Operation MoneySuck Hits Full Steam

The fact that holiday shopping is so key to annual retail profits creates some fascinating dynamics...

And, more importantly, some powerful marketing lessons for those astute enough to think about what they're seeing rather than just joining in the lemming parade to the cash register.

One of my favorite strategies is what I term Operation MoneySuck (OM for short).

This tactic describes the way retailers compete to get you to spend your budgeted holiday amount at their store rather than at their competitor's.

OM takes many forms, including:
- Door crasher events - with special prices only available between 5 and 11 am (Some stores even take this further, having some between 5 and 7, others 5 to 9, others 5 to 11, and you know when the really hot stuff is featured...)

The principle here is not only to get you to shop in their store first, but to get you locked into their store as you realize that the line's so long that there's no way you're getting to other store's specials before they expire, so you fill your cart with other items while there - sucking the money out of your checkbook...

- Pre-Black Friday specials - Black Friday is the Friday after Thanksgiving, when the holiday shopping puts most retailers into the black (profitability) for the first time that year (a truly amazing concept - how can anyone operate at a loss 11 months of the year hoping to have a good enough holiday season to make it up?)

That's why you see great prices in the weeks before Thanksgiving, to draw your money in before the hotly contested weekend.

- Clean, open stores. Last year the fashion was to build shelves high and to cram the aisles with special displays so that you were forced to focus on the hot offers in that section of the store. This year, it appears that many retailers are doing the opposite, cleaning out the aisles, and shortening the height of the shelves especially in the entrance, giving you an expansive view of the entire store. It looks nice, and makes one want to buy!

Each of these has an application to your business, especially if you're not in retail. What is it? How can you use it to your advantage next year?

This year Wal*Mart introduced a new wrinkle to the OM tactics.

They used PR to pre-announce the specials they would be running on Black Friday almost a month in advance. They tied the story to negative consumer sentiments because of the price of gas and the effects of the hurricanes. Their message was - people are feeling so bad about the economy that we're going to offer them unheard-of prices...

And those specials sounded pretty good.
- A laptop computer below $300 (I'm not seeing evidence of that product in their ad so something must have changed.)
- An LCD TV under $200
- A digital camera under $100
- DVDs: 40+ titles under $3.50
- Nintendo Game Boy under $50
- Bundles of toys under $10, including Star Wars light sabers, Cabbage Patch Kids Newborn Doll, and Care Bears with DVD

They got coverage on most of the network news channels and many local channels.

And essentially locked many consumers out from buying these products in the weeks before Thanksgiving.

Now that's good strategic PR - they had a newsworthy story (great prices that hadn't been heard of before), tied it to a current event in the news, and localized it (Wal*Mart stores in many communities).

And, they kept consumers out of the marketplace for those and many other products until they saw what Wal*Mart was really offering.

Plus they're doing things well on their website too. Visit there now to see what I mean

If the site hasn't changed, you'll see some online specials, and below that the ability to see their Thanksgiving ad for your particular locale. Click on that, it's interesting.

This is another tactic in their strategy - giving you their ad information in advance to help to lock you out of their competitive stores (some of these offers are pretty good, I'm checking them out myself!)

How can you use this technique yourself?

A few ideas come to mind:
- Preannouncing the features of your new product weeks before launch, both generating enthusiasm for it and locking out competitive sales

- Announcing your trade show specials before the show

- Offering review samples of your upcoming new product to key media people and influencers weeks before launch to get the word out about your cool new features

- Offering 13th X free plans to cause people to buy from you rather than the competition

- Locking people into a membership plan, where they are promised benefits in the future if they will contractually commit now (CD of the month club or long term exclusivity agreements)

Want more ideas on how you can duplicate what Wal*Mart did and get publicity on the news shows? Check out How To Get On Your Local TV News Tomorrow