9 Ways to Generate Revenue with POS Marketing

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Effective POS marketing strategies could make the last point of the buyer’s journey the most profitable one for your business.

9 POS Marketing Tactics Increase Average Spend and Generate New Revenues

If you evaluate the customer journey in terms of how it breaks down across each point, you may find that you’re failing to take advantage of many opportunities that could help you influence customers to spend more overall, choose upgrades, add-on accessories, and try new products or menu items. Instead of thinking about your marketing in terms of channels, lay it out so that you can see what occurs at each step of the buying journey:

  • Before the first time a customer visits your store or website
  • In-between customer visits to your store or website
  • As the customer arrives at and enters your store or website
  • What happens right after they arrive
  • While they’re browsing
  • As they approach the (POS) point of sale
  • At the point of sale register or checkout process – when the actual merchant services POS transaction occurs
  • After the POS – what happens after the payment processing transaction?

In this model, what occurs during the point-of-sale portion of the customer visit (including what happens immediately afterward) could constitute one-third of the opportunities you have to impact how much the customer spends and whether they spent more than they would have otherwise (because of the marketing tactics you employed at the POS).

9 POS Marketing Ideas for Generating Higher Sales

As they approach the POS

This is when the customer has clicked on their cart or started the checkout process online, when they’re approaching the cash register or standing in line, waiting at the table for you to bring the bill or take their payment, etc. At this point in the buying process, the customer has mentally stopped shopping. In their minds, they have everything they need in their carts (or tummies). However, according a creditcard.com poll, five out of six Americans admit to impulse buys, so the game is by no means over!

  1. Appeal to pioneers and early adopters.

These are the individuals who just looooove being the first to try something new. They relish being ahead of the rest when it comes to new technology, products, or services. While customers are waiting to start their transactions, use marketing to ask whether they missed out on new arrivals to your company’s line up.

  1. Use technology to mitigate the wait.

Studies show that consumers perceive their wait time to be less when digital signs, kiosks, and other devices are present. While you have the customer as a captive audience, entertain and engage them with digital displays, videos, or interactive messaging.

  1. Remind them of past purchases.

The idea behind Amazon’s “dash” buttons is genius: Make it easy for customers to replenish supplies as soon as they run out (or even before). Before the customer transactions is completely underway, use information about their historical purchases to generate questions that might remind them it’s time to repurchase something they may be running out of or which they would enjoy again.

During the POS transaction

This is the moment where the payment processing transaction process has begun but has not yet been completed by the merchant services company. Questions and suggestions raised here can instantly increase the amount of the sale and make the customer happier, since they didn’t miss out on something they couldn’t find or miss an opportunity to scoop up a special deal.

  1. Start with what they couldn’t find.

Tried and true, asking customers if they searched for something they weren’t able to find is a great way to ensure they leave with everything they came for. It’s also an invaluable way to discover whether there are additional needs your business could be meeting by adding specific menu items, products, or services based on customer demand.

  1. Tell them what they might also like.

Another e-commerce point of sale technique that brick and mortar businesses of all kinds could be using is the “you might also like” suggestion. This is where you can talk about the benefits of upgrading, upsizing, and add-ons like accessories or warranties that might enhance their purchase.

  1. End with last-chance opportunities.

Before payment is submitted, ask customers whether they want to take advantage of any last-chance or limited time offers. These are offers that help customers feel like they’re getting the most value for their dollars and in an era where direct mail and email offers often go unread, they’re also offers that customers might be unaware of and open to considering before payment processing is finalized by the merchant services company.

After the POS transaction has concluded

This is the time immediately after the merchant services transaction. The post-POS marketing tactics you deploy here give you a chance to get feedback, ask for reviews, and remind customers about what’s coming to your business in the near future, so that you can immediately get them thinking about returning. Post-POS marketing and marketing done in-between visits can increase the frequency with which the customer visits, thereby increasing their lifetime value to your company.

  1. Information on the receipt.

Many businesses now use receipts to generate coupons for future visits, ask customers to complete online surveys, or remind them about upcoming events. Plus, since many people keep receipts around for accounting or tax purposes, they can provide a lasting reminder about your company long after the payment processing transaction has been completed.

  1. Ask for a review or rating.

Stars and positive reviews are the new word of mouth. They are the data that prospects use to decide whether to try your business in the first place, and set expectations for how they perceive your brand, and how they feel about doing business with you. While your company is still top-of-mind in the moments following a successful point of sale transaction, ask the customer to leave a review for your business and make it easy to do so, with digital devices placed in-store or an online link to a review site provided with the digital receipt.

  1. Get the registration.

Every POS merchant services transaction should give your business the opportunity to gather contact information for email marketing. Email is far and away the channel most consumers cite as their preferred method for receiving brand communications. Make sure that if you haven’t yet gotten the customer’s email address otherwise, you capture it at the point of sale, by emailing receipts to customers rather than print them directly in-store or online.

Every point during the buying journey offers unique opportunities where your business can engage the customer. Make sure you’re making the most of the last – and most powerful – part of the customer journey so that you’re not leaving money on the table.

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4 Ways to Use Daily Deals for Customer Acquisition

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How to get your Groupon.Com on, and use daily deals for customer acquisition.

Many business owners have successfully extended offers on daily deals platforms to gain new customers and grow. Take a strategic approach to avoid potential pitfalls and get the most return from your marketing investment.

The prospect of participating in a daily deal program such as groupon.com, land other daily deal sites in order to quickly gain access to hundreds – or even thousands – of new customers has enticed thousands of US business owners into the daily deal game.

But does this marketing tactic pay off? Here are some of the statistics about daily deal programs as noted on scoredealz.com’s Daily Deal Infographic, citing data from factbrowser.com and hubspot.com:

  • Nearly 10% of all US consumers regularly purchase daily deals (and there is room to grow, because 41% of US consumers haven’t even heard of daily deals yet)
  • 80% of daily deal email subscribers have purchased at least one deal in the past six months
  • 48% of daily deal subscribers use them regularly and repeatedly over time
  • More than 1 in 10 daily deal subscribers use them even more frequently as time goes on
daily deals for customer acquisition

And the number that may interest business owners most:

  • 55% of businesses running daily deals actually make money from their promotion, in addition to gaining brand awareness and the opportunity to acquire new customers for the long term 

Of businesses that participated in daily deal programs, 58% said they did so primarily for customer acquisition. But does it work?

  • 68% of customers who bought daily deals returned without another discount being offered
  • 41% of customers who bought a daily deal said they were “certain” they would use the service again
  • 88% of customers who took advantage of a daily deal offer spent more than the deal’s value when they visited the participating business
stats on daily deals for customer acquisition

Business owners that want to use daily deals to grow need to have a daily deal marketing strategy, not just a great offer.

4 Ways to Use Daily Deals to Boost Customer Acquisition

It’s true that daily deal programs can bring an influx of new customers into a business; however, there are pitfalls that some business owners don’t foresee at the outset. Before offering a daily deal of your own, make sure that your business is prepared, so that you can avoid potentially negative outcomes, such as these.

1. Loyal customers, left out of the offer, experience dissatisfaction or even anger at having to pay regular price.

If your offer is limited to new customers only, you run the risk of offending regular customers who have to pay full price for the same products or services. Consider mitigating the impact by giving loyal customers options to:

  • Take advantage of a separate but equivalent type of offer; such as a move up or add on offer
  • Redeem special offers of their own or temporary “VIP” discounts
  • Receive additional loyalty or purchase points or rewards during the offer period

2. Loyal customers can experience dissatisfaction, or even anger, if they perceive that daily deal redeemers are taking their time slots, making it difficult to book an appointment or negatively impacting their customer experience in some way.

To avoid the bottleneck that booking dozens – or even hundreds – of daily deal offer redeemers could create:

  • Plan to book only a given number of daily deals per day / week; for instance, if you sell 100 daily deals, set aside 25 appointment times per week over 4 weeks, rather than trying to accommodate them all within days of offer purchase.
  • Pre-book regular customers or pre-sell products to them so that they feel like they are your first priority.
  • Expand staffing and hours of operation in order to accommodate the additional traffic – a merchant cash advance can be used to cover additional operating expenses such as hiring temporary staff, paying additional staff hours or overtime, keeping the lights on for more hours during the day and the other operating expenses that accompany increased demand.

3. If your daily deal sells like wild fire, you may find that your business does not have the retail inventory or products needed to fulfill them, or depleted inventories might lead to dissatisfaction for regular customers who cannot purchase from you as a result.

In order to avoid this potential pitfall, you should plan to stock up on retail and product inventory against the number of daily deals you anticipate selling. You may also be able to work with your own suppliers to create contingency and quick order options that allow you to quickly restore waning inventory or purchase the products you need to fulfill customer’s services.

  • A merchant cash advance can provide you with the working capital you need to pay vendors and suppliers for retail and product inventories you will need to honor the daily deals.

Depending on your product or service daily deal offer, you may need to plan weeks or even months ahead in order to have enough retail or product on hand to fulfill new customer orders (and continue to serve existing customers).

4. Cash flow and profit margins will be negatively impacted for a short period of time while your daily deal runs — potentially for up to 120 days.

When daily deals are being redeemed, operating costs are likely to increase while profits decrease (because you are selling products or services in the daily deal offer at about 25% of their regular selling price, when you take into account a 50% discount and 25% – or more – going to the daily deal program administrator).

  • A merchant cash advance can be used to cover the temporary cash flow shortage created while you operate for several weeks at reduced profit margins.

Remember, there will be a gap of 3 months – or even more – between the time that your daily deal is sold and the time when the daily deal program administrator forwards you the portion of proceeds due to you from sale of the daily deals on their site. It’s important for you to have sufficient cash flow while you are waiting for your share of the proceeds. If you can successfully up-sell and cross-sell additional items to new customers attracted by the daily deal, this can help to bridge the gap as well as reduce the hit to your margins in offering products or services at such a low rate.

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7 Salon Holiday Marketing Ideas Extend Local Reach with Holiday Shoppers

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Ho-Ho-How do will you get your salon and its products and services onto the holiday shopper’s radar this year?  These six salon holiday marketing ideas can help you reach more holiday shoppers.

Based on projections holiday shoppers will once again set new records in total spending, with ecommerce gains continuing to outpace in-store sales as more and more consumers turn to the internet for holiday shopping ideas and convenience.

Reaching local shoppers who are bombarded with holiday marketing and advertisements isn’t going to be easy, so we came up with specific salon holiday marketing ideas that can help you reach more local shoppers and boost retail sales during the holidays and bring new clients onto the books, too.

7 Salon Holiday Marketing Ideas to Help You Reach More Holiday Shoppers

Reach Out to More Local Holiday Shoppers Online

Flyers, window displays, in-salon signs at the point of sale and at stylist stations will do nothing to reach the vast majority of local shoppers! Last year half of all holiday shopping was done online, including last minute purchases. Your salon holiday marketing ideas must go beyond the walls of your salon. Website and blog content that is optimized so that local shoppers are likely to find it when searching for holiday gifts and shopping destinations online, along with email and social media marketing will be key to reaching holiday shoppers online.

Reach Out to Gift Card Buyers

Each year more and more shoppers are purchasing gift cards in lieu of giving cash or shopping for presents.  Salon gift cards are a great option for holiday shoppers, but they won’t sell themselves.  Make sure that you are reaching out to not only clients but – as you have the data and contact databases and social media connections to do so – client’s friends and loved ones to remind them that you have gift cards ready, waiting, gift-wrapped and ship-pable to help them cross people off their holiday shopping lists.

Reach Out with Holiday Exclusive Inventory

You may be able to boost retail sales in your salon significantly during the holidays (and all year long) if you add exclusive, limited time opportunity retail items to your wares.  These could be in the form of retail beauty products clients would expect to find in a salon (like POS cosmetics or holiday themed makeup and nail displays) but it might also mean thinking outside the box, and adding fun, kitschy, blinged-out, shabby chic, artsy or other specialty retail items that clients might like to buy for someone on their holiday shopping list – or even just for themselves.

Reach Out to Last Year’s Shoppers

Collecting email addresses and mobile phone numbers at the point of sale, on your website and even through engagement on social networks during the holiday season can help you build a contact list for the holiday seasons to follow. Reach out to clients and shoppers who took you upon holiday offers last year to let them know what you have planned for the holiday shopping season ahead.

Reach Out with a Demo Event

Holiday hair and makeup events can be an effective way for your salon to attract more clients that fit within your ideal client types. Frame your salon’s Christmas, Holiday or New Year’s demo event as a social bring-a-friend outing with entertainment, food and beverages. Think “happy hour” more so than “holiday sale.” Plan to give away a great prize in order to get people to RSVP and show up for your salon’s holiday demo event. Let guests interact with stylists and touch-smell-try products. Give away swag bags that include a small denomination gift card to get a bounce back to your salon. Do 2-3 great makeup and/or hair demos at the event and teach quick tips/tricks with attendee volunteers.

Reach Out to Beauty Product and Service Pioneers

We all have people in our social spheres who like to be in the know, the first to try something new, the first to weigh in about a new product or service, the first to start buzz among their friends, co-workers and loved ones.  You can reach out to these local pioneers and engage them with trial offers on new services or products or hold an event where they get a first peek at your holiday marketing products and services.

Reach Out to Self-Gifting Shoppers

In 2014, 73% of 18-24 year olds (Millennials) said they planned to self-gift while doing their holiday shopping (National Retail Federation’s Top Trends in 2014 Holiday Shopping).  Last year holiday shoppers purchased an average of $141 in non-gift items for themselves and their families. Make sure that your clients and other shoppers know which of your products or services make for the best self-gifting during the holidays, and make sure you extend a bounce back offer to turn a one-time self-gift into a repeat service.

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253 Payment Pros offers salon POS (salon point of sale) systems, software and equipment backed by local service, installation and setup as well as payment processing at competitive rates. Even if you’re just looking to compare the merchant services rates you’re currently paying for merchant services, we would be happy to give you a free, no-risk quote.

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