How much is an email address worth to you?
This week I found myself wandering through Brookstone and admiring their crazy gadgets and ended walking out with a gag gift (think giant sized remote). During the checkout process the sales rep/ cashier offered me a $20 gift certificate to which I responded “no thanks” thinking it was a credit card offer or the likes. But when he explained all I had to do was provide an email address (to send it to he said but capturing it for marketing was clearly the goal) I provided one without hesitation.
Creative sample & comments inside.
This week I found myself wandering through Brookstone and admiring their crazy gadgets and ended walking out with a gag gift (think giant sized remote). During the checkout process the sales rep/ cashier offered me a $20 gift certificate to which I responded “no thanks” thinking it was a credit card offer or the likes. But when he explained all I had to do was provide an email address (to send it to he said but capturing it for marketing was clearly the goal) I provided one without hesitation.
It took 2 days for my “gift certificate” to arrive and while it turned out that my certificate was actually just a discount code ($20 off on a $50 order) the point is still clear – they incentivized me to the tune of $20 to join an email list. Now some may say that Brookstone did this to get a repeat purchase and there’s certainly a lot of value in that. But I’d also imagine their marketing team is looking for ways to (a) get better data from a retail environment and (b) have more people to market to and this definitely accomplished both. Brookstone now has a clear picture of my first purchase and the impact of a discount on getting me to make a second purchase and if they’re doing things right will get data down the road using either my name or credit card number. They also get an email address for a verified retail customer.
So Brookstone was willing to give me a $20 discount to signup… what’s an email address worth to you? A $5 gift card? A $10 discount on an order? Nothing? Or much more?
p.s. While don’t need a $50 all-in-one hundred gadget thermometer to tell you the burned chicken you’re grilling is done it’s a lot better gift when it only costs you $30.
