Old Dogs and Old Tricks

Does this sound familiar? You are a furniture retailer who knows how to jump on a good idea. You hear about a promotional strategy another retailer in the country has used which has been wildly successful. You marshal your forces, learn as much as you can about the strategy and its execution, and using what you have learned, emulate the tactics and present your version of the uber-exciting promotional event.Low and behold, IT WORKS!!! The cash register rings, you are ecstatic, the salespeople are thrilled, the customer is delighted and all is right with the world.

The excitement is over; the dust has cleared; the sales floor is put back together and you think, “Well, shoot; that worked so well, let’s do it again.” So, you do… six weeks later, then again in another six weeks, and again and again. Each time you run it, the luster fades, the event is less successful, until it is just another promotion, with greatly reduced results. Finally, it doesn’t really work at all, and you wonder why?

Furniture retailers across the country have traditionally run good things into the ground. Through overuse, one of two results generally occurs.

1. The consumer gets tired of the event, no longer believes it, the success is marginal, and it fades away or is used sporadically with mixed results (think: 6-hour sales, private letters, etc.) or

2. It becomes a staple of retailing to the point that it is a gift the customer expects that must be accounted for in the retailer’s margins; a gift that is very difficult to discontinue offering (think: NO, NO, NO Financing Offers).

One suggestion I would make to retailers today, when business is so difficult to come by is: Go back into your archives and recall some of the genuine nuggets of gold, promotional strategies and events that you may have formerly run, been successful with, then beat into the ground. For instance, there is an entirely new cadre of potential furniture buyers that have never seen a direct-mailed “Private Letter”, offering values that are not presented to the general buying public. The private letter worked then because it:

1. Reached the targeted market
2. Had immediacy
3. Had a limited time frame
4. Appealed to the customers wish for exclusivity
5. Promised great value

If it has not been used in years, it would work today.

So, the message is clear. Go back in time and resurrect some genuine gold that worked years ago and may work again.

Old dogs might just find some old tricks. Just don’t kill it again.