Golden Ticket

This week marks the beginning of our Valpak direct mail advertising campaign. These are those blue envelopes stuffed with coupons for things like carpet cleaning and pizza shops. Several people have already brought in our new coupon, which offers 40% off a purchase in the store (as much as you can carry). It's aimed at Valpak regions, as opposed to zip codes, but if you live nearby, you should keep checking your mail. The immediate area will get one each month, along with one region around the store, so keep a lookout.

The intent is simple: Everyone in our neighborhood should know of our existence. By offering such a rich coupon, anyone with even a remote interest in games and toys should at least take a look. One of our assets is having a family friendly store, both in atmosphere and offerings. A lot of non-gamers who buy games for holidays or birthdays are still driving through a tunnel to get their games, only because they don't know of our existence. We want those people to shop locally with us.

From a strategic point of view, Valpak marks my abandoning of other media, especially television, but also the Yellow Pages. It's only temporary though. Shotgun marketing has its place, but eventually we'll need to find something in common with our very diverse customer base. I think this will mean a lot of experimentation in the future.

Draft version of coupon (not valid)
Some changes were made, including swapping some of the product photos (before I start getting emails)
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