Circle K boosts WeChat followers through freebies

Circle K kick-started its WeChat channel by offering new followers free merchandise from its Mushroom Garden loyalty marketing campaign."We recently set up Circle K’s official WeChat channel using selected Mushroom Garden premiums as incentives for following our WeChat channel," Fred Yeung, marketing services controller at Circle K Convenience Stores in Hong Kong, said.When a user decides to follow the convenience store's WeChat channel, they will receive the following message to redeem Mushroom Garden memo pads:The second wave of incentives for new WeChat followers will be launched next week.For the core loyalty marketing campaign, Circle K teamed up with the creators of Japanese cartoon Mushroom Garden to offer a set of Mushroom Garden pen and smartphone anti-dust plugs for redemption for every 12 stickers collected by the customer.A sticker is given to the customer for every HK$20 purchase.Other merchandise available for purchase are pencil cases, figurine accessories, pocket tissue packs with collectible cards, plastic folders, memo pads, notebooks and bottled drinks.To promote the offer, which targets office ladies and students, the convenience store has placed ads in Kowloon Tong and Causeway Bay MTR tunnels, online and mobile ad networks, magazines, newspapers and posting Mushroom Garden content on its Facebook page.[gallery link="file" ids="61193,61192,61195"]"Convenience store shopping is mainly driven by the convenience of locations, which puts Circle K at a competitive disadvantage due to the number of stores we have," said Fred Yeung, marketing services controller at Circle K Convenience Stores in Hong Kong."That's why promotions is one way in which we hope to differentiate ourselves, where we developed a strategy for selecting the right licensed property to maximize the effectiveness of our marketing expenditure."Yeung believes collectibles are still an effective way of doing loyalty marketing but that could be change in the future."Market research tells us that collectibles work despite the fact that a typical CRM or loyalty marketing program is driven more by customer personalisation," he said.  "But because consumer preferences change constantly, it could be the case that collectibles may not be an effective tactic further down the line."