Thursday, March 08, 2007

What everybody ought to know about vouchers

One of my colleagues emailed me yesterday with details of a £5 off voucher from Habitat - from the Barbican Art Gallery website - that appears to be intended just for Barbican members. But although the voucher page can't be found by searching on the site, it isn't password protected so the page can (and clearly has been) emailed to all and sundry.

No word yet on when this voucher was posted or whether its 'escape' to the wider world of non-Barbican members has led to increased sales at Habitat.

This reminds me of the Threshers voucher intended for suppliers that was distributed virally to millions of consumers in December last year. But there are significant differences - Habitat's is only for £5, & 40% off booze is much more appealing than £5 off homewares!(NB: The Threshers deal isn't as generous as it appears because they have a long running '3 for 2' offer that is effectively a 33.33% discount.)

But both vouchers have found themselves emailed to people not (officially) intended to get the offers. So the action point is: ensure that if a voucher 'goes viral' you'll make money. Simple, really.

2 comments:

Urban Kudos said...

The voucher was released as an email shot to registered barbican subscribers on the 7th of March.

Whether or not this will have the same viral impact as the Threshers campaign will remain to be seen!

Unknown said...

Trend well spotted, Lysander.
Provided the discount is controlled [eg with qulification as to minimum purchase value] AND it has an expiry date, canny retailers are placing these types of vouchers and other promotions into the blogsphere, shopping communities, web chat area quite deliberately. Encouraging viral dissemination is smart guerilla marketing.