Recently in a blog post I referenced the book, Open Brand.  This book describes the relationship the consumer now has with the retailer and how that relationship has affected brands being developed traditionally.

There is a portion of the book where the authors reference the power the consumer now holds in the online and brick & mortar marketplace.  A simple comment, post or review can change the direction of thinking for thousands, millions or billions of people.  “The Power of ONE:  GAZILLION” is how this action is described by the authors of this book.

Imagine a situation, as a retailer, where you could spend just around $1,000, get incredible amounts of foot traffic into your store and get over 900 possible contacts for selling in the future without sacrificing your margins?

This concept usually sounds too good be true, even more so in today’s retail selling environment, and comes with some kind of a catch.  But it is true.  Every single word of it.

Thanks in part to a wonderful scanning program that we have developed through our industry contacts, this retailer was able to print a 6×9 postcard that was to be handed out at a local festival in town.  The retailer purchased insurance for a possible $5,000 cash prize, which we have also developed through our industry contacts, as the hook to get Ms. Jones through the door.

How this scanning process works is simple.

• Plug any scanner into a USB drive of a computer
• Have this computer be accessible to the general public and your sales staff
• Scan the card that they brought in
• To see if the customer won the prize they must enter the following:  First Name, Last Name & Email
• Press enter and see if they won

This retailer scanned over 900 of these postcards.  As a result of this scanning his email list grew from 500 customers in one day, to over 1400 customers in less than 24 hours.

Wouldn’t the P&L statement look a lot nicer to get 900 contacts without sacrificing 10% on the bottom-line to give a cash discount?

Maybe those Open Brand people are correct with the power someone holds.  But in this case it was the POWER OF AN EVENT that was GAZILLION!