Decisions made by one retailer for effective advertising spending in a recession

Waggin Train, a pet supply store owned by the Morrisons, has advertised primarily in local newspapers and through direct mail. Once the recession started, the Morrisons saw a decrease in the sale of toys and accessories but little change in the sales of pet food. They did see customers stocking up on larger bags of dry food that provided a better value. Subsequently, they started advertising the larger bags in their newspaper ads, alerting customers that they had 50- and 60-pound bags available at a significant savings over small sized bags. With their di rect mail, they began including their website address and encouraging customers to sign up online for an email newsletter. This lowers the cost of their direct mail as customers migrate from paper mail to the Internet to receive information about the store.

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“we use newsletters to get information from our customers. have a poll or a survey. it can be short, and even fun: where are you going on vacation? what tv show are you enjoying this summer? then post results in a future newsletter. people love taking polls.of course, always best to use a poll topic that is of interest to your audience.our customers are into new bands, especially hip-hop. we like to poll about "who's hot" in order to let them chime in about their favorites, and it also let's us get a sense of trends.”anson l , natchez, miss clothing store

"word of mouth spread offline is more positive and more likely to be interpreted as credible than wom spread online, according to a recent research study from womma member company the keller fay group. fifty-nine percent of those surveyed indicted they found wom transmitted face-to-face and on the phone was "highly" credible, versus 49% for online wom. the study also found that 66% of face-to-face wom communication was "mostly positive" versus 57% of the impressions on blogs and chat rooms. offline wom was also found to be 7% more likely to lead to purchase intent, according to the research." marsha t., advertising agency, baton rouge. la.

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