idea, @lawnbrook! I love how the promotion is on your most profitable item, encouraging the sale of that specific item. Definitely going to think about how we could do something similar! 

[Bronze_Palms]

What a great idea!! This can totally be used in other businesses too - thanks for sharing this idea!

[Anthem]

Outside of automated campaigns, one of our best has been a simple Thank You. Our list was 3,400 at the time, we sent a short basic email "get $2 off your next visit" and spotlighted a new merchandise item. With a 62% open rate (2,110) and 605 attributable purchases, this one produced one of the largest responses ever.

What campaign have you run with a great response?  

[phillipsrw]

How do you communicate with your customers, is it via email?