Promotion Template for Freckles

A good sales company always maintains a regular relationship with the customers. This includes personal call, visits, trainings about the different product types, etc. The purpose of this strong relationship is to understand customers' needs and at the same time try to help the customer sell well what he bought from you.

Freckles always tries to be a reliable and understanding partner. Its constant task is to find ways to improve customers' business. A common way to stimulate customers is through promotions. As any other company, Freckles was sending numerous promotions to its dealers. However, it was a big pain to make a visual of each promotion separately. They were all different colors and shapes and dealers were getting confused finding what the promotional conditions are. When I came to the company, we decided to make them more regular (they were sent out in the first week of each month) as well as more structured (all having the same template, just a different content).

So here are some promotions, which were sent to dealers. The template was my design. It has the following characteristics:

1. On them dealers can see all the product categories that Freckles has. There is a single product of each and the category name below it.
2. There is a little red arrow and red rectangle, which point at the category, which is in promotion.
3. Under it there is a title 'PROMOTION' and a subtitle, which tells what the promotion is about in very few words.
4. Then there is the big orange space, which is filled in with the promotional text and pictures. It can contain one or many products.
5. Under the orange space there are some small notes, which refer to the current promotion. Like: 'Prices do not include VAT', or 'One spindle of CDs contains 25 pieces'.
6. At the very end there is a footer with Freckles' details. On the right there is a sketch of a printer, which I find particularly stylish. It represents the area Freckles is professional at and how the business started. My first idea for motto was '... and your printer makes you smile again!', which was very well accepted by the company and was put every time with the logo and all the details.
7. The template has always the same width (estimated to fit exactly on the web site) and the length can be extended as needed.
   

This promotion is about reduction in price when you take a small carton of 12 pieces of 2 selected office cleaning products. The client is clearly explained how much he saves, which is one of the main tasks of the promotion. It was made as an Easter promotion and that explains the coloured eggs on the bottom :)



This was a special kind of continuous promotion - reduction in price for one particular ribbon for dot-matrix printers.



In the beginning the middle part of the promotions was allowed to change color. However, in order to achieve a good stable design, I decided to update the template to this:

1. The orange triangle is in the middle, but looks better (because of the shadow it drops) and always keeps the same color.
2. The promotion title is more subtle and yet nice.
3. Date is inserted right next to the title.

This is a turnover promotion. If the dealer reaches a certain level, he gets a present. All the products are included in this promotion.



This is my Freckles Promotion Evolution until now :)

Why buy compatible?

This article was written by a colleague of mine for the website of Freckles. My job was to translate it in English. I put it here because it makes good sense to me. Don't forget to think twice while shopping :)

So… you are already a proud owner of a new printer.

Nowadays the prices of the printing devices are so low compared to the one of computers that often we easily decide to buy both. But after we pay money for some printer consumables, this decision acquires a bitter taste.

When you a buy a printer you are obediently forced to buy the consumable for it. Thus, without noticing, you have taken two decisions at the same time.

Do you know that the value of the original consumable will be around 70% of all future expenses connected to your printing! The paper will be around 20%. This means that the price of the printer in the shop makes up one tenth of your future expenses. Put one more zero behind the price and then you will know how much you are going to spend in reality.

The price of the consumable defines your printing expenses.

“But this is normal” some of you will say. And indeed, this ratio is the same regardless of which printer model you buy. The problem is that the price of the printer was made as low as possible because of the competition on the market for printing devices, while the price of the consumable was made painfully high because that’s where the market is to a big extent monopolistic. When you choose a printer of a certain brand, its manufacturer puts an obligation on you to buy his consumables as well. This is the definition of a monopolistic market and it is quite natural for the prices to be high.

But markets always find solutions. This artificially maintained disbalance has caused the emergence of an alternative for the consumer – the compatible consumables. They are manufactured by companies which are specialists in the field. These companies are thriving in a very competitive environment and thus it is natural for the prices of their products to be lower. These are the actual market prices and not the artificially pumped monopolistic prices.

Doesn’t low price mean low quality, which will produce bad printout and could also damage the printer? Of course, one of the ways to achieve low prices is to use bad (cheap) raw materials or to invest less in technology. But we have already explained that low price is a result of high competition and should not always be translated into bad quality. Then how can a customer choose the right compatible consumable? The same way as with all other products: check all the available information, become interested about the reputation of the product, ask for advice from you tradesman. One thing is clear, the good compatible consumable will give you good quality, which you will like and which will save a huge part of your printing expenses. It is nice indeed to have a choice between good alternatives. Have a nice shopping!

www.freckles.bg

Green Initiative of Freckles

Yet another poster, belonging to my portfolio.

As it turns out, the 'green topic' is rather boring to some people. It is often considered to be a dirty marketing trick in order to win the customers.

However, in Freckles we are sure that we are doing something very green every day - we collect empty cartridges, which are otherwise carelessly thrown in the bin, from where they end up bunked in nature. We pay cash to the people that bring them to us. We refill them and we sell them again. The cycle repeats on average 5-7 times for each cartridge, depending on its condition, of course. See how we motivate people to recycle here.

Needless to say, there is also a great money advantage connected to the empties collection. The new remanufactured cartridge has a significantly lower price and practically the same quality as the original, so it sells VERY well. But still, with the empties collection process we keep the environment at least a bit cleaner than it would be without it, right?

That is why this green poster is pasted in our reception room, marking the beginning of our Green Initiative.