How Much Is Too Much? - Adult B2B Marketing Tip

A guy from a local Chipotle knock-off called “Planet Burrito” recently dumped a stack of coupons off at my office. Each paper in the stack actually included 3 separate coupons… two of them were for “Buy One Get One Free” and the other for “Free Entree With Drink Purchase.”*Since their burritos cost about $7 each, the coupons were actually worth quite a bit. In fact, the bearer of the “Free Entree With Drink” coupon could actually walk in there and eat a full meal (with a drink, of course!) for a paltry $1.66 including tax.

So what did we do? Naturally, we ate at Planet Burrito for free or half-price for most of the next month. It wasn’t our fault the guy gave us practically infinity coupons. We actually started to feel a little bit guilty. Especially when we looked around and saw that most of the other customers were getting out of there for less than two bucks.

So…did Planet Burrito ever once ask me for my name, address, or email? Of course not! They did have an offer on the back of the coupons for a free cruise drawing. Unfortunately, the part where you fill in your name was opposite of the coupons that the cashier would tear off (leaving nowhere to write your name if you did want to enter the drawing), and the cashier never did ask us to fill anything out.

Essentially, they gave us $7 every time we came in there and didn’t bother to add us to their database. That’s pure stupidity.

How easy would it have been for the cashier to say, “Hey guys, thanks for coming in and trying us out with these coupons. We really appreciate your business. Would you mind doing me a favor? If you’d just take a minute and fill out this card, two really cool things are going to happen. Number one, we’ll automatically put you in a drawing for a free cruise that we’re holding next month (points to poster of cruise giveaway). Second, we’ll send you additional coupons in the future via email and/or text message. There are pens on every table; if it’s okay, Jill (pointing at Jill) will come by in a minute and get those from you.”

What percentage of customers would take the time to actually fill the dumb thing out? My best guess is about 70% to 80%. Look at the dynamics: We just gave them a lot of free stuff ($7 worth), I’ve promised to give them more valuable stuff, I’ve said it in a friendly, non-threatening way at the POINT OF SALE, and I’ve made it easy to comply with (with the cards, the pens, and the fictitious Jill).

Assume for a minute that over the course of a month, they could get 1,000 people to fill in the card. Then the next month, instead of scratching their head and trying to figure out how to get more new people into the restaurant, they could leverage their database and email and/or text offers to the people who already know them, ostensibly like them, and probably would come back again, if prodded.*It’s too easy.

As it is, they still have no idea who I am even though they gave me $49 worth of free food last month. So sad.

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