As published in The Argus, Tuesday, February 23rd , 2010

2009 was challenging to say the least for a lot of businesses as the grip of recession took its toll. The new year has started with signs of recovery but a lot of the same challenges remain – a recent report stated that in certain areas of the UK one in five shops on the high street are now empty. So despite the green shoots of recovery that exiting the recession brings, there is still a long way to go. The question now is what are the tasks for businesses that have survived the recession and now face a transition period? Are marketing options such as sales promotion through rewards and discounts or loyalty and membership programmes going to lead the way or will there be yet more changes in the way consumers spend money? What next for the marketers?

Integrating campaigns

Integrating the effective low budget marketing options such as sales promotion which were utilised heavily during recession, into wider campaigns is now a strong option for businesses. More and more companies have been using sales promotion techniques including rewards and discounts, in store, online and through third party loyalty and membership programmes or discount clubs. Culturally, consumers have changed the way they shop and in line with this are unlikely to change any time soon. To abandon sales promotion altogether could be a mistake, when driving loyalty has to be the focus for business. At the same time all forms of marketing/advertising have their merits so a well rounded campaign that takes into account the mindset of the target audience would surely be the winning strategy?

Adapting to the environment

The way in which consumers spend money is not the only cultural change in recent years, there are many elements that need to be taken into consideration, including the growth in popularity of social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. The rise of social media means that people of all ages and backgrounds can communicate freely on a worldwide platform; this has strengthened the prominence of word of mouth advertising which can work both ways for businesses. Predominantly this means that excellent customer service and value for money can now hold as much weight as any marketing/advertising campaign. The world is changing around us and keeping in touch with consumers needs can make all the difference, maybe now more than ever.

Generate incremental revenue

As consumers expect more from brands it has also become increasingly important to think outside of your normal consumer offering. Is there something more you can be giving your customers so they develop an affinity with your brand and at the same time help the business to generate incremental revenue? One way to do this is to upsell loyalty and membership programmes or discount clubs to your existing consumers – this not only drives loyalty and retention as you are providing them with exclusive discounts, but it also generates incremental revenue for the business.

The conclusion has to be that whilst the recession is over, the culture remains. Anything companies can do to maintain a consumer sensitive marketing campaign can only help, but it is time to start moving on and influencing the nation to look beyond the credit crunch. Integration to the transition out of recession is the key - a balance of consumer and business focussed marketing agendas.

The Rocket Marketing Group operates a number of loyalty and membership programmes or discount clubs which are used to market brands to a substantial loyal customer base. To be included in the loyalty and membership programmes or discount clubs all a partner has to do is offer an exclusive and compelling discount. Businesses can aquire new customers, generate incremental revenue plus drive retention by upselling these products to their existing customers. The Rocket Marketing Group is a sales promotion agency specialising in developing, implementing and managing loyalty and membership programmes and discount clubs plus incentives to drive acquisition and support retention of customers, members and employees. Contact Us to find out more.

Left: Andy Huggins - Managing Director, Rocket Marketing Group. Right: Alan Saunders - Operations & Marketing Director, Rocket Marketing Group.

The Rocket Marketing Group has worked with sit-up channels since July 2006 when they signed their first agreement to provide discount and benefits membership programmes for sit-up channels’ customers. sit-up channels has successfully gained incremental revenue from the sale of these discount and benefits membership programmes to its consumers. Now three and a half years later sit-up channels are extending their agreement with The Rocket Marketing Group to be the sole provider of discount and benefits membership programmes for a further three years.

sit-up channels’ initial contract with The Rocket Marketing Group was to market The Big Savings Club; now over three years later sit-up channels do a multiple upsell on a variety of Rocket Marketing Group discount and benefits membership programmes, including The Home & Garden Club and The Entertainment Club. The discount and benefits membership programmes give sit-up channels customers the opportunity to make savings every day on a range of products from the high street and online, and produce incremental revenue for sit-up channels.

Andy Huggins, Managing Director of The Rocket Marketing Group comments: Over the years The Rocket Marketing Group has focussed on quality customer service and as such the business has enjoyed tremendous growth. This new three year agreement with sit-up channels further cements our relationship and confirms the mutual high standards of service that both sit-up channels and The Rocket Marketing Group achieve. We now look forward to further years of success, with sit-up channels as one of our key clients.

The Rocket Marketing Group also successfully works with a number of other clients and in addition looks for new businesses to create great partnerships with. Any business interested in discussing a partnership should Contact Us.

The Rocket Marketing Group will now be offering their exclusive Blockbuster 2 for 1 Movie & Game Rental Card on PeopleValue’s Advantage website. PeopleValue delivers employee benefit programmes to a diverse range of organisations.

This new offer gives employees who use PeopleValue, the opportunity to purchase the Blockbuster 2 for 1 Movie & Game Rental Card and enjoy two rentals for the price of one, an unlimited amount of times, for a year. The Blockbuster 2 for 1 Movie & Game Rental Card offers a fantastic opportunity for employees that use PeopleValue to enjoy great entertainment more often.

Andy Huggins, Managing Director of The Rocket Marketing Group commented: “We’re very pleased to be working with PeopleValue, especially as we are both passionate about creating and providing great discounts. The Blockbuster 2 for 1 Movie & Game Rental Card is a unique product that appeals to a wide range of people and can be redeemed on films and games from many genres, at over 600 stores nationwide.”

Contact us if you are interested in working together.

As published in The Argus, Tuesday, January 12, 2010

The Rocket Marketing Group has recruited Perfect Pizza to their loyalty membership programmes, offering a Buy One Get One Free deal.

This Buy One Get One Free at Perfect Pizza offer fits perfectly with Rocket’s Blockbuster 2 for 1 Movie & Game Rental Card. Rocket will promote these complementing offers as the perfect night in, to members of its loyalty and membership programmes. Both the Blockbuster 2 for 1 Movie & Game Rental Card and Buy One Get One Free with Perfect Pizza are available to use anytime, as often as members like, on the full ranges, so will help members to enjoy their ‘Appetite for Entertainment’, whatever their lifestyle.

Please contact us if you are interested in any of these offers.

Terms and conditions apply. See www.theentertainmentclub.co.uk for details.

It has been a great year for The Rocket Marketing Group and its success seems to have rubbed off on the local football team it sponsors. The Brighton and Hove Rockets football team plays in the Pitch Invasion League, Division 2. After a great season they topped the league beating, 5 Guys 1 Cup to the top position. This means that the team will now be promoted to Division 1 where they hope to continue their good run. This great achievement follows success in Europe earlier on in the year when The Brighton and Hove Rockets won silver medals in The Krakow Trophy.

Alan Saunders, The Rocket Marketing Group’s Operations and Business Development Director and member of The Brighton and Hove Rockets commented: “Along the way we have had pulled hamstrings, seized up backs, strapped up knees and swine flu, but somehow when we needed a good result we dug one out.”

Rocket wishes the team the best of luck for next season.

The Rocket Marketing Group creates loyalty and membership programmes which offer discounts on major brands, to its members. The company has enjoyed huge growth over the last 3 years, and has gone from employing 12 members of staff to over 50, across all areas of the business including call centre, fulfillment, technical, marketing and creative.

Rocket has also increased the variety of loyalty and membership programmes it offers, working with new key clients and partners. The company now operates 7 clubs and a number of great rewards such as the exclusive Blockbuster 2 for 1 Movie & Game Rental Card, giving more and more members fantastic discounts on their favourite brands. The range of clubs include The Home & Garden Club, The Entertainment Club, The 241 Hotel Club, The Big Savings Club, The JML VIP Club, plus more on the horizon.

Alan Saunders, Operations and Business Development Director comments: “We have always believed in the importance of quality and this is what Rocket’s products and service have been built on. Our discount clubs offer consumers great value for money, clients a fantastic marketing opportunity and partners incredible incremental revenue. It is great to see that all of our hard work, attention to detail and quality is paying off. I look forward to Rocket’s bright future, having now established itself as a leader in the field of Sales Promotion.”

Rocket looks forward to a great 2010 and growing the business even further.

This timeline charts Rocket’s milestones over the last 3 years:

July 2006 Sign Agreements with sit-up.tv

October 2006 Alan Saunders joins Board as Operations & Business  Development Director

January 2007 Rebrand as Rocket Marketing Group & set growth strategies

February 2007 Become members of the Direct Marketing Association

March 2007 Introduction of AVAYA IP Office Telephone System

April 2007 Introduction of SAP Business One CRM and Business Management

April 2007 Become members of the Institute of Sales Promotion

May 2007 Launched The Entertainment Club

July 2007 Launched The Midweek Dining Club with Tio Pepe

August 2007 Moved Head Office to Enterprise Point to expand & allow further growth

January 2008 Sign Agreements with HSBC for new Merchant Services Facilities

June 2008 Accredited by British Standards Institute as ISO:9001 Quality Assured

August 2008 Sign Agreements with JML, and develop our first white-label product, the JML VIP Savings Club

October 2008 Launched The Home & Garden Club with HBOS

November 2008 Established Rocket Rewards to own and manage our own stand alone promotions

January 2009 Sign Agreements with New Image TV to market the Big Savings Club

February 2009 Sign Agreements with Guthy-Renker to market the Big Savings Club

June 2009 Expand offices and create a Marketing Suite

July 2009 Welcome Ashley Faull to the board

August 2009 Sign Agreements with Blockbuster. Conception of and Exclusive rights for a new product the Blockbuster 2 for 1 Movie & Game Rental Card

August 2009 Started selling The Home & Garden Club with sit-up.tv

August 2009 Sign Agreements with Flying Brands to market The Home & Garden Club

September 2009 Sign Agreements with iSUBSCRiBE, to develop and manage Rocket’s first online club

October 2009 Launched the 241 Hotel Club

November 2009 Sign Agreements with Harvest Media & Virgin Media

November 2009 Create and launch The Living VIP Club

November 2009 Reached over 50 staff

December 2009 Joined Brighton Chamber of Commerce

Contact Us for information on sales promotion and implementing a discount for your brand or reward for your customers. We operate a number of loyalty and membership programmes that offer members discounts, giving the brand access to a large membership base of loyal customers. This helps businesses to drive loyalty retention and revenue.

The Wise Marketer recently reported the rise in coalition marketing as a sales promotion technique. Sales promotion has become more prominent in the last year in a blanket effort to get people  to spend their money less cautiously. It has become important to reward consumers for their loyalty so that they continue to spend money at a time when people are trying to cut back. Encouraging reluctant consumers to spend money continues to be the number one priority for brands at the moment and sales promotion is a proven way to do this. We are at the point where now it is an essential tool to remain competitive, particularly on price.

Sales promotion through consumer incentives and brand coalition is not a new or reactionary concept dreamt up as a recession solution. This has long been the bread and butter of companies such as The Rocket Marketing Group who put companies together in loyalty and membership programmes/ discount clubs and create rewards for staff or consumer incentives. The lure of big brands working together can be a powerful solution for potential rewards and an attractive consumer incentive whatever the state of the economy. All the current climate has done is to highlight the importance of sales promotion to consumers, making it now essential for all brands.

The ideas of brand coalition are the principles that loyalty and rewards programmes or discount clubs and consumer incentive rewards were built on. With loyalty and membership programmes/ discount clubs a member joins a club and then becomes eligible to redeem discounts at various retailers. The joint venture of big and small brands work to validate each other and produce a community of customer centric brands that members become loyal to because they can rely on them to understand their needs/ interests. These loyalty and membership programmes or discount clubs can be categorised to target certain markets such as entertainment, home & garden or white-labelled to match particular brands who want to sell the clubs as non-core products and earn incremental revenue.

The idea of high profile sales promotion has now become an integral part of the consumer shopping experience, so it likely to continue in some guise or other even as the economy improves.

Contact Us to discuss the possibilities of developing consumer incentives and brand coalition solutions through loyalty and membership programmes or discount club for your brand.

The Rocket Marketing Group has produced an exclusive offer for the Natwest bank. Customers of this popular bank can now buy the Blockbuster 2 for 1 Movie & Game Rental Card for only £19.99. With this special price, Natwest customers could save money on Blu-ray, DVD and game rentals, anytime and for an unlimited number of uses for 12 months.

This fantastic offer is being featured in the Natwest Sense Magazine from November 2009 to January 2010. Sense magazine has a circulation of over a million copies and so offers a great opportunity. This is the first time the Blockbuster 2 for 1 Movie & Game Rental Card has been sold directly to consumers, but it has proved to be very popular with members of The Rocket Marketing Group’s loyalty and membership programmes.

Contact Us for more information about the Blockbuster 2 for 1 Movie & Game Rental Card.