Automatic Merchandiser - 30

MICRO

MARKET

SALES

the end of the day, consumers may
come into the micro market looking
for a hold-me-over snack or drink.
Through the Three Square Market
system, operators can create a snack
deal, such as a protein bar and bottle
of water.
"You are now enticing them into
a second purchase," said Danna. It
also creates more constant foot traffic
throughout the day, eliminating times
when there are no sales.
"With our system, you can pull
reports for specific times during the
day," he said. "Once you've identified
those 'lack of sales' periods in a day,
you can run coupons at those specific
times. Once advertised correctly, it
will bring a more consistent footfall
within that location and you will see
sales that previously would not have
happened in those periods."
Being able to set the timeframe
of coupons is especially helpful for
operators. Three Square Market
allows operators to customize the
times of day or days of week/month
that the coupon will work. It can
even be pre-scheduled, allowing the
marketing team to plan next month's
promotion while the current promotion is happening.

Advertise the promotion
Letting consumers know about the
promotions and loyalty programs
through advertisements is critical to
success. Technology is making this
easier and ensuring operators can
reach customers when they are in a
position to buy from the micro market.
Avanti's mobile app, for example,
allows operators to use push notifications, where discounts and sales
are sent via the consumer's smartphone at a designated time and place.
"This is great for your high-volume
accounts or where you want to push
fresh food during certain times of the
day," said Reilly.
Marketing at the point of sale is
also quite effective. The VE Kiosk 2.0
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Automatic Merchandiser

iStock

Push notifications for contests, coupons
and other offers can be scheduled and sent
directly to the consumer's smartphone.

offers the ability to display both video
and still advertisements on the VE
Kiosk, explains Jim Coia, vice president marketing and key accounts for
Vendors Exchange.
"These [advertisement] tools can
be used to drive promotional sales and
communication along with advertising revenue," Coia said. "The loading
of this content is all handled via our
online kiosk management portal. The
ads can be programmed with start
and end dates aligned to correspond
with promotions."
With Three Square Market, the
operator has the ability to set up campaign advertisements, which can be a
set of single ads or multiples.
"We advise our operators to schedule these advertisements to work in
tandem with the coupons that they
are setting up," said Danna. "If a coupon is only valid for the hours of 9 to
11 a.m. and 2 to 4 p.m., the advertisements can be set up to mirror those
times as well."
It's a solid plan that has worked
for operators focused on growing
markets.

VendingMarketWatch.com

June/July 2019

"We worked directly with one of
our operators who has 55 markets,"
explained Danna. The operator was
not previously using advertisements
or coupons. Once implemented,
these promotions produced a 21
percent increase in sales in the first
month. The number leveled off to a
16 percent average over the next five
months. It also kept the micro market
in the mind of the end user.
"[Our operator said] customers
stated that they were now more
aware of the places to look for the
deals and promotions," said Danna.
"They also started to understand
that there was a rotation of every
two weeks switching up the promotions. Customers were looking for the
different products being discounted."

Easy customization
The backend system needs to be easy to
use and helpful in preparing and executing promotions to really be valuable
to the operator. Linde Hutson, head
of marketing and communications for
365 Retail Markets, says 365's ADM
backend management software guides
operators through the creation of promotions, from "tender" to "bundling."
Operators can filter for location type,
device, discount amount consumers
will receive, timing and duration. All
of this can be done remotely, so the
operator does not have to visit each
individual micro market.
"We give operators the ability
to customize nearly every aspect of
the promotion to meet their specific
needs," said Hutson. "Operators can
determine when the promotion will
be active, where it will apply, the discount consumers will receive and the
products or payment methods that
will be associated."
One of the most successful types
of promotion for 365's micro market operators is the "giveaway," in
which end users who participate are
entered into a contest to win a very
large prize, such as a car.
http://www.VendingMarketWatch.com
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