Using decals as a sales tool

Using decals to build brand awareness is great way to stretch your marketing dollars. The decal once affixed to a conspicuous medium will remind the consumers at large of your brand. In many articles, I have detailed numerous case histories of the effectiveness of decals to build brand awareness years after broadcast, and print media presentations are forgotten.

Decals also employed to drive sales of accessories of a main product line, or product lines that dove tail with your products. We will deal with these two issues one at a time.

First, the idea of using a decal that the retailer distributed to your customer at the time of sale as an additional sales tool to sell other items you sell. Many manufactures have additional products for sales that complement the prime product that sold as an accessory.

To describe how this idea of selling other products with a decal let us consider a not so fictional situation. The fictional part of this example is the company name we will call Heavenly Skis. Heavenly Skis Company manufactures skis and snowboards and sells these products in retail ski outlets nationwide. This winter sports equipment manufacture also sells as accessories clothing, gloves, goggles and crazy designed headwear.

The scenario of a retail sale at a retail outlet of a customer purchasing skis manufactured by Heavenly Skis Company, after the customer pays for the skis, the retailer hands his customer an imprinted decal with the manufacturer’s logo. The customer leaves and immediately affixes the decal to the rear window of the car proud to announce to the world of his/her intelligent purchase. The decal now used by the customer to recommend the purchasing of Heavenly Skis and building brand awareness.

The marketing team at Heavenly Skis is not willing to be as pedestrian as other marketing teams, but work outside the advertising box. This team knows that decals do build brand awareness, but this marketing team knows that this decal can be a vehicle to sell more of their products.

The marketing team works out a viable coupon plan with their retailers using the decal. The plan works like this. Each decal has on the liner a coupon printed on the liner of the decal offering a discount for other items purchased at this retail store. The coupon allows the customer to purchase one of those radical looking ski or snowboarding hats at a discount. The existence of the coupon communicated by the retailer or by signs or banners in the store. The marketing team knows that if 30% of consumers purchase because of the coupon included on the liner of the decal, Heavenly Skis has just increased sales by 30%. Everyone is happy the customer because of the savings, the retail because of the sale of more merchandise, and Heavenly Skis, because of an accessory product sale is always at a higher margin.

The second possibility of using decals to sell products that dove tail with your product. Our same company Heavenly Skis manufactures winter sports equipment, and wants to use decals as building brand awareness, but has a small advertising budget and cannot afford additional cost. Heavenly Skis has a good relationship with Warm and Comfy that manufacturer a winter product known as Warm and Comfy hand warmer and foot warmers. These products placed in the gloves or boots of the skier or snowboarder to keep their hands and feet warm. The Warm and Comfy marketing team advertising budget is robust, so when the marketing team of Heavenly Skis introduces a marketing idea to benefit both companies.

The plan it to print decals with the Heavenly Skis logo imprinted on the decal and on the liner of the decal a coupon is printed to purchase Warm and Comfy products at a discount. The marketing plan works like this Warm and Comfy pays for most of the printing cost for the decal; Heavenly Skis pays for a smaller share of the cost. The Marketing team at Warm and Comfy envisions that this coupon plan can increase their sales by 30% and jumps at the chance to tag along on a main line product. The reason the marketing team of Warm and Comfy is willing to collaborate with Heavenly Skis is that their product is an impulse purchase, and buying skis is not. This coupon will remind the customer they also need Warm and Comfy product, making an impulse product into a must have product.

Does anyone see the value of thinking outside of the marketing box? The problem with most marketing teams is they know too, much. If the marketing team knows, too much they never consider radical new ways to market and advertise their products, or services.

I just have outlined two ways to employ an advertising tool in not so new, but be it very radical way. Is anyone listening? We must envision new ways to make that what we think is impossible, possible.

Doug Bryant

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