The goal was to boost sales by promoting our store in Wilmington via a direct mail campaign focusing on emphasizing the “Community” in “Your Community Market” without ignoring item and price. Our effort was to put a human face with our stores, and that face would be that of an actual employee, not a model/actor.

 

A four part direct mail series was first put together for the Wilmington Market. Each mailer would hit homes two weeks apart and coupons on the mailer were good for two weeks. The concept of the mailer was that in competing with the big box stores, it’s a gamble from week to week on pricing. What we can compete with them on is the quality customer service customers can get from our experienced staff. The mailers are an educational piece where actual staff from the store, not actors or models, tell about their store and what they do. Photos were also intentionally in a less than perfect state so that customers viewing the piece would recognize the piece as a local employee rather than a stock or studio photo.

 

The text for the mailers was based on actual interviews with the staff pictured on the mailer edited by the advertising department for clarity and space constraints but intentionally kept in a very conversational tone. As an incentive to customers to read the mailers, eight extremely hot coupon items were included on the reverse. Coupon items were also identified by in store signage to help mesh with our “simple shopping” philosophy. Based on the success in Wilmington another mailing was created for the Findlay market where we have two stores, in the exact same style. 

 

The result was a 5% increase in sales over previous year.