No-Cost Incentive Program Helps Retailers Reach New Customers With “Prewards”

Written by Debbie Hauss
With zero up-front costs to advertisers, the edo Interactive Marketing Platform allows businesses to target specific consumer groups with incentives called “Prewards” that are loaded on to a facecard prepaid MasterCard. The advertisers pay only when the incentive is redeemed, so the return on investment is a built-in guarantee.

“Implementing the edo Marketing Platform was a no-brainer because there is no up-front cost,” says Jeff Wogoman, director of marketing for Cloudveil, the Jackson, Wyoming based outdoor apparel retailer and wholesaler. “That is the ultimate ROI to me.”

Cloudveil initially tested the program with a selected group of 5,000 consumers, who received a varied incentive of $5, $10 or $15. Wogoman decided that the test would be successful if 40% accepted the incentive and 10% responded. “We are well above the 10% goal at the four-week point,” he notes. Edo reports that many initial advertisers have seen double-digit redemption rates.

“I think this is a good concept because it allows us to reach an audience that we don’t typically get in front of,” says Wogoman. Cloudveil chose to market the program to college students, so Wogoman selected specific universities in targeted demographic areas. “We used internal information to determine that we have pretty good penetration in those areas and our brand is well known,” Wogoman notes. “In the future we may want to target areas such as the Southeast that we want to break in to, where sales may be weak.”

The program for Cloudveil was implemented quickly once the retailers gave it the green light, says Wogoman. “We selected the target areas, provided creative assets, decided on the chosen incentives, and then it was literally done in a week to 10 days.”

Five levels of marketing service
edo Interactive facilitates and services the marketing program via five specific steps:

1. Identify target consumers. edo identifies the target audience, in conjunction with the marketing partner.
2. Promote the incentive. edo promotes the incentive via email, test message or RSS feed to the target group. Consumers then have the option to “accept” or “decline” the incentive.
3. Deposit the incentive. edo deposits the “accepted” incentive onto the reloadable pre-paid MasterCard.
4. Process the incentive. After consumers redeem the incentive, edo processes the transaction behind-the-scenes by identifying the incentive, redeeming the incentive from the card member account, and deducting any remaining purchase balance.
5. Track the metrics. edo offers advertisers real-time information on metrics such as the number of redemptions, redemption locations and average sale size by relevant demographics.

The edo Marketing Platform was initiated as a beta test in June 2008 and will be launched formally in January 2009. During the beta phase, all interested advertisers were welcome to participate in the basic program that offered percentage-off savings. Beginning in January 2009, the platform will expand to offer Prewards in the form of dollar amounts, percentage-off savings and savings based on the amount of purchase. In addition, edo will offer “edoCash” that will allow advertisers to reward customer loyalty with financial or merchandise incentives.

Wogoman is looking forward to offering varied incentives, such as $30 off a $200 purchase, for example. “We also have talked about doing a promotion that we could run on our Cloudveil Facebook fan page that would give a $30 incentive to members who sign up 5 new members.”

Initially the Prewards are being offered to existing MasterCard card holders, but beginning in 2009, the platform will operate using additional types of cards.