Secure Delivery
Distributing samples door to door is the fastest way for a brand to engage a consumer.
“It can immediately produce spikes in your sales volume,” says Ruth Ann Carroll, president of Alternate Marketing Networks Inc. (AMN), Norwalk, CT, which handles sampling programs. But that’s only if the samples arrive on time and intact.
AMN is trying to ensure that they do with its End-to-End online tracking service, which allows AMN’s clients to log on to a Web site using private personal identification numbers and determine the location, quantity and condition of samples in multiple markets at any time of day or night.
Clients may shadow products for timely delivery and guard against waste, theft and even inclement weather. AMN employees update and check accuracy of information throughout the day. The service is free and, Carroll claims, no other company offers it.
End-to-End was a crucial factor in Procter & Gamble’s choosing AMN to oversee its 48-million-sample campaign introducing an Oil of Olay makeup foundation and lipstick. Calling the service “revolutionary,” Oil of Olay brand manager Dave Hughes says, “We were able to watch the movement of samples from the warehouse to distributors and see the exact day they were delivered to customers’ homes.”
Better still, notes Hughes, AMN put consumers’ comments and queries on the Web site and, if there was a problem to address, resolved it and posted the solution within 24 hours.
This sort of customer service is key when a campaign depends on sophisticated targeting that can deliver a sample to one home in a block and skip the next as not quite demographically suitable. But with no way to track products except for telephoning intended recipients a week after delivery, the process was “a leap of faith,” says Hughes.
Maintaining an Edge.
That AMN can eliminate that element of faith gives the company a significant edge in this fiercely competitive market. AMN has the largest market share in the door-to-door business, but since a typical sampling program is a multimillion- dollar endeavor, holding onto that No. 1 position is no sure thing if something goes awry.
So far though, End-to-End has proved persuasive. In addition to winning over Procter & Gamble, the tracking system was a major influence in Battle Creek, MI-based Kellogg Co.’s signing a sampling contract with AMN in June. “It’s obvious that it’s working for us to a competitive advantage,” Carroll comments happily.
Although Carroll doesn’t want to paint a picture of potential disaster at every truck stop, there are multiple points at which products can be “diverted,” she says, putting it lightly. Samples travel from the client’s warehouse to the co-packing plant, are loaded on trucks and shipped to distributors, then packed in polybags and finally delivered to the appropriate consumers’ doors. More than 100 sub-contractors work for AMN nationwide, and they in turn hire hundreds of distributors.
Diversion can mean a truck driver deciding to stop en route to sell a few cartons of samples for his own benefit – which close tracking helps discourage – but there are other hazards.
Weather, for one. “Rain is a big factor,” says Carroll. “You don’t want soggy samples. The brand manager can go online, check the weather and then tell us, `Hey, it’s a rainy day, let’s wait a couple of days to do the distribution.'”
One client used the Web site to postpone delivery until a heat wave cooled. “The product melted when the temperature went over 90 degrees,” Carroll recalls.
Clients say control over a campaign is the most attractive feature of the online service. One client about to distribute in the Atlanta market visited the Web site and saw that the products were ready to go, but not yet delivered. “They decided at the 11th hour that they really wanted to do a different market instead. And since they were immediately able to see the product hadn’t dropped yet, they could change their mind,” Carroll says.
