Getting buyers to buy more often

Getting your buyers to buy more often by helping them know they need to is something every business should be doing.  Relying on your customers to design their own re-purchase cycle is leaving yourself open to forgetfulness, delay or worst still, substitution.


Here are three things you should consider implementing.


1. Build in cues of product redundancy
If you have a perishable product, most of your work will be taken care of by nature and health standards.  "Use By" and "Best Before" dates are examples of cues that are designed to protect the health of the consumer.


But what if your product's life cycle is not so obvious?


Take your pillow for example.  Every night you rest your head on a pillow you purchased maybe years ago, never thinking that it too has a useful life.  Not a great re-purchase model for pillow manufacturers.  Enter Tontine and their ingenious date-stamped pillow that reminds the customer that the pillow should be changed every two years, and serves as a cue every time the pillow case is removed.  Suddenly after the pillow's "expiry" you are not sleeping so well, worried about what pillow gremlins have been unleashed in the depths of the night.  For Tontine, whether people buy a new pillow immediately or just sooner than never, they have created a sense of product redundancy and improved their chances of repeat purchase.


So the question for you is whether your product has a life cycle, real or perceived, that you can highlight to your customers?


2. Activate re-purchase by providing a cue
Smart manufacturers give their consumers advanced warning of the need to take action. Examples include;

• Tissues that change grade and colour as you near the bottom. You know when your white tissue turns pink and scratchy that the good times are over.
• Rolls of cling wrap that include a reminder sticker to buy more when you near the end of the reel
• Car dashboards that signal when your service is due

And here is an interesting idea for food.  A recent study into self-control saw chips coloured red with food dye inserted at intervals in the Pringles-like packet. Whilst the objective of the study was to interrupt over-eating patterns, it shows that there are ways to include cues without interfering with the quality of the food.  


The lesson here is that you can help your customer avoid running out of your product by providing them explicit cues.

3. Make the cue transportable

It's great that you have created a need to re-purchase through redundancy and triggered the need to re-purchase, but there's still a long way to go between home and the cash register.  You need to help your buyer be reminded to buy your product in the context of purchase.

For example, ever had the experience of being out and enjoying a bottle of wine so much that you sometime later look for it in the bottle shop?  If only you can remember what it was called! Clever wine makers have closed this gap by providing a transportable cue in the form of a perforated, take-away tag on the wine label so that the customer can rip it off and keep it handy for their bottle shop hunt.


QR codes can likewise be used to close the gap between product use and repurchase...if only anyone used them.   But code scanning technology aside, mobile phones are definitely the key linkage between home and the retailer because they are with your customer in most contexts and used as a source of information and reminder.


The question you should be asking yourself here is how are you physically helping to remind your buyer to buy your product?


Repeat purchase is something that businesses hope for but often don't invest enough time and thought into.  Challenge yourself to look at how you can cue the need for re-purchase and you might be pleasantly surprised at the influence you can have over your buyer's cycle.


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Images

Best before image: http://www.ers-online.co.uk/files/products/options/images/3879_26x12%20best%20before.jpg
Tontine pillow: http://cdn.mumbrella.com.au/2010/10/tontine-pillow-350x185.jpg
Wine label: http://themarketingguy.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/wine-label-1.jpg

How Melbourne Airport could get a flying start

Melbourne, like most major cities, spends a fortune trying to attract international visitors to its myriad attractions.  Disappointing then, to experience the inadequate and dehumanising process of arrival through the International terminal of Melbourne Airport. Yes, I am recently returned from a wonderful jaunt to New Zealand and feel that my airport experience can serve as a salient tale for marketers - it's no good getting people to your door if the customer experience is rotten.  Sound familiar?  Marketing dollars spent to get your audience to take action but the product/customer service/website... let's them and you down. 

So where did Melbourne go wrong?  Certainly the building is long overdue for a refurb, but more importantly the absence of helpful, multi-sensory cues turned what should have been a straight-forward exercise (leaving plane, forming queue, screen passport, collect bag, screen declaration) into a navigational nightmare.  So here are some thoughts about how Melbourne Airport could get a flying start on creating a wonderful tourist experience.

1. Treat passengers as customers, not problems
Every effort in the Customs and Immigration process seems to be around obscuring which city you are in and how long it is taking.  This not only points to an implicit acknowledgment that the process is undermining the city's marketing effort (ie we are not proud of our Airport process and don't want to remind people they are in Melbourne as they are enduring the exercise) but signals a clear disrespect for these paying customers.  Your time isn't as important as our systems.  How about a "time taken" clock so that I can  make a choice about spending more time in Duty Free whilst the queue frees up?  Why not have entertainers or tourist info officers parading the queues to keep people pleasantly distracted?  Disneyland, the mecca of queues (with the added challenge of small children), uses this time to delight their customers, keeping them happy and ensuring the whole experience is magical.  If Melbourne is serious about being a tourist destination, surely this is a big opportunity to exceed expectations?

In your business, do you appreciate the effort that it has taken your customer to get to you, and made every part of the exercise a positive?  And if you are not proud to present your Brand at every step it's a clear sign that your customer experience is not up to scratch.

2. Manipulate the mood
It beggars belief that the Customs process seems to want to put people in a defensive and bad mood.  Surely relaxing people will mean they are more open to scrutiny and willing to tow the line?  Just because Customs is a serious thing doesn't mean it should be a bleak experience.  Air NZ and Virgin have proven this with their in-flight safety briefings that convey serious material in an engaging, positive and memorable way. 

When your customers call you, walk in your door, are visiting your website, what's their mood likely to be and how can you ensure you are doing all you can to make their mood a positive one?  If they are tired, how can you alleviate decisions or the need to concentrate?  If they are panicked, how can you calm and assure them? If they are angry, how can you pacify and move them to resolution? 

3. Appeal to as many senses as possible
There is no universal language - but we all possess a range of senses that Airports and businesses like yours can play to.

Sound - power of music is well known.  Why not pipe calming music through the Airport building, changing the type and tone of the music as passengers pass through different stages?  Build the excitement as people exit the formal areas and move towards their "release" to the great city and great experiences they are hoping to have. Evoke an essence of the city so they find themselves humming a happy tune as they jump in their taxi, meet their loved ones, hop the bus.

Smell - mine was just about the shortest international trip we Aussies can take, but many who are visiting have travelled 8, 10, 14, 22 hours just to be here.  Do they smell and feel scungy? You betcha.  How about some pleasant smells wafting through the building, calming the mind and helping people feel energised and humanised?

Sight - scary signs are the preserve of Customs authorities.  But why not some positive language and imagery rather than the terrifying?  For example, tell me about what success the screening process has had in preventing drug importation so that I can feel better about participating. "Through drug screening last year we saved 189,000 lives, so we need your help..." would be pretty powerful.

Touch - people who are travelling are usually laden with bags and clothing, but have to complete paperwork, pull out important documents, store them, pull them out again.  How about supplying passengers with a disposable neck pouch into which they can carry their passport and paperwork as they travel through the processing sections? 

For your business, try experiencing your customer process without the usual emphasis on language.  How about getting someone from overseas to try using your website?  If they can intuit their way around, you're probably on a good thing. 

I would love to hear from people's experiences of other International Airports - who is getting it right and who can do better - so please drop a comment.